[HCoop-Discuss] Reduced rate qualifications

[Adam Chlipala]

Justin S. Leitgeb wrote:

>Adam suggested earlier that we could have a schema where some members pay extra "shares" to help members who can't afford the temporary increase in dues that our improvements will require.  I personally think that this is on the right track, but I would rather avoid the concept of "shares" because it would seem to be difficult to reconcile with the one member, one vote philosophy that holds that each member is of equal value to the organization.  Instead, I would think that we could stay close to the idea that Adam had where members who could afford it would contribute what they could to subsidize others' dues during the transitional period.  
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I'm not sure what it is that you're suggesting, but if it doesn't follow 
my original scheme, it probably doesn't work as well.  The word "shares" 
might be a bad choice, but the idea is a useful one: instead of members 
pledging constant amounts of money per month, their choices of "share" 
counts make them pay equivalently to a fixed number of normal members.  
That way _everyone's_ monthly costs go down automatically as new members 
join.  There's no need to monitor the current membership size to adjust 
your idea of a reasonable supplement amount.

>Second, there is the issue of long-term pricing changes.  Just brainstorming for a minute, would it be possible to split our pricing not into tiers, but into "public" and "private" services?
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Sounds like something that can be hard to determine objectively, would 
complicate administration, and would create opportunities for conflict 
inside the co-op.... so I would vote against it.