A Free Version#25

Because the monthly cost is steep (my coffee is cheap).

Free to browse (and maybe comment, but I’m not convinced on that one) would be cool.

Plenty of people enjoy looking at beautiful images but not posting. A free account would be perfect for this. Could allow comments, following, and favoriting perhaps?

Free users can post , but not original quality or some features limited …I think

• free App
• membership as in app purchase
• several membership levels:
  • free: only looking
  • commenter: cheap
  • full access: full price as of now

Why on earth would we want free commenters? That’s the pathway to spam comments, harassment campsigns etc. by having a cost there is significant friction to some of the worst things that happen on social media.

It’s OK if not everyone signs up for this app. It’s not meant to be the next unicorn. The best thing about the app is other people’s photos. If anything it should be cheaper to post photos and more expensive to comment without posting.

I like the paid-only aspect: It reduces spam and poor quality uploads. However, $5/mo. is way too steap for the relatively small user base and daily uploads. $1-2/mo. would be a better price point. I would like to see Glass shift to an emphasis on peer-review, rather than public portfolios, since there are plenty of other sites for that, but few sites like this excellent signal:noise ratio.

Please keep this paid-only, even viewing. Once you shift into a public audience, it shifts from peer-review into gamification for “like counts” and “exposure”. There are plenty of other platforms for that trash. Keep Glass classy.

Free Accounts will drastically increase spam, non-photographs and manipulation of the platform. If you want a account is should be read and appreciated only.

I’m also against making the app free. We’re paying to have a clean app without adds or spam, and that’s fine by me. I do agree that a lower fee would be reasonable though.

with public profiles you don’t need an account to view only.
paying less just to comment/appreciate without uploading? who would do that? if it’s low enough spammers will pay, you’d need a form of verification like Steam does via phone number.

i’m all for including more people if they can’t afford it but i don’t really see how this works

Money shouldn’t be a barrier to sharing photos.

I do however accept the creators need to make money and we want better content with no spam.

I feel these can be achieved through other means than simply putting a paywall. Please look into achieving this goal by looking at existing monetisation models that work and smarter ways that counter spam and encourage quality content.

I could suggest a few ways, as others have done so here, but I recommend looking into this properly as it’s likely the biggest barrier to the platform opening up to more enthusiasts

What about a very cheap tier that is upload limited to a max number of photos per month? That way a lot more people would be willing to jump onto the platform.

I do not agree and I am against this proposal. Paying a subscription means you are commiting to the website which means you are more likely to use the platform to get the most out of what you paid. The last thing we want is yet another platform with a million registered users and only 10k active users per month like Vero. There are plenty of free-tiered services that are riddled with adds, bots and inactive users. I want to be part of a community of dedicated photographers that does not feel like a constant competition to get most engagement. A community that goes back to the roots of what Deviantart, Flickr or ArtLimited was in the beginning: no ads, no likes, no self promotion, no personal brand building and any of that stuff. And let’s be honest, $29.99 per year is less than having lunch in a restaurant, it’s less than the electricity you use to charge your phone/camera and edit your photos in a month. I live in a rather poor second world country and even here $29.99 is less than a dinner for two at a middle class restaurant.