Logos Now and Faithlife Connect: The Why

Thanks!

HI Bob,

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain your companies decision to introduce this.  My concern is the way that everything is lumped together which I know your e-mail touches upon with an analogy.  It sounds like the reason for the product introduction is to keep revenue flowing in order for you to develop the product, run the business and make a profit.  This makes sense total sense from your side of the fence and I can understand why as a business you want this. From my perspective as a customer I want this too, if only to see the product develop and be available in 20 years time so we are on the same page there.   I would also like to thank you for the "break in" period and I have to say I feel you have looked after me personally over the next year so thank you for this.  My criticism is the bundling of features which we may or may not want seems unfair.  For example I have a lot of the books in the bundle you are including but I have to effectively pay for these again (month after month). How about doing something smart and including books we don't already own, or giving us a discount for stuff we already own. Also I love Mobile Ed but I want to own the courses for future reference so renting them for 6 months is for me pointless - how about letting us buy the courses as a very much reduced rate or even giving us them as part of the subscription.  What you have suggested  may be workable but I think you need to be customer driven and not revenue driven - aim for customer satisfaction and you will hit your revenue targets - aim for revenue targets and you are likely to miss both.

Please consider applying this product in a better way :-) 

Thanks

Andre, do you actually save by waiting till Logos 8, especially if you're back to Logos 5 or 6. Personally, I had Logos 6 before hurling myself into LN. I figured I might as well buy Logos 7 and it will lessen the cost of 8 a little bit at least. What say ye? 

Bob,

Thank you very much for the extended, detailed explanation behind the new direction. You don't owe us that, but I definitely appreciate it.

Despite all of the data that you have gathered, I think there's an incorrect premise in your explanation. It's not that we wanted new features every 6 weeks - it's that we wanted to have the easiest possible way to make sure we always had all available features (including datasets). If you had rolled out significant new features annually, that would have been fine - I know that I'd have them.

What I (and many others, based on all the threads) wanted was a known, fixed cost that ensured I'd have all the features. There are two reasons this is important: 1) I don't need any more large package book purchases; 2) FL's long-standing policy of not releasing feature-only upgrades on the day of major upgrades. As I said in another thread, if I knew for sure that I could upgrade on the day of release for the equivalent of $99/year, I'd be content. But we don't know what the day-of-release offerings are going to be, let alone the price. LN gave me predictability at an easy to swallow price point. That's disappeared.

Further, if LN users only make up 1.8% of revenue - you admitted it wasn't as widely adopted as you'd hoped - what makes you think that Connect will have any better adoption rate? As I look at the price points, a new customer could buy packages that he/she would own for the annual cost of a subscription, which would disappear if the subscription is not renewed. It's not clear to me how Connect provides more incentive to adopt than LN.

One last point: You made it clear that you're trying to ensure that you can have an appropriately profitable company - completely understandable. But the extra "benefits" in Connect Essentials surely cost something. So the price point for Essentials has to cover the costs for all Logos features plus 2 courses plus TV plus other resources plus whatever other "benefits" are included. What's the objection to offering a Logos-only subscription which doesn't have to cover those costs. As I read all the threads, the majority of respondents state that those benefits have been lightly used at best in LN and aren't actually of interest.

I suspect your response will be: "That's all understandable, Donnie. That's why you can still buy the feature sets." That would be a perfectly fair response, but it would still miss my main point: The purchase price point for feature sets when major releases come out is unknown and unpredictable. $99/yr solves that problem for me (and I think many others).

Thanks again for responding and answering so many questions. It's generous of you.

Donnie

Bob Pritchett said:

abondservant said:

Forcing people like myself who have paid 10k, and have 10k still being paid off are on the short end of the stick when it comes to subscriptions.

I don't have access to your individual email credit offer at the moment (I'm on the road), but I know that we're paying particular attention to users with significant investments in the purchased resources. If you've spent $10k with us, that's a significant investment we appreciate, and the difference in price between the two subscriptions is small in comparison. This should already have been addressed, or will be soon.

Bob, I appreciate you taking time to address these concerns.

