Just wanted to confirm that annual renewal fee has increased from $19 in the past few years to $30? I may have missed a public announcement about this increase.
Yes, it’s $30 now. It was $19 in 2019. I’m guessing due to increased costs or he’s fine tuning the business model to make it profitable/sustainable.
Yes, I’ve increased price in March. Price stayed the same since 2014 and many features were added so I decided to increase it.
Planned to announce it with a blog post about new feature (marking above/below as read) but it turned out to be more complex than I thought (due to comments) plus there were some support related tasks so I postponed a release.
Reader is profitable since 2014. Server costs are roughly the same, but other costs were increased (I have two daughters now, need to rent office so I can focus, need to rent bigger apartment) so I came to a point where BazQux earns me enough for living but not for growth. I think that service is really cool now (many features are still missing, but the look and mobile interface are wonderful) and most competitors are either out of business or started asking money so it’s time to make more serious advertising and I need money for this.
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I spend between one and two hours in BazQux every single day, weekends included. I’m a very, very cheap guy. I’m also very happy to pay $30/year for this service I use so much and don’t want to disappear like so many others.
Thanks for keeping RSS alive for me!
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Can I ask a related question:
Do our subs renew automatically, or do we have to keep an eye on the end date ourselves?
Happy to keep subbing, btw. It’s good to have a sustainable + reliable reader service at last.
No, subscription doesn’t renew automatically. You will receive a mail two weeks before subscription expiration and a message in reader web interface.
After subscription expiration account feeds are still updated for two months. After two months feeds are removed but account is still here (with starred/tagged items and option to restore feeds). So you could always restore your account even if you haven’t paid.
And there’s an option to renew earlier if you go to settings => Account and click “Buy now” in “Payments” section.