milking the customers?

[ratdog]

I enjoyed watching FT extra occasionally. Now they want to charge for it. I now get to watch one without subscribing. Quite frankly, it is not worth it. If I was Peter, I would have found the title "A boy and his boat" rather demeaning.

 

[dokdirt]

From what I understand, I don't think it's ft's issue, as the rules have changed on youtube

 

[razor02097]

From what I understand, I don't think it's ft's issue, as the rules have changed on youtube

FYI

FT Extra is a donation based service. All of the FT Extra channel videos are marked unlisted on YouTube and the links are provided on the FT Extra page. The FT Extra page is not run, owned, or operated by Google or YouTube in any way. If you didn't donate a pop up will block your access to the FT Extra page.


From what I've read the FT Extra donations go into R&D and in return you would get essentially behind the scenes footage. What some people are peeved about is the fact that FT Extra used to be one donation to access and now FT changed it to monthly. Although you can access it for a minimum of a dollar $12 per year isn't unreasonable.

 

[krinaman]

My understanding is they aren't even collecting the donations at this point and they aren't sure if/when they ever will (someone asked about it during the FF podcast)

 

[bstanley72]

Didn't they bring on a full time person just to run the FT extra? If so there are expenses to be met. When the donation meter was still up it wasn't anywhere close to being at the goal, so the donation route wasn't working.

I'm not really sure how providing additional content for a price, while the bulk of your offering is free, would be considered milking.

 

[Balu]

There also was a problem with it being a "donation" based thing and the billing companies I think.

 

[jhitesma]

I know I signed up for $1 a month right after it was announced and saw it being taken out every month. They they changed something about the billing a few months ago and I had to re-do my subscription but stayed at $1 a month...but haven't seen a charge since. I still have access to extra though. I seem to remember something when the billing changed about people who had subscribed originally got a grace period in the billing so I assumed that was why I haven't seen any charges yet. But honestly I didn't pay too much attention since it's only $1 a month and I find only about 1 out of 4 FT extra videos seem to be worth the time to watch.

Not knocking it with that last statement - I very much appreciate it and would pay more than $1 a month if I could swing it. Just for me the content hasn't been as good as I'd hoped but FT was upfront at the start about this being B roll and lower quality footage that doesn't meet their standards for the main channel so I'm not surprised or upset that I personally only find about 1/4 of the extra content to be interesting. And the generous "pay what you want" model means I can afford it which is a major bonus for me So I'm really not complaining at all!

 

[airhawk]

well its free now but theres no update in videos since 4 or 5 weeks ago