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When free language sites turn to profit

  Tags: Internet
 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages Post Reply
27 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4  Next >>
leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6310 days ago

2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 1 of 27
11 June 2013 at 8:26pm | IP Logged 
I'd like this thread to be about people's thoughts/experiences when a good free site decides to reduce it's free
services to increase it's profits. For example:
LingQ Upgrade

I know it sucks if you're a free user and your services are cut. But I just don't understand the anger level of some of
the free users. Actually, this happened to me with Chinesepod many years ago, when they stopped giving away all
their audio. But it turned out to be a good thing in the long run. It forced me to try out other free sites, and I came
to see Chinesepod wasn't that great in comparison.

Have you seen something like this happen before? Can you give an example/share your experiences?
2 persons have voted this message useful



jondesousa
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
goo.gl/Zgg3nRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6024 days ago

227 posts - 297 votes 
Speaks: English*, Portuguese, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Mandarin, Spanish

 
 Message 2 of 27
11 June 2013 at 9:07pm | IP Logged 
Not to high-jack your thread but can I ask what other free resources you found that you really liked besides Chinesepod.com? I am heavily relying on it as a resource and am always happy to learn from other students who have previously been down the path.
1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5141 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 3 of 27
11 June 2013 at 9:29pm | IP Logged 
If free services are taken away, it sucks, but as a free user, you're in a pretty bad position to be complaining. It's odd how we're willing to pay so much for mundane things like a cup of coffee, but wouldn't pay the equivalent for a monthly service.

I had started working on a series of lessons teaching Japanese pitch and a certain other user on this site wrote to me saying that if I didn't make these lessons available for free, he'd stop talking to me! Come on, now... At some point, you put in time, you are entitled to charge for it. No one has to buy it.
7 persons have voted this message useful



jondesousa
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
goo.gl/Zgg3nRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6024 days ago

227 posts - 297 votes 
Speaks: English*, Portuguese, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Mandarin, Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 27
11 June 2013 at 9:43pm | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
Come on, now... At some point, you put in time, you are entitled to charge for it. No one has to buy it.


Absolutely, Arekkusu! Just like with AJATT, I was an avid follower for several years before Khatzumoto started charging for certain parts of the site. I wasn't angry at all but some people were furious. If he put so much time and effort into his work he can charge for it. It is up to the user to decide whether or not they are willing to pay for access to it. I don't get why people get upset about it since no one is forcing you to buy the service. Either you pay and play or you don't and move on.
1 person has voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4890 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 5 of 27
11 June 2013 at 10:26pm | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
It's odd how we're willing to pay so much for mundane things like a cup of coffee, but wouldn't pay the equivalent for a monthly service.

That's a fair enough point. But consider that ten bucks a month is
120 for the year, for essentially a teach yourself course,and they'd
surely like you to continue paid membership for more than a year. Not
many are willing to pay that much.

A lot of these sites seem to want about ten bucks a month, which just
seems out of touch with the rest of the industry (unless Rosetta Stone
is your ony price reference).

R.
==
9 persons have voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5094 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 6 of 27
11 June 2013 at 11:05pm | IP Logged 
At some point your hobby may take up so much of your time that you have to start charging for it - or you
would have to stop. I see absolutely nothing wrong in that.

If some of our more accomplished polyglots teach, or write books, or put things out on the Internet I see no
reason why we should be upset if they charge for it. No one is forced to buy anything.

The only situation which I find inexcusable, is when some of the less accomplished polyglots start charging
for teaching languages they do not really know themselves. The pupil is often unaware of the low quality of
the product, which makes the situation uncomfortably close to fraud.

My language skills have put food on my table and a roof over my head for my entire life, as a guide, a teacher
or working within international affairs. Polyglots or websites making money of their skills or their content really
are not that different, it is just that we are used to getting everything for free online.

For a number of reasons I have cut down on most of my subscriptions lately, but paying for this site is one of
my top priorities. The fun and motivation that I get out of this site is worth three times what I pay.


7 persons have voted this message useful



Haksaeng
Senior Member
Korea, South
Joined 5958 days ago

166 posts - 250 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Korean, Arabic (Levantine)

 
 Message 7 of 27
12 June 2013 at 4:45am | IP Logged 
I was using LingQ for free on a very occasional basis when they made the change. I think I've been a member for a while (can't remember when I signed up) but I'm flighty in my study habits and haven't used it consistently.

I was not using the site as it was designed to be used. The whole system seemed confusing and convoluted to me. Also, with a free account you can't really see fully how the system works, so there were things I didn't understand about how it worked. I think they'd be better off allowing a two-week free trial to give people a taste of everything available on the site, and then cut them off if they don't want to join. Or how about this: if you renew, you get a free month. One thing these sites do wrong, in my opinion, is they give the freebies to the new people and don't reward their long-term customers.

Anyway, I signed up as a paying member, mostly because of the intense whining and foot-stomping from the people who were mad at the cutbacks! When I got cut off, I was ready to walk away with no hard feelings because I didn't think the site was that great for me. But when I read some of the tantrums in their forum, I thought maybe the site was better than I realized. So I paid up and yes, as a paying member the site is more useful and has better features, plus when considering becoming a paying member I was motivated to read ALL the explanations and watch the demonstration videos so I understood the site better. Not sure how long I will stay, since my study methods change a lot.

Incidentally, another site that I was thinking I might start paying for is Korean Class 101.com, but when I poked around there it seemed like a ghost town. The forum, which used to be very active, is almost silent other than some complaints about the lack of new, interesting content. I guess their customer base has moved over to TTMIK, which started with a huge amount of free content and is now rapidly adding new services that are pay-per-use.

TTMIK is doing it the right way, I think, offering free content to those who want it and then, once they've established themselves, offering OTHER content for a fee. I imagine that requires a large initial investment by the owners. Probably LingQ alienated some members by offering free service and then snatching it away. They would probably do better to develop new premium services and require payment for those services right from the beginning, while continuing to provide the same level of free service hoping that it will cultivate new paying customers. Maybe their mistake was offering too much free service in the beginning.
5 persons have voted this message useful



leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6310 days ago

2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 8 of 27
12 June 2013 at 8:41am | IP Logged 
jondesousa wrote:
Not to high-jack your thread but can I ask what other free resources you
found that you really liked besides Chinesepod.com? I am heavily relying on it as a resource and am always happy
to learn from other students who have previously been down the path.

(I'll just mention that this is from my experience 5 or so years ago, so it's possible things have changed. Also, I was
specifically talking about podcasts, not any "other resources" that they had at the time.) For a
complete beginner English speaker, Chinesepod is a good choice. After you reach lower intermediate, there are
several much better podcasts out there, IMO. Some of it is personal preference, but I think most would be better off
with no English, or at least less English than chinesepod at this point, for example. I won't get into much detail here,
but 3 that I really liked are chineselearnonline, cslpod & imandarinpod.

Edited by leosmith on 12 June 2013 at 8:46am



2 persons have voted this message useful



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