I have invested over $19,800 in Logos but have been shunted onto Faithlife Connect Starter (which I have no interest in) and been given a coupon towards L8 which I'm confident won't cover the full feature set. I don't feel that in my case you are 'paying particular attention to users with significant investments in purchased resources'.

Up until L6 I bought base packages, and only changed that pattern because we were led to believe that Logos Now was the future. I appreciate that hasn't worked out the way you had hoped, but now I feel that my only option is to revert to the purchase model. However if I do that and buy the L7 full feature set (which my credit would just about allow me to do), I'll be missing out on features brought out since L7 was released which I've become accustomed to using under Now membership.

Even if I buy 8 I'll be missing out on ongoing new features for 2 years at a time until the next base package is released unless I pay for a subscription which is over twice the price of Logos Now. But even if I was starting again I wouldn't go down the Logos Connect model due to the paucity of quality resources even at the highest level.

Mark Smith said:

Bob, I am just amazed that you'd ask me to shell out $200 a month for access to less than 3,000 resources (Connect Ultimate).

I very much appreciate, Mark, you taking the time to write an extensive reply [that I could not get to be quoted in its entirety].

As someone about to graduate from seminary, I was thinking that Now would have been an affordable way to stay up to date on the software without adding to my library. I didn't think I'd be able to afford the feature only packages going forward, and I've pretty much gotten my library to where I want it with the exception of some "nice-to-haves" that I probably won't end up buying.

I don't think the primary value of Now was new features "every six weeks" so much as just up-to-date software without massive financial outlay. You could have been on an annual or semi-annual update schedule and it still would have been valuable.

But if some people thought that "cool new features every six weeks" was the most important aspect of Logos Now, they had a lot of help coming to that conclusion...because that's how you marketed the product. You aggressively marketed this product, and one of the main talking points was new features every six weeks without having to wait for the next major update. I mean, you did name the offering Logos NOW, as in I can have new features NOW instead of waiting two years. You marketed Logos Now in every way imaginable. Many of your Logos Pro training videos are basically extended length advertisements for Logos Now, since you always made sure to include menu options that people didn't have unless they had Logos Now. That added to people's confusion because they would try to perform the actions in the training videos to discover they didn't have the feature that was being demonstrated, and it wasn't always explicitly called out that it was a Logos Now-only feature. My very detailed oriented mind (I was an accountant/financial analyst in my former life) means I automatically look for those little details, but not everybody thinks that way. They assume that if you show them something on a training video, they will be able to do it in their software.

My point is that Faithlife creates a lot of their own problems through their own aggressive marketing/communication tactics. I see it over and over again every time you have a new product/service release or promotion. Every time, there is some level of confusion (usually mass-confusion) that can be directly traced back to vague/misleading communication or even out-and-out overselling of products offerings or promotions (meaning pretty much overstating or playing up offerings to the point that customers consistently think they're getting more than they actually are). You pretty much do have to have an accountant's or lawyer's eye for detail and precision to see what is really being said and what's not being said, and I see why the average person may get confused. You need to focus on clear communication in advertising going forward, or you will continue to have these problems.

As many have said, the greatest value you offer is the actual software itself with all of the wonderfully helpful features. It has been indispensable during my seminary education. I love the software and the powerful tools it offers, and I hope to have a reasonably affordable way to keep my software up to date going forward. I know you need to make money, and I want your to business to be sustainable. One major reason I chose Logos over Accordance is that I thought you were more up to date on the latest technology trends in software, and thus would be more sustainable going forward since I was making a big investment in the future of any bible software program I chose. Keep up the good work and remember to continue to focus on what you're good at. Sorry for the long post, but I've wanted to say this for a long time but never felt like typing this much before and thought it would be overkill. [:)]

Live long a prosper, Faithlife...seriously, live long and prosper.

Bob Pritchett said:

Thinking said:

Notice that Bob is no longer saying that a subscription only model won't happen, he is now saying he doesn't "plan" for it to happen.

But we want to offer both, and nothing I said here was meant to signal any change in that plan.

