A New Change For Luminous-Landscape

[landscapephoto]

No hard feelings, but count me out. I am not interested in the videos (nothing personal, I don't watch videos in general), I rarely found the articles of use in the past two years (I would even say that some of them are little more than hidden advertisements for workshops). I am only using the forums.
I am not really to pay for a bundle of which I will only use the part where content is created by the users.

Time to move on for me. Bye.

[dseelig]

AS I said sportsshooter is not what it once was and that has always been a paid site. A lot of people have left and I think this will happen ehar and willw e be wiped out form our old posts are you going to profit off of things we can no longer see if we do not pony up? Just a thought, will there be more Micahel I look at the front page and lots of Kevin not much Michael and I simply do not enjoy Kevins writing as I enjoyed Michael's I want answers before I pony up if I do that is.

[Tadmor]

A small price to pay for exceptional value and I will happily subscribe; but your readers come from 130 countries worldwide where 12 dollars a year may matter and credit card payments are not always available.  It would be kind and sensible to keep the site free of charge in some developing countries.

[JaapD]

I seem to have a different opinion than most of you. Let me first mention that a subscription of $12 a year is perfectly doable for me. However, I smell Kevin’s and Michael’s GREED here and I must say I hate greed!

As we all know there are many, many forums on the interweb and most of them are free. These forum owners are able to generate sufficient income through advertising and I would prefer Kevin and Michael also generate their income the same way. So let the forum site remain a free site, the rest may be based on a paid service.

What if all forum sites as well as Youtube take the same approach, would we still be happy and pay $12 yearly to each and every forum we visit? Mind you, Kevin and Michael are providing the forum site but that’s about it.

Not  Kevin or Michael but us as contributors (not me of course…) are making it worthwhile visiting this forum site again and again. So who are the ones that generate traffic on the site? We are! Then why should we pay for our participation in making it a great site generating lots of traffic?

I honestly don’t know if I continue with this site, not that it matters to anyone of course so I won’t bother you with this. Of course I don’t expect you’ll agree with me on this.

[Jeff Griffin]

Over here in the UK, at the current US Dollar exchange rate,  that works out about £7.92  which is far less than a pub lunch when out and about with friends at  week-ends.

I  hope that your Company members / article contributors sign up as well in order to continue offering their expert advice / comments etc on the forums  ( thinking of imaging software in particular )

[Jeremy Roussak]

It's not even worth devoting brainpower to thinking about. $12 a year? I'm in.

I find the comments shouting about greed (whether or not in block capitals, jaapd, as if that strengthens a point rather than making you appear a teenager) to be quite nauseating. If we lose "contributors" such as him and ddolde, we lose nothing.

Jeremy

[Paulo Bizarro]

Keep up the good work.

[john beardsworth]

I think the price has been set very cleverly.

However, I do have ethical problems with someone hiding previous forum posts behind a paywall, as I did when Rob Galbraith sold his forum. Whatever its merit (and some has a lot), you got that content for free, and now you want to charge for access to it?

[synn]

A buck a month is no problem for me. I am in.
Although, I am not clear if this only extends to the main site content or for the forums as well.

Even if the forums become paid access only, I don't think it will stop the current troll infestation. Many of them would gladly pay for the privilege of annoying others.

[john_j]

Count on me. I think this is a really great deal and it is an honest move. As Heinlein wrote: TANSTAAFL. "There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch!" This was and will ever be true and I prefer an honest and sensible price model to any form of pretending to be free.

By the way: running a forum costs money irrespective of the already available content and it is fair to share those costs. Furthermore I'm not convinced, that we all have shared content here for free. Maybe we didn't get money for our postings but we were paid with fun, community and the content of others. As I said - TANSTAAFL ;-)

Best regards from Germany,

Heiko

[U_Grsl]

Hello
I am only an occasionnal reader, registered since 2004, with very few contributions to the forum (not worsthwile reading)
I discovered LuLa browsing idly the Internet, because it was free. I would never register for a fee  on a new site without knowing what is its content !
My comment :
With this new policy you will maintain a fraction of your audience, but what about gaining new readers ?
I am interested to read about the answer to that subject, I don't doubt you have a clever one waiting

as my grand'son uses to say : it was better before
Cordially
UG

[Petrus]

It will be very interesting to see which way this will turn out. I have to say I am somewhat skeptical. While there might be a million visits (certainly not visitors?) to the site every month, how many separate persons actually make those visits, and how many of those are members? Owners of this site know it, of course, and are basing their calculations on that. Still there must be great many members who just signed up for free for some reason and never returned, or have lost their password and just do not care to renew it. The usual 80/20 rule must be something like 98/2 here, extremely small percentage of members writing most forum posts, for example, I am among them. I find the 50000 paying members goal unrealistic, sorry to say, as the site is good (even though I am not a video watching type person what comes to finding information), but people behave in strange ways when they are asked to swipe their card.

One thing I am sorry about is the paywall closing some useful information links (I assume) I have used elsewhere, like the explanation of diffraction in the technical articles. Also in the past (now) people could leaf (click?) through the site to see what is it all about, now new subscribers are supposed to buy a pig in a poke, relying only on good image and hearsay. Or how is this part going to be handled? Free samples?

[Diego Pigozzo]

I have a technical/functional question: what will happen when the year subscription expires?
Does it gets renewed automatically?

