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<div id="newHeaderAG1" style="font-size: x-small; padding:1em;
background-color:rgba(220,220,240,0.4); border-radius:3px;"> <b>Subject:</b>
Re: Directions for Thunderbird legal and financial home<br>
<b>To:</b> Tb-planning <br>
<b>From: </b>Mihovil Stanić<br>
<b>Sent: </b>Thursday, 09/07/2015 06:29:58 06:29 GMT ST +0100
[Week 27]<br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">09.07.2015 u 00:22, Axel Grude je
napisao/la:<br>
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<blockquote class=" cite" id="Cite_538012" type="cite">How would
this work? We would register a Thunderbird Users Coop. We
would use in-product promotion to strongly encourage users to
join the coop as members paying annual dues (which would be
$10 - $20 per year). Coop members would have benefits such as:<br>
</blockquote>
It could also be<b> multi-tiered payment model</b> in order to
include people who cannot (or won't ) pay/afford 20 / year
(there might be a much larger number willing to pay
5euros/year); I quite like something closer to "Patreon" models
where users can pick their own amounts according to what they
can manage.The big advantage here is that people will pay more
if they find that the product has improved or the Tb management
asks for support for a specific effort (insert your favorite
papercut here). </blockquote>
<br>
One way to test it would be to *JUST* allow people to donate to TB
project directly.<br>
I want to donate directly to Thunderbird, not whole Mozilla. Can't
do that.<br>
</blockquote>
Definitely, I think this is already agreed and part of our
monetization strategy - hence the discussion on the business model,
which clearly has to move away from Mozilla if we want to try
something new.<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_559E06D6_6080506_miho_im"
cite="mid:559E06D6.6080506@miho.im" type="cite"> <br>
20 $(€) / year is way too much. I certanly wouldn't give you that.<br>
My usual pattern is to donate 5-10€ / year / project which I use.
Usually I give 10€ / y to LibreOffice, donated MailPie with same
amount, LibreSSL etc...<br>
<br>
LibreOffice project mentioned that average donation is <10€,
but they get a lot of those per year. Also, they have few
companies behind them which provide support, bugfixing and feature
implementation for LibreOffice for companies.<br>
<br>
This is quote from TDF financial report for 2014., page 9.<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/4/47/TDF2014AnnualReport.pdf">https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/4/47/TDF2014AnnualReport.pdf</a><br>
<br>
"During 2014, a total of approximately 67.500 donations from all
around the world have been made, totalling to nearly 595.000 €,
which gives an average donation of 8,81 €, and is comparable to
our 2013 income. In 500 days, from May 1st, 2013, to October 13,
2014, TDF received 100.000 donations, with an average of 200
donations per day.<br>
</blockquote>
These are interesting and important figures. Also note that an
average of 8.81 could also include lots of 2€ / 3€ donations; it
would be really interesting to see a more granular breakdown of
these payments. I would dare to guess that you could potentially
earn a lot more if *everybody* was obliged to pay at least one Euro
/ year but with no ceiling to the top - if Thunderbird had to host
all files by itself that would probably just about cover that cost
(?). Heck, with 20 million *paying* users you could put that down to
ten cents. The main problem with voluntary donations is that
everybody passes the bucket on to the next guy, because it is not
deemed "necessary".<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">approximately 67.500 donations</blockquote>
<br>
Just per interest, how big is their user base?<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_559E06D6_6080506_miho_im"
cite="mid:559E06D6.6080506@miho.im" type="cite"> PayPal is the
most widely used donation mechanism, followed by credit card
donations, bank wire transfer, and BitPay.<br>
The majority of donations was made in USD, followed by EUR and
GBP. In total, 47 we have received donations in 47 currencies."<br>
</blockquote>
Here is another thing if there was a "5 bucks" tier, should it be
rounded to the nearest int (regardless of currency). So 5 € for the
Euro Zone, 5 $ for US and 7 $ for Australia?<br>
<br>
And how do you motivate people who are willing to pay more to
support the project to actually do this. Badges? Merchandise? I
think Kent's suggestions about coop forums / governance / 3rd party
discounts are all good ones but there should be some instant
benefits for "gold members" without any additional effort on part of
the user. Maybe a monthly "power tips for mail users" could be one
of the perks thrown in for somebody who would patreon 20 Euros (or
more) / year?<br>
<br>
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