Please answer a "but how does this affect ME" kind of question. I signed up for Now rather than upgrade to Logos 7. My thinking was that at $89 per year Now was a better deal than upgrading every two years. Had I known that Now would last less than two years I would have upgraded. So now, when L8 appears, I will not be upgrading from L7 but from L6. Am I better off upgrading now to the L7 "Starter feature set" (I do not need any more books) for my dynamic price of $50.20 and then to L8 at that time, or should I wait until L8 appears and upgrade then from L6? My email informs me I will get a $200 credit/coupon code.

JT (alabama24) said:

I think you are completely wrong about the "primary value" of LN. The reason so many were sold on the membership is that it was an alternative to purchasing features. Users could "buy" books and have an inexpensive means to keep "up to date" on features. In your words, "just a few dollars each month."

This is exactly why I joined LN

Bob, thanks for explaining the situation so clearly. Obviously, no software company, Logos included, can continue to develop next year's product on last year's sales. The $18k I've spent was for the product that I downloaded and have used since, NOT for indefinite future releases. Paying a comparatively small amount for the feature set upgrade every couple of years (about $150 for Logos 7) is a really inexpensive way to make sure that my Macbook Pro and Logos continue to get along. I don't have to purchase the same books over again, so I don't see the problem. 

Logos Now cost more to develop than it ever earned in subscriptions, and was adopted by so few that keeping it going made no sense. Purchase sales have flattened to the point where some kind of subscription model is necessary if Logos is to continue to function in the future. 

Got it. 

Thanks again for explaining it!

Greg Lawhorn

Bob Pritchett said:

danwdoo said:

Are these connect tiers like the base packages where the books are periodically switched out for new ones with new versions of Logos?

Yes, which is one of the reasons it's hard to dynamically price them... they will be changing as our contracts change, as our base package libraries change, etc. (Just as which movies Netflix offers is changing every month.) We believe this to be a benefit, and hope you'll generally see the value grow, not just change. 

With that said, I don't expect the changes to be frequent, or massive. They may more often follow major changes in our base packages.

This frustrates me about Netflix. I cannot tell you how many shows I started watching to have them yanked out from under me. I nearly made it through Columbo and then it was just gone. Annoying, yes, but ultimately harmless since it's just entertainment.

This is a completely different game. If someone is using a resource for study or research and it suddenly disappears, that could be catastrophic for them. They could just buy it if it's important to them, but I could see the irritation encouraging them to buy it elsewhere and start pulling them away from the Logos ecosystem. I'd simply encourage you to be careful about cycling through resources in a rental model.

Bob Pritchett said:

danwdoo said:

Are these connect tiers like the base packages where the books are periodically switched out for new ones with new versions of Logos?

Yes, which is one of the reasons it's hard to dynamically price them... they will be changing as our contracts change, as our base package libraries change, etc. (Just as which movies Netflix offers is changing every month.) We believe this to be a benefit, and hope you'll generally see the value grow, not just change. 

With that said, I don't expect the changes to be frequent, or massive. They may more often follow major changes in our base packages.

I understand this but do admit it's still a bit of a struggle for me. I completely get that price increases are needed and I am fine with that. I want the program to continue to improve and as I find it an invaluable resource, I am willing to pay for that. It's renting books that give me pause personally. I would rather have 14 books I get permanently rather than 140 rentals that may change, albeit infrequently. Perhaps I am in a small minority in this. I am totally fine with the other bundled features such as TV, courses, etc as they are ways to get the price where you need it to be and yet allow you to offer more than just the software for that additional price. It may be that I will just need to switch to a download package. I do admit I would really miss the free classic book if I did that. I always look forward to that search for a gem each month. It is a little hard that we have to wait with the uncertainty of all this for a while until we have the full details on Logos 8, though I understand why you had to announce this change now based on Now subscriptions ending.

Bob Pritchett said:

Kevin A. Purcell said:

Early on nearly every email from Logos was about the new version features.

Yes, it became the tail wagging the dog almost immediately, especially for existing transactional customers... which wasn't our hope or plan, but is what happened.

We'll keep looking at the options... though one of the points I'm making is that the pace of new features may be more irregular, or 'lumpy', which makes those in-between releases harder to sell, and has other side effects....

