Support for ala carte services ...

There have been something like 73 threads locked in the last few minutes dealing with the economy, subliminal political messages, playing Black Sabbath records backwards and finding out that C.c is in fact "not" Satan's spawn (that would be Justin Bieber)....

In these threads, an idea was floated about creating an ala carte offering of the chess.com services in addition to the packages (diamond, platinum, tin, etc.)

I think it is a great idea that could gain traction if all members, free and paid, added their thoughts.

I'll start it off. First, I do own a business and we started offering ala carte services last year. Without going into looooong details that would definitely "not" give anyone a chubby, the bottom line is that it gave us a tool to capture revenue from customers that would not purchase our services due to financial or other restrictions. So for our business, ala carte has been a financially positive offering.

With that said, as a diamond member, I utilize/enjoy chess mentor, statistics and tactic trainer. Videos I can do without because of YouTube (although I do love me some jinji-hash-villie)!

So, let's say c.c offered all services ala carte for $3.50. I would save $3.50 per month (a loss for c.c). Now, making the assumption there is currently one free member that's wants tactics trainer because of interest or they can only afford one service. With both of us, c.c is revenue neutral. And with development costs, ala carte is not a good thing short term. OTOH, that same free member picks stats as well to see if tactics traing is worth it. Well now, they're revenue positive.

Now, only c.c has data needed to determine on a decision level how ala carte would affect current paid subs and forecast incoming new revenue. Who knows, they may have already done this exercise and found it to be the cause of WWWIII.

If they haven't, a big thread with a lot of feedback may push them to evaluate.

Go!

Ok, c.c is revenue = with the two of us.

Hymie...if I was as passionate about it as musikmole is, I would be ringing bells to get attention for the thread (maybe he'll jump in to build the discussion). Even so, it's an "idea" that I think has merit and can generate discussion.

If not....meh

I'll go play nazi zombies.

Ok guys, I'm a noob. Vacation days are used in cc games right? What is the benefit of auto and unlimited vacation days?

Dchurchill ... Yeah, there will be a lot of pissed off wives when they get the credit card bill from .10 tactics. LoL

Auto helps you out if you forget to put yourself on vacation. Keeps you from timing out.

As far as I know, unlimited isn't offered. Seems like it would be pretty detrimental. There are already plenty of complaints about people abusing vacation even without the site giving the option to abuse vacation indefinitely. 

I have been following some of those "locked threads" which you mentioned...and I am more than a bit puzzled as to why they were locked.

None the less, I think there is some merit in what you/Musikamole has tabled. Whether chess.com does take it up, is of course, another matter.

Well jester, does c.c have a service or two that you would pay for ala carte?

I have gold, because  like to play tournaments. Gold gives me 10. I also like the 25 TT per day. I'd pay a little extra to get chess mentor, but I dont want it badly enough to pay for the top package.

So, for $3.50 a pop, you would spend .50 more money for tourneys, unlimited tactics and chess mentor. Would it be worth the extra coins?

I dont really understand what you're saying....

I dont need more tournaments, I'm happy with 10

I dont need unlimited TT, I'm happy with 25

I dont need extra vacation, video lessons, etc etc, I'd just like to have some (maybe even limited) Chess mentor. I'm really not interested in anything else the higher memberships have, and I'm not willing to triple my fee just for a single feature.

However, I'd be willing to pay a little extra just for that feature.

The only feature that really interests me is the tactics...but you can get that free at "chesstempo.com".

I botched the first two attempts to get this discussion going, with both of my topics being locked. Chess.com has rules for posting, and I must have done something stupid.   Glad to see someone get it right.

At this time, and I hope not forever,  ala carte would be a big help, and I would purchase tactics trainer.

I am aware of free ways on the internet to receive tactics training, but chess.com's tactics trainer is still my favorite.