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Risto_Saarelma comments on Open thread, February 15-28, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: David_Gerard 15 February 2013 11:17PM

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Comment author: gwern 20 February 2013 10:07:52PM 7 points [-]

It's been suggested to me that since I don't blog, I start an email newsletter. I ignored the initial suggestions, but following the old maxim* began to seriously consider it on the third or fourth suggestion (who also mentioned they'd even pay for it, which would be helpful for my money woes).

My basic idea is to once a month compile: everything I've shared on Google+, articles excerpted in Evernote or on IRC, interesting LW comments**, and a consolidated version of the changes I've made to gwern.net that month. Possibly also include media I've consumed with reviews for books, anime, music etc akin to the media thread.

I am interested in whether LWers would subscribe:

If I made it a monthly subscription, what does your willingness-to-pay look like? (Please be serious and think about what you would actually do.)

Thanks to everyone voting.

* "Once is chance; twice is coincidence; three times is enemy action." Or in Star Wars terms: "If someone calls you a Hutt, ignore them; if two people call you a Hutt, begin to wonder; and if three do, buy a slobber-pail and start stockpiling glitterstim."

** For example, my recent comments on the SAT (Harvard logistic regression & shrinking to the mean) would count as 'interesting comments', but not the Evangelion joke.

Submitting...

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 23 February 2013 05:03:42PM 1 point [-]

I'd be a lot more willing to consider a somewhat larger single payment that gets me a lifetime subscription than a monthly fee. I'm pretty sure I don't want to deal with a monthly fee, even if it's $1, it feels like having to do the buying decision over and over again every month, but I can entertain dropping a one-off $20 for a lifetime subscription. Of course that'd only net less than two years worth of posts even for the $1 monthly price point, so this might not be such a great deal for you.

Comment author: gwern 23 February 2013 09:57:30PM 1 point [-]

I wouldn't do a lifetime subscription simply because I know that there's a very high chance I would stop or the quality would go downhill at some point. Even if people were willing to trust me and pay upfront, I would still consider such a pricing strategy extremely dishonest.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 24 February 2013 04:33:30PM 0 points [-]

How does an annual fee feel?

Comment author: gwern 24 February 2013 08:18:44PM 0 points [-]

Better but still too long a promise for the start. (Interestingly, patio11 does seem to think that annual billing is more profitable than monthly.)