[HCoop-Discuss] Reduced rate qualifications

[Nathan Kennedy]

Previously I had advocated on the wiki and the list having a two-tiered 
(or possibly, three-tiered) pricing scheme when we move to our new 
hosting setup.  This is because a few of our members don't want or can't 
afford to pay the higher rate and at the same time have extremely low 
usage levels such that they cannot justify these costs.  A handful of 
our members consume most of the bandwidth and disk space usage, a large 
group falls in the middle with moderate usage, and a small group uses 
practically no resources.

My idea is to offer those in the last group a flat rate of $5 per month 
as long as they keep usage low.  To qualify for that rate they would 
probably have to have their disk quota set low (about 50M) and use 
minimal web bandwidth, as little as 15M per month, and should also have 
email forwarded with no IMAP or Squirrelmail access.

Examining disk usage and bandwidth usage for the past few months shows 
that it would be fair to offer this rate to ten members:
naren, ankur, basavesh, kokain, frayedthread, jdrake, ochipepe, ray, 
euclid, vikas

Dues for the other members could either be done the same way by 
deducting flat dues from monthly expenses and splitting them evenly, or 
moving to a flat rate where monthly dues are set somewhat above 
projected expenses in order retain cash for future expansions.  It may 
or may not make sense for members with top usage to chip in a double 
share or some other additional amount for their outsized usage, although 
we will have plenty of excess capacity for the time being.

I would like people's comments on this plan.  Obviously this is only a 
proposal at this point, but I would like to get this settled shortly so 
that we don't have uncertainty hanging over member's heads.  Also let me 
know if and why you think the list I composed is not proper.  Obviously 
though the cutoff must be low, or we would be offering the discount rate 
to most of our members and there would be no way for the co-op to meet 
its expenses.

-ntk