All the people telling you to increase the price are right, and then some. So some advice:
- dont focus so much on the individual developers, focus more on getting money in the system. You want to know how best to help an individual developer? It's by having lots of users, and lots of money.
- first way you can help do this is by having a minimum monthly charge. I pay $150 a month on a database. I pay 4 digits worth of EC2 bills. I can afford a $10 minimum.
- 2nd way is to strongly focus on enterprise plans. For $1000 a month, you get a big giant banner add on gittip, that everyone else sees every time they add a tip or receive one, or play with their settings.
- dont make people spend the whole thing - distribute the excess to the developers that others have chosen, in proportion to how popular they are. Or use it to highlight projects you like, or projects for people who contribute money, or something like that.
Stop focussing on the low end - bump up that price, and who cares if it's too expensive for some people. Giving $0.25 isn't charity - its actually costing you money.
- dont focus so much on the individual developers, focus more on getting money in the system. You want to know how best to help an individual developer? It's by having lots of users, and lots of money.
- first way you can help do this is by having a minimum monthly charge. I pay $150 a month on a database. I pay 4 digits worth of EC2 bills. I can afford a $10 minimum.
- 2nd way is to strongly focus on enterprise plans. For $1000 a month, you get a big giant banner add on gittip, that everyone else sees every time they add a tip or receive one, or play with their settings.
- dont make people spend the whole thing - distribute the excess to the developers that others have chosen, in proportion to how popular they are. Or use it to highlight projects you like, or projects for people who contribute money, or something like that.
Stop focussing on the low end - bump up that price, and who cares if it's too expensive for some people. Giving $0.25 isn't charity - its actually costing you money.