This is a touchy subject, but an important one. One that I pretty much need to figure out now because it's going to affect a lot of the core way that AG is built.

I came up with some pretty neat ideas on how to allow a publisher to organize multiple projects together. This will allow not only users to find multiple projects run by a publisher (both past and present projects) but also allow for publishers to manage larger teams across multiple projects, either simultaneously or over time.

I do need to be careful not to over complicate the users experience, so I want to be careful there.

One of the ideas that I had, was to offer a premium subscription service. This would not be something that most anthologies would need, so it would be an added benefit to larger publishers. Also, the additional regular income would be great as well, as this project is already growing outside of my startup budget.

But, there are some considerations...
If I do have a premium subscription, I need to design things to be locked out of certain users, which means sometimes coding multiple paths to do something similar, so the complexity increases. Plus I need to make sure that I am giving enough of a benefit to the premium subscribers which means innovating not just one set of features but continuing it. And in such a way to not make the non-premium users feel like they are being crippled in their use of the software.

Plus... as a user of technology ... ugh, I hate subscription software. From the business side I definitely see the benefits of it, because hosting and running and upgrading this application is likely going to cost me more money than I will ever make on it.

Or, on the other hand, I could just scrub the idea of premium subscriptions and try and build the primary product to be as awesome as I can, with every feature that I can think of to implement. I may be financially hindering the project by doing that, but it also means that we have a nicer experience for every user.

There are definitely trade offs either way, but I think I know which way I'm leaning. What do you think? I would love to hear your feedback on this subject. Please. 🙂