I've been mulling this over the last couple of days. I don't have skin in the game right now (I did subscribe to Now when it was monthly and stopped when it switched to yearly), so I'm not emotionally invested, but I'm not sure that this aspect of Logos Now was thought all the way through. I concur with everyone on the forums that the primary draw of Now was the cutting edge updates--that's how it was advertised. I do suspect that there is a correlation among forum regulars and this benefit of Logos Now, so I'm not saying I see the whole business picture, but it probably explains the outsized weeping and gnashing of teeth in these threads.

Logos Now was sold as a way to participate in the funding of continual development in exchange for keeping up with the cutting edge, and it was sold as a way to get updates without needing to buy the big upgrade with each release. Kevin and other users have clearly communicated this, and I agree that this is how the community saw it. This leads me to two thoughts:

1. Saying that it was the tail wagging the dog almost immediately tells me that you did not think the business plan all the way through. You wanted the business to go this direction by introducing Now and selling it a certain way, but you apparently regretted the consequences almost immediately. You had to know it was going to be the main driver of development, and I'm sorry it didn't grow to become the dog you wanted it to be, but the workflow out of creating Logos Now would have been no different whether small or big. 

2. When it's all set up for people to buy the subscription for the software instead of buying the package upgrades, and then taken away about one software cycle through the offer, you've got to understand that this will make people absolutely livid. It's clear now, but it should have been anticipated. You said we could keep up to date through monthly fees, allowed a big update and then took it away. That makes this whole thing come across as if it was a really hollow promise, and that's why so many people are ticked off and lose trust in the company.

PS on these thoughts: When I reflect on my own decisions regarding Logos Now, I suspect some of the difficulty it encountered was when it switched from a monthly to a yearly commitment. Instead of everything remaining small and incremental, it became a big commitment again. A $99 yearly payment feels awfully close to buying a big package again (a "half-package"). Yes, it's the same as $8/month, but so is spending $200 when the new version of Logos comes out in 2 years. I know you had to switch to yearly so that people wouldn't pay for a month of Now, upgrade to 7 with the discount and then cancel immediately, but I have a feeling Now could have been successful with a few different decisions along the way. I think you're right to  clear up the confusion between Now and Cloud, but I feel bad for both the company and the users of Now for needing to go through this exercise. I do wish you success and hope this new direction works for you.

No. This is not like a magazine. You all said yourselves this is your "online service". It's not understood by the users to have an expiration date in the same way paper magazines do. That's not how any other online service works. At all. Anywhere.

Think instead if Amazon Prime renamed, dropped half their services, and told every subscriber they could have it back for twice the price. Or if Netflix did the same. That's the proper analogy.

This is shady. And giving a 9 month head-start doesn't change that.

Adding tremendous new features to justify a new tier at a higher price or choosing a more modest price bump would have been standard practice (for companies without a moral compass).

I am just so very, very disappointed. As someone who has been a loyal user for years, invested thousands of dollars, I did not expect so little from Logos. I have had my view of your business significantly altered through this.

There's an answer. Walk it back. This is does hurt you. And it violates a trust we put in you.

EastTN said:

I appreciate Bob's explanation.  The one thing that disturbed me about it was the suggestion that FaithLife would prefer to be on a pure subscription model. Personally, I prefer an ownership model.  I understand Bob's point about users wanting new features.  But...that's not where I am.  While I do want the software to be maintained and kept reasonably up-to-date with evolving platforms, it already has way more features than I'm ever likely to use.

For me personally, it really is about the books. Instead of renting access to a generalized library, I like building my own.  Right now I'm working full-time in a corporate job, and can afford to do that. It won't be too many years before I retire from that corporate job, and when I do I'd like to be able to continue using the library I'm building now.

I appreciate his honesty about how, were he founding Faithlife now, he'd probably go subscription only. I'm also glad that he's keeping the buy-and-own model that customers of his like you and me prefer.

EastTN said:

For me personally, it really is about the books. Instead of renting access to a generalized library, I like building my own.  Right now I'm working full-time in a corporate job, and can afford to do that. It won't be too many years before I retire from that corporate job, and when I do I'd like to be able to continue using the library I'm building now.