I'm asking because I always use one-shot credit cards when buying online, so an automatic renewal will surely fails with such a card.

[William Walker]

The Rand/Dollar exchange rate is at its very worst at the moment and, I am not rich man..

But, without the Luminous Landscape I would not be doing what I do now: living in a small village, running my own gallery and printing for some of South Africa's top photographers. (I used to sell tyres!)

Thank you for the passion, the know-how, the encouragement and the friendship!

...now where do I sign up?!!!

Best wishes, I am sure it will go well.

Regards
William

[Jim Pascoe]

My view is that if the site is worth visiting on anything more than a very occasional basis, then the subscription is very reasonable.  People pay that much for a daily newspaper that they may read in 30 minutes and discard.

To Amolitor particularly, who has obviously spent probably thousands of hours on the site, I say - do you really value your time so cheaply?  Surely if one spends an hour a week visiting LuLa then $1 a month is negligible.  Just because other sites are free means little to me.  If I want a decent coffee and it costs £3 I would rather pay that than have a free coffee that is only half as good.  Or indeed - I would still pay for it even if the coffee over the road was exactly the same but served in a smelly premises with miserable staff and came in a paper cup.  Obviously I am not talking about a take-away coffee.

And as for greed - the value I have from Lula over the many years (10-15 - I cannot remember) is easily worth trying the new subscription model.  I think it needs to be seen as a value to oneself and not try to work out how much the owners are going to make.  If it's successful they will make money - if not it will collapse.  Good luck to them

There is good quality free stuff on the internet - but for how much longer.  I subscribe to Sean Reid's site and I visit that about three times a year.  But when I need specific information the price is worth every penny.

My only caveat is as others have expressed - I did/do enjoy Michaels writing and video presence above that of Kevin.  If you are reading this Kevin - please do not take it as personal because I do not know any of you personally.  Michael to me IS Lula and I guess it will take a while to readjust.

Jim

[Paul Wright]

The price is right but I'm afraid most forums will get dull and somehow empty and silent....
Eduardo

Valid point Eduardo, a lot of the LL life-force comes from the Forums which is built with free, contributor generated content, but if they are locked behind that paywall, where are new members going to come from? I've been thinking about this, and looking at my own online habits. I have a bookmarked list of photographic sites I visit, LL is just one of many, all free. The editorial content is going to need a quantum boost. Maybe a content deal with Reid Reviews will be there to surprise us. Someone in this thread observed that new LL content used to as exciting as a new James Bond movie and that is true! But my reality is that I probably haven't read right through any LL editorial for a long time.

The paywall model where viewing is free but participation costs may keep the thing alive. The forums are a touch "clubby" as it is, and the proposed model may entrench that even more deeply with a shrunken pool. I've only just watched the video, and never seen the usually confident and smooth flowing MR & KR look so darn uncomfortable.

$12 a year is nothing to me and represents agreeable value, but this step is very high risk and that shows 3D in MR and KR's body language in the video. The LL content is fine but hardly gold-standard. The crunch will come at renewal time next year. Good luck guys, I sincerely hope your planned moves and upgrades are enough to pull this off.

-pw

[Dohmnuill]

It's been interesting to read the various views.
I guess those who get a lot from the site are immediately ready to pay. That probably includes me. Why probably? Because it puts a greater onus on the publishers to perform. Even if it was $6 per annum, most will now be asking themselves, "Has it been worth it?". "Did they cater to my particular interests?'. Tricky territory.

The notice that the print will receive more attention is promising. I'll hang around for that. I'll not likely hang around for lots of trips/workshop advertising (add on another 10,000 miles of flying to just reach the start line, then return, and money and time intrude).
I tried drawing golden means and spirals on my prints, as per a recent composition article, and guess what, my works are absolute masterpieces! Yes, there was always something somewhere to pin down those lines :-) . Or maybe I don't need hang around for another compositional diatribe.

The videos with Michael and Kevin have been particularly good of late.

2016 will determine if the real sign up time, 2017, is a goer or not.

[sandymc]

The price is right but I'm affraid most forums will get dull and somehow empty and silent.

Yes, this is the problem. I too come here only for the forums. The articles and videos are of no interest to me. But there are people on the forums that are knowledgeable and provocative - they make me "think different". E.g., Andrew, even if I do disagree with most everything he says. (Sorry Andrew.) And some others.

I'll sign up. But I fear that in 12 months time, I'll cancel, because everything that made the LULA forums interesting will have gone.

[stamper]

Possibly trolling behaviour will diminish? Who would want to pay 12 dollars and then get barred and who would want to pay 12 dollars just to spam and get barred? I suspect that some will resist paying and a few weeks from now sign up because the grass isn't any greener elsewhere.


But I fear that in 12 months time, I'll cancel, because everything that made the LULA forums interesting will have gone

This is a possibility.

[JohnBrew]

Not too long ago I had entertained the thought of deleting LL from my favorites list as too many of the interesting discussions have turned into pissing matches and opportunities for the same people to divert the thread into their favorite off-topic shilling. I also subscribed to the video "magazine" but found them mostly boring as I do the current videos made by Michael and Kevin.
Agreed $12 is nothing, but if I must pay for the privilege of perusing a photography site there are other sites I prefer to visit.
I will certainly miss posts by James Russell and Rob Campbell to mention a few, but the times they are a changing...