The timing is just terrible! (Fee-plan/developments)

[BeatBaumli]

Quoting last email regarding new developments:“In the process of taking two steps forward, we have basically taken one step back, and we know that this has caused connectivity issues recently. We released a partial fix for these connectivity issues over the weekend, but there is more work to do here. We are also acquiring a network emulator (using GoFundMe contributions – thank you!) that can help us create and test more networking scenarios that happen out there “in the wild” to make this feature set more robust and more reliable.
 
In addition to these issues, there are application crashes and quality issues that are caused by our “tech stack” – i.e. some third-party technologies on which our app is built. We need to update our tech stack, and this will probably require about 3 months, but once we’ve done this, the reliability of the platform will be much improved.“


So what happened? In July they asked for contributions und in order to make „massive improveements“. Then the app became more and instable and crashes a lot. And finally, when it seems that the improvements are about to be finished - JK becomes a service with a monthly fee plan. 


Now i am not the type of guy who wants everything to be free. I know that workers need money and webspace providers and whatnot also do. But the timeline is really fu***d up and so is communication. Don‘t tell us in summer that this is a community-driven service so you need us to donate for improvements and shut us out in winter unless we pay a hundred bucks a year. That is just not cool. 

I get your point, always felt that it's a great sevice provided by JamKazam but wished to have the luxury to get problem-solving support from their side. Understandably this will not be possible on just a free member policy and it's okay for me to pay for it. As for the other services maybe you missed the part about members who have donated, i believe that they will be compensated but have to get in touch with the people in charge. In the announcement i read the following text:
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What If You’ve Already Contributed Financially?
If you contributed to our GoFundMe campaign, again we thank you so much for your support. If you are OK with having helped on the GoFundMe while also purchasing a premium monthly subscription going forward, we would appreciate your continued support. If you contributed $50 or more to our GoFundMe and feel like you should not have to pay monthly subscription fees so close to the time you made this contribution, then please drop us a note at support@jamkazam.com, and please include your name, email address, the amount, and the approximate date you made your contribution. We will talk with you and do our best to work something out that feels fair to you.
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I think that makes good sense and i hope that JamKazam will improve as announced. For me the covid misery is much easier to bear with the possibility to meet and play with people here which i think is a great relief for many others too.
If you run out of funds, not able to pay for the service maybe Jamulus would be a good option, it ist still offered for free. Quite different from Jamkazam but working good too.