As I watched Now's feature path at $10/mo, my impression was a yawn. I wondered how many pastors sit around counting theophanies .... if you're decently familiar with the text, an exactness I suppose is worth what? On the other hand, so many forum queries on speed, usability, maps (!), and so on. And DAL going gaga over pictures at Another Co.

Then there's now the dog-wagging tail problem, and the solution as free movies and some books at twice the price. 

I suspect many will take a harder look at exactly what the software improvements are good for, in their day to day spiritual life.

You yawned Denise but apparently never fell asleep. But you are permitted a wee nap if you do so desire!  :-) 

[quote]

This is why I’m not upset about the new announcement.  You are crediting back what I’ve paid to try LN over the last two years and I can use the credit to now “own” the full feature set.  Not many other companies out there would do that.

I hope Faithlife is successful in your new strategy; however, I strongly suspect that with the announced changes, your subscription revenue is going to decline rather than increase like you are hoping.  If that is the case, there will be of course new changes later down the road.  

The cost to purchase the full feature set empowering logos 7 is $429.21.  NOT $200 or $100.   You are getting less than half of the cost to get the stuff you are losing.  

Combine this with the FACT that the commission sales men (and one woman I never spoke with) offered Logos Now as the key to having the cool tools like lemma in passage (which have helped me get much closer to God) at the least cost;....therefore, I was able to put more of my wad toward buying the library I wanted.  I did and rented the feature set by getting Logos Now.

NOW, I get the privilege of renting not only the books I already own (literally, almost every one at each level) but renting the feature set for 2.4 times the cost of the feature set Logos Now was providing me.  I work in a rainforest and only have internet now and then.  Faithlife TV and the cloud are useless to me.....

In the old days I was a professor at USC business school.  We called this a "Cram Down"... .a situation where the "cramee" has no choice but to write off his investment or take the medicine.  With the investments all of us have made we can't leave .... and who would want to, no other company has anything like these great tools.

BUT... Bob, one of the key principals we had at our secular business school was to treat your customers like gold.  I feel like a brick to you.  But, I can promise that "All things work together for good to those that love God, the called according to His purpose."  I also know that Christians reap what they sow.  

In my mind, this is a horrible way to treat the folks who bought your stuff and deferred vacations and other stuff to have tools to serve God....and felt proud and privileged to give you their hard earned money.

If I were a young man and didn't own a library full of books I would jump at the ability to rent what I needed and the Faithlife Connect would be just fine.

I do wonder how you would feel Bob if you were one of your customers who strained every financial muscle in their body to buy your books and software....then got this proposal which is really and truly little more than a traditional Cram Down.

I do remain your faithful "Cramdownee" and will stick with Logos because there is nothing even close to as good.   I know I will never trust any of your staff as their good intentions were not same intentions as the management.  I will continue to buy your books, pay for Faithlife Connect Essentials...but I won't forget that i got bitten.... and if bitten again it is my fault.  

Also, I would gladly pay more if you just said you needed money and were raising your prices.... you didn't do that.... Instead you offer me things i don't want and can't use and then say take it or walk away.  This is not going over well with your key invested customers.

Unfortunately, this doesn't bode well for those of us who thought our purchased libraries would have strong residual value.... 

Rob

I love Logos and have invested into its software because it gives me indispensable tools.

I just hope that Logos does not get so caught up in looking at market trends that they forget to pay attention to why their business exists in the first place, which is to give people powerful tools for studying the Bible. 

My feeling as a Logos customer is that a subscription service will most likely price me out, or under deliver.  But, you said that you are keeping the buy-to-own service, which I am already very happy with, so I will have no problem. 

I hope you are able to make the business work and keep it flexible

Danny Elliott said:

You can say all you want that Faithlife will give you this or that, but the fact remains that I will still have to pay double for what I currently use.  This does seem like punishment to me.

Danny, for you it's probably worth checking out Verbum Now, which offers almost exactly the same features as Logos Now at the same price (and Verbum staff have confirmed that Verbum Now isn't going anywhere anytime soon). There's a pretty decent chance that everything you use in Logos Now is available in Verbum Now.