? What do members prefer, the current $10 per month, or the former yearly
? tariff?
? Also, do you think it is too expensive, and if so what would be the right
? price?

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your efforts in getting the site back up and running.

I was not aware that it now costs $10 per month to subscribe. When I joined last March I paid $50 for a 1 year subscription, which obviously is preferable to paying $120 over the course of a year.

Without knowing what you would have in mind for an annual subscription fee it is difficult to answer your question.

? What do members prefer, the current $10 per month, or the former yearly
? tariff?
? Also, do you think it is too expensive, and if so what would be the right
? price?

Free is always a popular price(from the buyer's perspective)

Could a pay per use system be implemented?

? What do members prefer, the current $10 per month, or the former yearly
? tariff?
? Also, do you think it is too expensive, and if so what would be the right
? price?

A few comments to the folks thinking about a 'pay as you go' system, or some such thing like that. For small businesses, which this is, the billing process generally has significant overhead. It isn't like Visa where everything is automated. Billing oftentimes entails at least a slight manual process. So, a pay as you go system will probably be more expensive than you will want it to be. True, it doesn't have to be that way, but the only way for it not to be that way is to pay to have a pay as you go system developed and automated, which is development costs that small businesses usually don't have, so catch 22.

By that same token, you can often expect a significant discount on an annual subscription vs a monthly one for the exact same reason. There is a cost to do billing every month, and they don't have to incur that expense and can subsequently pass that on in a savings for annual subscriptions. Additionally there is value in money now vs money later, and paid subscribers look good to investors. So, it has a lot going for it. What this overhead is for IYC I do not know, but back in the early ISP days when I did that for a living I gave really deep discounts to annual vs monthly subscribers. It just made sense.

Having said all that, I would love to hear some kind of 'vision statement' that describes where the site is headed. Now that it appears there is new leadership, there are probably also new ideas.

Some thoughts of my own...

The Daniel King HGIYC is a really nice feature. I certainly hope it continues as a weekly offering. I don't think the value of going through a GM level game once a week with professional annotation can ever be over-emphasized. My scores are never very good on this section, and occasionally I don't understand why a move I considered isn't even mentioned, but it is probably because I still have a lot to learn (which I do).

The monthly tactics puzzles are also a very nice augmentation to the series I do regularly at the Chess Tactics Server (chess.emrald.net). The puzzles on that site are expected to be quick 3 to 12 seconds to solve type puzzles. The puzzles here were expected to be something you have to think on. Either by accident or design, early in the year we gained the ability to do the puzzles in all three sections. I really liked this as I wanted more puzzles. It would be nice to see this continue, even though it was never originally intended to work this way.

The monthly strategy stuff could be expanded on. I am finding myself losing on this more and more. A typical scenario for me is to muddle through the opening without making any horrible blunders, achieve what appears to be a balanced middle game, and then have no real idea what to do next to improve my position. I end up making fairly passive moves waiting to see what my opponent does. If he blunders I pounce. If he doesn't blunder, my passive play is my ultimate undoing. Changing the frequency of the strategy lesson from monthly to weekly, like HGIYC, would allow more reinforcement of the concepts, and even allow the lessons to build on one another and have continuity. When they are monthly, too much time passes between each one, in my opinion.

The 'Your Move' section isn't inherently bad, but it seems to be a duplicate of existing content. The puzzles are provided in a different format, and scored differently, but in the end they are another set of monthly tactical puzzles. Any of those could appear as normal puzzles and not be out of place.

With the apparent affiliation with ChessPublishing.com, it would seem to make sense that the IYC opening repertoire section close its doors. Maybe have IYC members get a discount on one opening section in chesspublishing.com, but given the annual price on one section is only around $20 US that is already pretty cheap (cheaper than the monthly cost here x 12). I have no idea what content lies behind one of those links, but it is a safe bet it is more detailed than what would be here simply due to the amount of time it has had to develop over there.

The coaching section, well, I don't know what to say about the coaching section. I never participated in that, and probably never will. It is kind of expensive, and that isn't to say I think it is too expensive, it is just hard to imagine a novice like myself getting any real value from the sessions. I already know several weaknesses I have that I can't get enough time to fix as it is. I once commented about how initial subscribers were promised an assessment of their play and that mine would be the equivalent of a drunken orangutan. After a year of study, the orangutan is now only slightly inebriated.

Something fun would be to grab a random subscriber every so often and challenge them to a game. It would probably be painful for the GM playing the game, but it would be a rare opportunity for people who otherwise would never get to have such a profound ass-kicking. Of course, contingent upon getting the game the subscriber would have to agree to have the humbling experience annotated and posted on the site for everyone, including the person whose game it was, to view.

But, how much is too much? The annual price I paid as a pre-subscriber was very low. I can hardly complain that I was taken to the cleaners. I have no idea how much we have to pay the GMs that contribute content, nor even how many subscribers the site actually has. But, if there was more weekly content that $10/month figure is not so unreasonable, especially if there is a discount for an annual commitment.

So, how is that for a short answer?

I have just put a poll on Link - please vote!

Hi everyone,
Well, I say everyone, but I'm aware that the Forum is no where near as popular as it used to be, so it is quite possible no-one sees this!
Still, a couple of things: firstly, I have almost completed my plan to fill the site with content and have reduced the number of new articles being added (you've probably noticed that they have become bi-monthly), but will make this occasional from now on.
New tactics will still be added every couple of months, and new HGIYC articles as soon as GM King writes and sends them (he has run out of older ones in CB format). GM Flear's articles will only come occasionally as there are already so many!
If any of you see the front page you will see that we are offering some Skype training with WGM Sandu, and if anyone is interested in this (free at first!) please write to support@improveyourchess.com.
As the expense of new articles is reduced I will now reduce the prices somewhat! The current full price is $49.99 while current subscribers pay $20 less to resubscribe. I will reduce both of these, but to what? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks for all your support over the years!

OK, I think I'm going to change the subscription from the current $49.99 to $29.99, and, perhaps more importantly, the resubscription price from the current $29.99 to a ridiculously small $9.99!