[HCoop-Discuss] Financial situation

[Nathan Kennedy]

Adam mentioned that unbilled one-time costs are at about $46 per 
member.  I definitely didn't want it to accrue to this point, but I 
don't think we're in such dire straits.  Our present method of 
accounting is extremely unsustainable, but it's a matter of neglecting 
it due to priorities.  I think that we should bill out this $46 over the 
next 6 months, less magnanimous contributions.

I think that for the future we should look at moving not to a cost-share 
plus markup model of pricing, but rather to a flat monthly fee, set to 
include a margin for savings.  I think that is a greatly superior 
scheme.  Makes billing simpler and more predictable for members, and 
psychologically it feels a lot better than being asked to dole out extra 
at intervals, and if excess savings accrues it can then be returned to 
members in the form of reduced fees (or even a distribution).  Again, I 
would like to keep the bottom range at or below $10.

There's no way around the fact that we're going to have to charge a bit 
extra in coming months to recoup our unbilled charges.  If we spread out 
the billing of these charges over a longer period of time, it would be 
more fair in that new members joining would be paying a portion of the 
startup costs.

-ntk

j.c.hallgren at juno.com wrote:
> I'm going to throw in my $0.02 now...
>
> I DO realize that financially we're in a bad way, but I also know that 
> my site that I host here runs on a showstring budget also, which 
> allows for a max of about $5 per month in hosting costs...I see that 
> in last few months, my costs have been well below that due to many 
> more members than when I joined in Jan 2005, so making up the 
> difference wouldn't be that much of a problem...however, should the 
> costs go above that $5 a month, I might have to look elsewhere as 
> there could possibly be some other provider who gives me the four 
> things I need, which are:
>
> 1) Cost as decsribed
> 2) Ability to execute my own CGI scripts, and have some control of who 
> executes them and how
> 3) Reliability
> 4) Easy access to "tech support" for issues related to site
>   
As I've said many times in the past, controlling bottom-level costs has 
been a top priority for me, but there are limits.  If you can't afford 
$10 per month for some period of time, that could be a problem.  I think 
with a membership drive after migration we can get costs back down to 
the $7ish range or less.  But if $10 a month for any period of time is a 
dealbreaker, then perhaps you do need to evaluate all your options.  
There are other cheaper services, but most of them come with big catches 
in terms of per-domain fees, severe restrictions on installable 
applications or scripts, bandwidth or disk space, and the like, not to 
mention support issues.

That said, I notice that your bandwidth usage is very low.  You are 
using 200 M of disk space, which is not negligible but is relatively 
low.  If affordability is a real dealbreaker for you, then maybe we can 
bump you to a lower-cost rate based on your low usage, so that you can 
continue to be a member of the co-op even if you don't need the total 
service-level that HCoop offers.
> HCoop has done these in the past, and as long as it continues, I'll be 
> happy here...and as long as service levels that I see for my site are 
> the same as when I joined, any significant increase in that is really 
> of no use to me, so sharing in those costs could be a potential 
> problem for me...yes, having 150 users requires more resources than 
> for 50, but as long as what we are using matches that and isn't setup 
> to handle many more users than we'll ever have in near future, then 
> all is good...let's not too big and fancy until we have the users to 
> support it, IMHO.
>   
We already have 110 active members and are starting to test fyodor's 
resources without any advertising or membership plan, not to mention the 
lack of a backup plan.  I expect that we will stay in the quarter-cab at 
fyodor for some time in the future, and I further expect that additional 
expansion should be done on-site at Peer1 in an incremental fashion that 
does not require the amount of reengineering and migration that this 
move has.

-ntk