Schedules Direct Announces Initial Pricing

[rtiangha]

Late to the party, but I just heard about this now and I'm glad someone is taking up the mantle.

I knew that something like this would happen; however, I really feared that it would have been spearheaded by TMS in order to bolster their bottom line and force people to pay for something they didn't want to give out for free anymore.

So, you don't know how relieved I am that the people spearheading this project are known people in the HTPC community, and that they are not-for-profit. This is the best possible outcome to any of this, next to being able to get that EPG data for free again.

I'll definitely pony up the $15 for the first 3 months; it's quite reasonable. I'm certain that price will drop afterwards. If not, I'm sure other people in the community will figure out another way to get EPG listings for less. Even then, $5 a month is not too bad. That's one less coffee a month. However, I'd much prefer the $1.67 a month they're aiming for.

I don't mind Paypal that much either. If you don't have a credit card, they allow you do do instant transfers from your bank account, which is almost like paying by a bank card. For some people, it's their only way to get into e-commerce so Paypal is actually a pretty smart way to allow people who can't pay by credit card a way to buy into this program.

I'm also Canadian, so I thought I'd be royally screwed come Sept 1.

I also can't blame them for not solidifying their pricing structure. They had to move pretty fast on this and didn't have much time to figure out the logistics of everything. They don't have enough time to do a proper cost/price analysis so they have to go with pre-orders to figure out what kind of demand is there. This is why it's important to buy into this program now so that they'll have concrete numbers to work with. This is because they know that people who buy in initially will probably be in it for the long haul and then they can plan their pricing based on those numbers.

If people hold off until after the 3 month trial to see what the final price will be, this will be bad for everyone since the numbers they'll get will be smaller and therefore, in order to be fiscally responsible, will have to plan higher pricing for the rest of the year to ensure they break even. This would hurt everyone who is counting on the pricing to drop.

So I would urge everyone and anyone who is remotely interested in this project to at least buy into the initial trial in order to give them a more accurate count of people who want this service. As soon as they start taking preorders, I know I'll be one of the first to sign up.