Regional pricing
It costs the average Russian nearly two day's wages to pay for ProtonMail Visionary. It costs the average German just over two hours.
Average wages vary drastically throughout the world, which is why large international companies like Spotify accomodate poorer nations. The same Spotify premium plan is equiv to USD 18.42 in Denmark compared to USD 4.50 in Argentina. This opens up their market to a global audience who would otherwise be unable to afford their service.
So what can we do to prevent someone in Switzerland paying for ProtonMail in Mexican Pesos?
Global issuer identification numbers: the first six digits of every single Visa, MasterCard, Amex issued is associated with the country of issue, the card type (credit, debit, prepaid), and the bank that issues it.
This would stop an Australian with a 375414xxxxxxxxx paying for the service in Russian rubles.
This can be gradually rolled out country-by-country for simplicity.
PayPal, Bitcoin, mailed cash payments could all be linked to CHF as-is now.
Sources:
* Wages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage
* IIN database: https://binlist.net/
* Spotify Pricing: http://mts.io/projects/spotify-pricing/
* Stolen idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/5pgnz3/adjusted_prices_for_different_markets_and_locall/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number#Issuer_identification_number_.28IIN.29
syd2ter
shared this idea
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Anonymous
commented
The following comment is for the originator of this comment "Local currencies with country-based pricing" shown above:
so what would prevent someone from obtaining a credit or bank card from another poorer country? Seems counterintuitive, but I would agree with the comments supposition, makes perfect sense. -
Anonymous
commented
it would increase the revenue that s for sure
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Anonymous
commented
it s a great idea ,people paying from a country with discount will just have to pay by credit card
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Krshn
commented
Yeah its really expensive as well for an Indian person.. When you have to pay in Dollar/Euro.
Kindly, consider introducing INR as a currency for upgrading the account.
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Anonymous
commented
This prices are really expensive for a Turkish person because Euro and US Dolar / Turkish Lira ratio is too high. I want to use your paid services, i hope you can adjust it equally to our currency.
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OlivierSPb
commented
This is only my opinion but usually products and services are always sold for a price including cost + margin. So the variable part could be only the margin as the costs are not related to the country of the subscriber.
Spotify is aiming to individuals, so it his their choice to try to attract more users by having a tier-pricing strategy is theirs. And if you want to accept either paypal or bitcoins or any kind of electronic wallet for example, it seems to me that it is impossible to filter.
And I would say that if you are interested in a visionary plan, you are a serious user with needs much over the needs of an average individual or you intend to be a corporate user.
I would say that in this case that pricing is not really relevant for a corporate usage as long as it remains reasonable.
In fact you have two choices:
1) Either you want things for free, in this case prepare yourself to abandon privacy. It is not free, your data will be sold, your mails scanned to plague you with "adequate" advertisements...
2) Or you value your privacy and as you understand that a company needs direct or indirect revenue, and prioritizing privacy means that you have to prepare your wallet!
I have myself considered to use it for a corporate use, but some features like the impossibility to back-up the mails for example are a clear no-go for corporate use.
But if it had been adequate I would have considered the cost of a visionary plan as affordable.