BertL
Active Member
Perhaps. I suspect the more important point is not what physical/virtual mechanism could be used to house the service, but if there is in fact a real business model with enough owners that would incrementally pay for the design, maintenance and ongoing support of such a service to justify Allen's costs and time.Couldn't this be accomplished on a not so expensive VPS?
From that purely-business-minded POV, owners and enthusiasts that already have Remote S, don't count unless a new version were introduced with additional one-time or more likely ongoing fees, AND sufficient new capabilities that existing or future Remote S app owners would want to pay for the upgrade or ongoing services. IMHO, it would take a lot of new sales to justify this background server environment for just "camp mode". If there were many other additional services that could be architected and implemented on the same background server without Allen then having to spend inordinate time building and supporting something new and unique each time, there could be a pony here for him, as well as owners that could enjoy the price-they-pay being spread across many individuals. OTOH, if there end-up being only a smaller number of owners that really want one or more of the new capabilities, cost/user will be a lot higher, could price it out of the market, and Allen will loose his shorts if no one continues to buy it, then having to keep the server around for the few that bought-in for some period of time. IMHO it's easy for people to say what they want on forums like this, but when it comes time to put down their cash, especially month-after-month, price sensitivity enters the picture. Even though Tesla Owners put down $65-$150K+ for their vehicle, another couple bucks a month could become a deterrent to some -- some seem to already stress over investing $9.95 for the great Remote S app as it already is. Additionally, some background functions I immediately think of as candidates in a future Remote S background server, are already free from other services like EVTripping that I have turned-on but rarely visit, and some are in other free or relatively low-cost services like what TeslaFi has and some other Tesla Owners already pay for. The problem is, is there a large enough user base willing to pay for new or unique Remote S background functions, or having them all available in one place via Remote S even if some of it could be free if you logon to another site, so a reasonable ongoing service fee could be charged? Compounding that question is, TMC enthusiasts in this forum are likely not representative of tomorrow's broader and perhaps less tech-savy Tesla/Remote S potential buyers that may just want to drive their Tesla, not explore all the underpinnings. In the end, only Allen can decide.
My suggestion to Allen is to give thought to this background server thing in terms of if it could be used for enough functions to possibly justify the investment. Then, consider how many of those things are already free in other services or effectively paid for via ad-serving, patreon, or in other ways -- and which ones are then differentiators for Remote S, vs a "me too" sorta function. Perhaps as I suggested upthread about having a default "simple" interface to Remote S, where a "full-function, compact" interface more like we have today could be turned on via Settings -- Remote S offers a collection of additional services via an in-app purchase that become enabled for a fixed period of time (more/monthly, and less/month for 12 month pay-up-front) to fund all the background server stuff. If those services grow to the point most users are buying the service, some or all could become standard... It's still a gamble if the volume of people willing to pay for the new services can offset the investment and ongoing support costs -- no matter what the mechanism is to house his background services code.
My suggestion to Allen is to give thought to this background server thing in terms of if it could be used for enough functions to possibly justify the investment. Then, consider how many of those things are already free in other services or effectively paid for via ad-serving, patreon, or in other ways -- and which ones are then differentiators for Remote S, vs a "me too" sorta function. Perhaps as I suggested upthread about having a default "simple" interface to Remote S, where a "full-function, compact" interface more like we have today could be turned on via Settings -- Remote S offers a collection of additional services via an in-app purchase that become enabled for a fixed period of time (more/monthly, and less/month for 12 month pay-up-front) to fund all the background server stuff. If those services grow to the point most users are buying the service, some or all could become standard... It's still a gamble if the volume of people willing to pay for the new services can offset the investment and ongoing support costs -- no matter what the mechanism is to house his background services code.