Disappointing to see you doubled your premium service. I visited here this morning and it was $1/month. By the time I managed to get my export from Google Reader and returned to load it, it’s now $2/month.
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The prices for dog food increased. That, or he has to buy a whole bunch of new servers. 
But monthly or quarter-yearly payments would be nice. *nitpick* ^^
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One would think that an increase in the number of paying customers would cover the necessary increase in resources. Otherwise the price can be expected to increase again and again as the service gains more users.
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@Mat: Let’s hope not. $1 was awesome, $2 is OK, $3 would be borderline, above I’d think about setting up my own private NewsBlur instance. I already have a few servers I could use, so that wouldn’t cost me anything.
@Gareth and @Adrian: That’s how I’d interpret it too.
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I was lucky enough to jump at the beginning, right when I saw what the site was capable of. And although I do not find everything I would want yet, I know I will get it. I am happy.
I used Google Reader for my job…2 bucks a month is nothing compared to the time and effort I would have spent going to each website to get my information.
I am very happy to have found Newsblur…relieved is more like it.
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$2/month is nothing for this service… as long as it works. He had to (at least temporarily) reduce the traffic for free on super super cheap accounts to keep the service running. What is your problem?
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I drop $2-3 on a cup of coffee without blinking. I’d much prefer newsblur be a success than quibble over $1/month
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Chris, I understand that a heavy user would be happy to pay $25 or $30/year. But I don’t use RSS that much and would have bought two years at $24 happily and hardly used the service (but it would be there when I needed it).
In the meantime, I’ve gone with Feedly which looks very, very good - although it’s less traditional. Looked everywhere for somewhere to send Feedly $10. There’s nowhere! Not sure I like the idea of completely free either. That was Google Reader.
Gosh, you’re all so wonderful. Yes, it’s temporary for the reasons outlined above.
Also, Alec, read this great essay by the Pinboard guy Maciej Ceglowski: http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t…
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I am more than happy to pay $24/year for this - as Chris said, I drop $4 on a coffee (stupid Aussie economy) and don’t think anything of it. I used to almost live and breath by google reader, but NewsBlur relieves some of my reading anxiety with it’s filters. It’s very cool and well worth the small amount of money.
@donna, you’re also welcome to go download the source, fire up your own server instance at the hosting provider of your choice, and host it yourself, all “for free”.
Glib or not, even $36/year for a service many people will use every day, sometimes multiple times a day, is a pittance. $24 is practically giving it away anyway. $12 would seem like stealing at this point.
I would love to see an option that allows me to buy 1 month instead of a full year. You could even take a dollar more for that lonely month. But I want to try out the premium model first before I hand over $24 or $36 dollars for one year.
Will this be an option soon?
I’m glad to pay $24 a year for this service.
Hi Samuel,
I read the essay and agree with it. We are developers too with some pay and even more donationware.
I have no problem sending you money for my minimal use. Even $24 if you want it. But for my $24 I’d like to see two years.
Again if I were a heavy or even medium user I wouldn’t think twice about $24/year.
I think I log into Google reader once/month. But I don’t want to lose what I have there. I fit into the free plan still (even the reduced one) for my core sites so I guess I’m good. When you change the pricing back, I’ll likely send you some coin (I donate cash to open source projects all the time).
I was there with credit card in hand to send you $12 for a year or $24 for two even for my equivalent to free use.
It seems capitalism is not the right model for free web services. Since changing the model on a national or global scale is more of a long shot, perhaps there should be sort of state subsidy or “success insurance” for valuable free services.
I completely understand the pressures of the current situation, and after playing with Newsblur for a bit I agree that it’s well, well worth 2 or 3 bucks a month. I’m glad I found it!
Still, I think it would save a lot of confusion and resentment if the dev spent a couple of minutes adding a sentence to the Newsblur homepage explaining the current restrictions on free and low-cost account signups. Long-term, that’s a small time commitment that would save a bunch of goodwill.
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I know. When I signed up the other day, I was doing it based on something I saw at the website referencing $12 per year. As I signed up, it showed as $24 for the year. I didn’t complain, but I was surprised at the discrepancy.
I think the homepage is corrected, now … and I can’t complain anyway, since I got one of the last $12 subscriptions. 
There still seems to be a fair amount of online backlash about this, though. Hopefully when things calm down a little more Samuel will publicize his long-term plans for the pricing structure and freemium model.