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Index of Subjects Hi Bob All good points. That is why it is important that our members fully understand our 'fee' structure. The actual cost for each member is probably quite low, so our 'fees' should be low. The cost of membership is actually a donation in volunteer time, or financial contribution. The member should fully understand this. If we set a fee of $50 for a service, maybe 80% of it ($40) is actually a donation. In other words, we could and will only charge $10 to cover costs, or waive the fee entirely, but expect to receive $50. Providing custom account ids is an example of a low or zero cost service. It is provided as a reward for a donation. The member should also know that CCN could not exist without the charitable donation. This weekend a small fortune will be handed over to the IWK because people believe their contributions are truly benefitting the community. CCN should have such a profile. Doug M >>> Bob Adams <bobadams@ns.sympatico.ca> 05/28/99 02:18PM >>> Doug, In setting rates, we may be overlooking a few things that have been much discussed over the last year or so. To add to some points made byMark and Chris: A. I believe the PPP access was first created to give all IPs a graphic access to CCN to be able to check and improve the quality of their pages and graphics. The idea was to encourage all of them to use it, to help raise the quality of of all CCN pages. Once it was tested and running, it was then offered for a fee to all CCN members. B. Our competition is likely not other local commercial ISP's. It is more likely those who host free web pages, like Freeyellow or Tripod, who get their income from sources other than individual members (e.g., advertisers). It is now quite easy to get 25 mb or more for no cost. C. IPs that leave CCN for other local ISPs often do so (we believe) at no cost to them. The ISP sold advertising on the basis that there would be plenty of traffic to their forthcoming community and public interest pages. Months or a year later, they still had hardly any. So they had to head out to find already developed pages that could be enticed away from another ISP like CCN. D. Commercial ISPs recruit customers with hard selling, i.e, by full time sales people doing sales calls. We do not have that luxury. They cover everyone they think can pay. That leaves all those who cannot pay. Bob Adams IP Training
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