This seems to be a good example for the idea of setting your prices at the right level from very early on. Much better to err on the expensive side then drop them later than significant rises like these. Or initially offer a special deal so people know it will eventually cost more.
Similar thing happens when going from freemium/ indirect revenue to charging. There was a big backlash when invision board did that, even though they could say there product was as good as the paid competition (Vbulletin). They had built a lot of their success on the back of a free product.
I don't think there is anything wrong with raising your prices. The main problem here is how they handled their existing user base. "Grandfathering" is not a short-term, temporary thing, what they're doing is a grace period.
The right way to handle this would be to just let everyone who was on an old plan stay on those plans. Then, instead of a backlash, they'd be getting a sales bump as people who were on the fence signed up before the price change deadline.
Exactly. Anchor that price high, sell it low. Everyone at the old price will think they got a deal and "now its back to normal". Everyone coming in now won't know any better. If they didn't have sales at the old price, they wouldn't have anyway with the higher price anchor. There is never a reason to go too low early when you can just put that price up as a "discount" from the start.
Well, the backslash against Invision Board was mainly because the main guy that was working on it had promised that the product would stay free forever, and suddenly he started charging for it.
I have two licenses from 2005 and 2006 respectively and each one of them was fairly cheap compared to the $149.99 that it costs now, also I've got a perpetual license meaning I get free support, and free downloads of the latests versions for life, whereas the new ones are for 6 months of support, and for 6 months of new downloads, after that you are stuck on whatever version you happen to have purchased.
$149.99 is pretty expensive for a piece of software, considering I can get an entire OS upgrade for $129 from Apple, which does MUCH more than a forum. I'll just keep my luck and my grandfathered accounts alive, knowing I am going to get the value I want out of those accounts.
The issue isn't about an OS being much more than a forum (whatever that means), the issue is actually size of potential market. There are millions of users who would use an OS, but do you think the size of market is same for forums as well? Software doesn't cost high because it costs high to make it, actually it costs higher because the company making it has to survive and make profit (given the total size of market). (Or, of course, it can start making OSes).
Similar thing happens when going from freemium/ indirect revenue to charging. There was a big backlash when invision board did that, even though they could say there product was as good as the paid competition (Vbulletin). They had built a lot of their success on the back of a free product.