Subscription cost disappointment

[leesteken]

Proxmox apparently decided to only charge for support and I guess they needed something that scales with the enterprise setups, which are their (monthly) paying customers.
Why all the virtue signaling about donations, while complaining that somehow it's always Proxmox' fault for you not actually giving them anything?
That said,I also don't understand how the price was set for the community subscription that only gives you less frequent updates. Maybe it should be more expensive to preempt this whole discussion? Or not match the number of sockets and be cheaper so people can get multiple ones to determine their own price?

 

[RolandK]

it think this discussion is not about a cheaper community subscription (which provides access to the enterprise repo as all the other subscription, so what "less frequent updates do you mean?) , but it's about how to donate money to proxmox without buying a subscription and why proxmox does not want that donations.

i'm running proxmox at the company i work (we have multiple subscription for all of their products) but i also run it at home and introduced it at two makerspaces in cologne and bonn, and the last three "installations" cannot afford a whole subscrition, it simply makes no sense. but there would be goodwill of all three to make a donation , so i don't understand why nobody did use the donation button in proxmox in the past. maybe it was broken. or to difficult.

i want proxmox to be a successful and healthy company and i like them.

so i simply don't understand why there is no easy way for donation and why nobody donated.

 

[leesteken]

... which provides access to the enterprise repo as all the other subscription, so what "less frequent updates do you mean?)

For me, that feels like the only thing you get when given access to and using the enterprise repository: You get the same updates later and in bigger and less frequent batches. Maybe that's perfect for enterprises but for a home user that means when something (obscure or seldomly used or related to passthrough) breaks it takes longer to get the fix.

 

[Neobin]

I really like this idea:

I do think there is a case for a subscription-tier aimed at the 'home-lab' user, which perhaps just allows removal of the 'nag' and perhaps 'homelab subscriber' status in the forums.

I would like to see/have a "homelab"-plan like:

• NO enterprise repository access
• Not based on the number of CPU-sockets
• Only nag screen/popup removal
• New/Separate "homelab"-subscriber forum status/badge (would be nice to have)

I think of around 30 € net per year and node

 

[Dunuin]

For me, that feels like the only thing you get when given access to and using the enterprise repository: You get the same updates later and in bigger and less frequent batches. Maybe that's perfect for enterprises but for a home user that means when something (obscure or seldomly used or related to passthrough) breaks it takes longer to get the fix.

The point of the enterprise repo is, that all no-subscription repo users are beta testers. Enterprise repo users get the updates less frequent and later, because the no-subscription repo users need to run into problems first. So the problems are already fixed when the updated package makes it to the enterprise repo.
So yes, to run into less problems its good to run the older but more stable and better tested enterprise repo.

 

[gurubert]

I do not know if a company like Proxmox is able to receive donations.

 

[Colin 't Hart]

I really like this idea:


I would like to see/have a "homelab"-plan like:

• NO enterprise repository access
• Not based on the number of CPU-sockets
• Only nag screen/popup removal
• New/Separate "homelab"-subscriber forum status/badge (would be nice to have)

I think of around 30 € net per year and node

And no email support.

 

[Neobin]

And no email support.

I thought, this is obvious.

 

[Ralli]

And no email support.

And I wouldn't like this idea with no enterprise-repo-access.

Of course the really only point is the access to the enterprise repo!

I would prefer a plan for non-commercial/non-profit/non-gov with a fee per year and limited nodes for a standard-household (for example 3 nodes, cores unlimited).

Why? I use PVE only in my private homelab to play around and to host some lxc's for home-automation. My usecase are two Intel NUC, one i5 (4 cores) and one i7 (8 cores) and one rpi as qdevice.

 

[Neobin]

And I wouldn't like this idea with no enterprise-repo-access.

Of course the really only point is the access to the enterprise repo!

I would prefer a plan for non-commercial/non-profit/non-gov with a fee per year and limited nodes for a standard-household (for example 3 nodes, cores unlimited).

Why? I use PVE only in my private homelab to play around and to host some lxc's for home-automation. My usecase are two Intel NUC, one i5 (4 cores) and one i7 (8 cores) and one rpi as qdevice.

So basically you want that the "community"-plan [1] gets (way?) cheaper or do I misunderstand?

BTW: With the current subscriptions, you have to pay per CPU-socket and not per CPU-core!

[1] https://proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve/pricing

 

[Ralli]

So basically you want that the "community"-plan [1] gets (way?) cheaper or do I misunderstand?

BTW: With the current subscriptions, you have to pay per CPU-socket and not per CPU-core!

[1] https://proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve/pricing

I know.

Yes and no. The community-plan should not only simple be cheaper, it should be cheaper if you use more than one node in an homelab. And therefore I think it's easyer if you can pay a constant fee per year without hardware-limitations if you guarantee that you don't use it commercially.

 

[leesteken]

Maybe add an additional subscription tier at $12/year that gets you absolutely nothing and you can order as many as your want? That's like donating $1/month or any multiple thereof. I assume that's the least amount of work for the Proxmox team as it fits their current way to handling payments.

 

[chrcoluk]

Not sure if that is actually true. Influencers and media creators are always complaining that the services will keep 10-70% of the donations as a fee.
Even paypal donations got a fee, but as far as I understand not that high and you pay nothing if no one is using it?

Sure, there is a fee when people send money, but there is nothing if the button sits there unused.

Regardless monies minus fees are still monies.

 

[bbgeek17]

Regardless monies minus fees are still monies.

But is that monies enough to pay accountant to determine taxes due? All of this a one time random task as there is no guarantee of repeating donation. Sometimes "free" things actually have a cost associated with them. Like a "free puppy".

 

[esi_y]

Maybe instead of commercial subscription vs community donation, have issues / feature requests on (e.g.) Github (instead of obscure Bugzilla) and allow crowdfunding them? It is then easy to decide what pays off. Any regular CR process comes with estimates on PDs + support costs going forward and weighting them against what will be the payoff. It is also much simpler model than to expect people to click "donation" button (psychologically, it does not work) - put your money where your mouth is, if there's demand, it will get done (with known priority). Anytime someone raises "I want this and that and believe many people would join in and would be willing to sacrifice my weekend drink", just point them where they can make their pledge. They are free to entice others to join in.