Pay as you go LingQing?

As I am currently at the free level of LingQ, I was surprised that I was able to make some LingQs when I recently dipped into some GErman content. Are LingQs awarded like points for shared lessons now? or were my, “free” LingQs just left over ones that I had forgotten about?

Come to think about it, I am wondering if selling LingQs in a pay as you go format may not be a possible strategy.

Hi,
I’ve just checked your account and it seems that you have 340 free LingQs! You’ve earned it by inviting friends to LingQ, and you currently have 15 referrals, which is great! Thanks for your contribution!

I don’t work for LingQ but given that the price for using the service is already (in my opinion) quite reasonable, I don’t see how it could be done.

For the LingQ method to work you will need to make thousands and thousands of LingQs-- paying as you go would be cost prohibitive.

M

I agree on a rational level, but some people need a sense that they are in control of every aspect of the testing before they buy into a product. I think this holds true to especially for types who want to learn a language from the internet.

So instead of limiting free LingQs to 100 or whatever, which has always been controversial because users say it is not enough to give newbies a real taste of the system, have a parallel price structure. Have LingQ making capacity at 1 a penny or something. For 2 dollars they get 200. For $3.57, they get 357 LingQs. etc Then they can slowly buy more on the pay as you go plan until they are convinced and switch to the regular plan

The only issue is that pay as you go LingQs have to expire once a LingQ is deleted so that people cannot just pay 50 dollars once and cycle through 5000 LingQs.

On second thought, instead of making a parallel payment system, it might be easier to just make 2 types of LingQs: the normal kind which is actually the capacity to LingQ, and a new kind which disappear once deleted. Give newbies 100 normal LingQs and say 5000 LingQs that expire once deleted. This allows a real look at the system but stops people from using LingQ at full capacity for free.

Like any company. LingQ is hoping you will keep paying them forever. There are two approaches. Pay for software once or pay for software on a subscription basis. Companies always prefer the subscription model. That is what LingQ does. They see themselves as a utility, like the electric company, that you will pay the base rate of $10 every month.

If you pay $10 a month to Netflix, you get movies for that month, and can cancel any time. If you do it on LingQ, if you create more than 5 lessons, you are stuck paying $10 every month or have the lessons you created deleted. Cancel Netflix and return, the content is still there. Downgrade to a free member at LingQ, and all your hard work is lost.

In fact, they won’t even let you downgrade your membership to free until you delete the lessons, a painful process that reminds you how much of your work you are losing, and has twice now discouraged me from stopping my premium membership.

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What do you think about the third option I mentioned? .

As for lessons that you have made while a basic member: if they are for the benefit of learners they do not disappear as far as I know. If they were content for self study, the only work put into them would be if you typed content from a book as opposed to copy/pasting or using the bookmarklet. In that case it would not be a problem to copy past it to a Word doc or something.

I have to agree with mikebooks. The value for $10/mo is fantastic. What is the problem with paying for 1 or 2 months and cancelling if you don’t like or use the site?

I believe that is true, … rationally.

I think it’s possible.

The way to do it, in my mind anyway, would be like pay as you go on a mobile phone. As opposed to buying points, you buy credit. With that credit you can LingQ ( a penny a time as mentioned ) and send off writing etc. Meanwhile, there can be track of credit remaining in the corner. This credit won’t expire at the end of the month.

There could also be “rewards” like the phone companies do, like an extra 100 LingQs, providing the user keeps topping up regularly. Imported lessons could also be permanent, but at cost of $X.

The advantage of this system is it will be more beneficial and probably cheaper to a beginner who wants to try out LingQ; the disadvantage is it could prove costly, thereby discouraging potential LingQers.

With this method you can still keep the “contract based” traditional format of LingQ.

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