Expensive article downloads

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tobble

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Hope I'm not trotting out this subject for the Nth time (I did try the search 'facility') BUT...

Are the articles available for download hideously expensive, or am I just a tight-fisted buger?

It occurs to me that an off the shelf copy of most of the relevant rags is less than the price of one article to download. Yes yes, administration, hosting, all mounts up donchano, but seriously, do people actually pay it or are they pricing them selves out of a market?
 
I have used it when it is the only identifiable source of information but usually I can find another free source, so I make very little use. I do agree that the prices are very high, the same as printed copies used to be. I am pretty sure they would make more if they made them much cheaper
 
Yes i'd agree, the downloads are far too expensive.

I've only done it once for exactly that reason!

I would certainly download more if the price was reasonable.
 
Like ? - well you can guess the answer to that ....
Or what about running it as a service for those who have a current subscription to one of the mags ...

If it was 50p - maybe a £1 per article - I might be a lot more tempted. Like others - I think I've done it once or twice - but part of the issue is that unless you are absolutley sure that its the article you want - I'm not going to spalsh out 4.50 or more on the off chance - I understand why a preview is tricky /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

At 50p a shot I might download half a dozen not worrying too much - hoping that one of them would be pretty much what I was after

Your actual revenue might not be that different .... (well increased actually as I might use it)

Maybe I'm just a cheapskate ...
 
Hmm .. £4.50 for an article that I don't know if it is any good ....

anyone got a copy of YM Sept 2002 ?? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Ok thanks for your comments and I will take them all on board.

As with all things its not as simple to run as you may think we actually have a full time employee looking after this and she is flat out!

But comment is always useful so thank you.

Richard
 
Those proposals would strike me as being reasonable. They'd certainly encourage me to dump a whole load of back copies which are currently weighing down my shelves on the off-chance I might need one of the articles someday.
 
I would definitely use it if it were cheaper as already stated the best part of a fiver is a too much to speculatively "check up" on someting.


The 50p/£1 seems about right (Free sounds better /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif )
 
Yes, would agree 50p - £1 would be reasonable for each article, and maybe free to subscribers (or a reduced fee) would be sensible. I am aware that credit card charges would eat up the majority of that sum, I would be prepared however to pay acard fee, say 50p on each transaction - encouraging people to grab a few at a time and generating about the same income for ybw as down loading one! In principle I might be prepared to pay £5 for a *good* article, but the number of times i've seen an interesting headline on the cover, only to be dissapointed, puts me off.

Glad I'm not alone in my miserliness!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Ok thanks for your comments and I will take them all on board.

As with all things its not as simple to run as you may think we actually have a full time employee looking after this and she is flat out!

But comment is always useful so thank you.

Richard

[/ QUOTE ]

Like most I understand there is a cost associated with these services, my real question is are you getting decent value for money for it. As I said in the days when such things were paper which you had to store and then retrieve and post the charges were understandable, yes you still have to store it, and yes electronic storage is not free, though my last 500Gb only cost £60 and would I reckon hold quite a few articles. I would be prepared to pay 50p to £1 to get some information in a hurry, though I would like to see a preview to confirm I was buying what I really wanted. Remeber there are organisations out there who retail legaly as far as I can see handbooks for £5 on disc and £2.5 download, and they are in the business to make a profit and there are far more pages than one gets from YBW.

I would say that to make people really us the service any thing less than 5 pages should be 25p, especially as the electronic archiving process is or at least should be an ongoing business cost whether or not you sell the articles from the archive.
 
Used it once when I was researching a boat.. Pays me money got half an A4 back. Miffed I was. Article didn't tell me anything new either. Not used it since.
Would like to. I would like to hold a credit account and download articles when I choose rather that paying each time. Now that is a thought and perhaps a titchy thumb nail of what I would get.

I once collected all the port articles passage info and kept it on the boat in a nice smart folder. (you know the ones thats it the splash proof ones Yeah right first drop of water one big soggy blob of mess) was going to replace them through the service. Flip no way cost astronomical about the cost of replaceing the british library no discount for a bulk order either. dumped the lot
Shame. I was so proud of two years worth of collecting as well.
/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
If the member of staff is fully occupied then obviously there is demand at the price. They have all sorts of options I don't need to go into but remember we do not pay the full price of the magazine. It is more than paid for by the targeted ads. The cover price share received by IPC/Murdock is just the jam.
 
I got a reprint once. £3.50 for a black and white smudged photocopy, slightly squint and stapled together squint as well so it wouldn't slide into an A4 sleeve. A rip off, in my opinion. I gave feedback by email, but no response.

Looking at the site just now, I see they're offering to sell reprints of a classified ad from 2006! Many takers for that, do you think?

Tony S
 
[ QUOTE ]
But comment is always useful

[/ QUOTE ] Some of the articles available are pretty small and represent very bad value for money. A graduated scale of charges would be more acceptable. For £4.50 or so one might expect a two part article even.
 
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