All of the uncertainty over the future of ipernity and the ongoing discussions about how to secure its finances got me thinking about what this great site has to offer and more importantly just how much we’d be willing, or need, to pay to keep it afloat.

In the past I’ve said I’d happily pay twice the current subscription fees and I’ve seen lots of other members make similar statements, but recent developments seem to indicate that based on current membership numbers even that level of undertaking would not be enough.

And, if you really think about what the site offers I’d go as far to say that even twice the current fee would be very little outlay given all that it offers.

Aside from the fact that it allows you to interact in so many ways with people from all over the world via its excellent user interface, which is probably the best out there, consider the almost unique platform the site provides above and beyond simply posting photographs.

Through ipernity you can: upload and view videos online; to share and make available for download a range of document types such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Publisher and PDF files; and also publish articles using it’s micro-blogging facilities.

So, taking all of that into account, along with the fact that we know the site is in jeopardy and we all would like it to be around “for a long time” just how much do we each think that it is worth?

How much would we, could we afford to pay … if anything? And would we be willing to make a further one-off payment were Team Ipernity to initiate an appeal of some kind like Wikipedia and Blipfoto have in the past?

In pondering these questions I came to the conclusion that it would be interesting to try and conduct a poll on these issues with as many people as possible to try and get a real sense of what support may or may not be out there.

It’s obvious that even allowing for the shock and dismay that recent announcements have produced that there is still a great sense of goodwill towards the site and those that run it, so let’s all try and think realistically what price we’d put on keeping ipernity alive.

Before you answer the poll though, try to put the ‘product’ and what if offers into some kind of context. As I’ve already stressed it is almost unique in the market and for many of us posting photos and interacting with other members has become part our daily lives.

So try to think of it in those terms and think how much you might have paid out in the past for other things you might have taken for granted, but which you were willing to pay out for on a regular basis.

For example consider the following and ask yourself is what you get from ipernity not worth at least as much:

Those of you who have been in full time employment may well have stopped off and bought a coffee from the likes of Costa or Starbucks each day. Currently each cup would cost you at least £2.00 adding up to a minimum of £10.00 per working week.

If you’re on tight budget and/or retired, perhaps you think daily trips to the coffee shop to be an extravagance and you simply indulge in a once weekly visit to purchase something like a hot chocolate, which would cost you around £3.00 each week. And that if you think about it over a year would come to in excess of £150.00.

Then there’s the issue of buying a regular newspaper. Less common perhaps in recent years, but many people still like to buy a daily paper and settle down at the weekend with the Sunday supplements.

In the UK probably the cheapest way of doing that would be to buy subscribe to the Daily/Sunday Star, but even they would add up to £1.80 a week, so around £8.00 a month and £96.00 per year.

And if you prefer something with a little more substance, say the Times/Sunday Times well you’re talking about a whopping £10.00 per week and in the region of £520.00 a year just for something that you’ll ultimately throw out with the household refuse each week.

Okay, I accept a lot of people won’t connect with buying a daily newspaper or maybe even a daily trip to the coffee shop, but maybe you like to do a bit of post-processing on your photos and so either buy software on a regular basis or have a software subscription?

In that case, consider PaintShop Pro Ultimate will cost you £79.99 and the increasingly popular Creative Cloud Photography Plan from Adobe that gives you access to Photoshop and Lightroom will set you back over £8.00 a month and so around £108.00 each year.

So, enough waffle from me, to the poll. There are two questions. All you need to do is specify in your response which answer you are giving to each question:

QUESTION 1:

How much would you be willing to pay to subscribe to ipernity each year to help secure the site's long-term future?

• A. £00.00
• B. £25.00
• C. £50.00
• D. £75.00
• E. £100.00
• F. £125.00
• G. £150.00
• H. £200.00

QUESTION 2:

Would you be willing to make a one-off payment to a crisis-fund were such an initiative to be launched to help save the site?

• Yes
• No

To make it as easy as possible to calculate the outcome I would ask that everyone sticks to simply answering the question and nothing else.

Please do not leave any comments or attempt to start a discussion here. I will leave this open for a few days and report the findings in due course.

Best wishes


PAUL

Apologies for it being in British Pounds and thanks to Bergfex for the following which will help anyone seeking to convert the rates to Euros or Dollars! :)

GBP 1.00 = USD 1.27 = EUR 1.19 (2016/12/06)

UPDATE - 12/12/16:

User Poll ... The Results So Far!