Is $20 that much?

Three days ago Zooomr announced paid Pro accounts for $19.95. Every Zooomr user saw the add for accounts when the logged in (except the the Pro4Life members, I assume) so pretty much everyone that uses Zooomr knows about the new offering. What does $20 get you on Zooomr? At this point, not much, just the promise that you won’t see ads and some “cool and interesting” features that Kristopher is developing.

So how does the Zooomr community respond? Judging by the comments on the blog entry, a lot of people are annoyed or down right pissed off. Many people posted positive comments, but I was a little surprised by the complaining. The major theme of the complaints is “Zooomr doesn’t work yet, why should I pay for a Pro account? When all the features work, then I’ll pay, maybe.”

Let’s just look at this logically for a moment. Zooomr is free. Zooomr is still in beta. Zooomr is the coolest photo sharing site on the web. How can you complain about a free beta version of something that while still in development is better than any other service? If you don’t want to pay, then don’t. If you want to wait, then wait, but cut Kris and Thomas some slack. They are doing great work and haven’t asked for anything in return until now.

And is $20.00 really that much? If you’re posting pictures on Zooomr then you have a digital camera. Odds are you spent at least a few hundred dollars (or a few thousand) to get the camera. You pay monthly for an Internet connection. You paid for your computer. All this adds up to a lot of money. I personally a have less $3000 into my camera, computer, and software so $20 is nothing. If you use Windows consider this – Windows costs a lot for an OS, and it is about the buggiest thing I’ve ever seen, still millions of people use it everyday with no expectation Microsoft will ever turn out a better product. I know Zooomr will work, and it will work fabulously.

Zooomr is only asking $20. That is such a small amount of money for anyone who can afford even the most basic point and shoot camera. If you go out with some buddies for the night you will easily spend $20 before you even start to feel a buzz. It’s such a small amount of money that I can’t believe people are complaining.

True, at this point you don’t get much for it. Just think of it as a donation to Zooomr. I ate out with my family and a couple of friends from out of town last night. We left a $20 tip for the waiter (it was not overly generous based on the bill, but respectable). Kris and Thomas have done a lot more for me than the waiter did. Rauol Pop makes some good arguments for upgrading to a Pro account on his blog. The most obvious one is that Zooomr doesn’t have limits on uploads. He also mentions some bugs that got fixed recently.

The price of the Pro account is not worth complaining about. You can afford it. The features will work, you know they will. Be patient, show your support, and pay the $20.

Search your soul, you’ll probably realize you’ve used $20 worth of Zooomr features, even the ones that don’t work yet.

I’ll have a photo tomorrow, I just had to get this off my chest and support Zooomr.