RStretton

Yesterday's Airlines Premium by rstretton, on Flickr

Hi Everyone,
For the past 6 years I’ve been posting for free at my site Yesterday’s Airlines and usually each year at this time I request donations to help keep it going. Unfortunately, the cost of running the site continues to increase and to enable it to survive and grow a new path is needed.

So, today I am excited to be launching Yesterday’s Airlines Premium.

For only USD$4 a month this gives you, the collector, a close up look at what is going on in 400 scale.

Follow this link to sign-up:

https://www.yesterdaysairlines.com/premium.html

With premium you get access to:

• 1:400 Scale Mould Reviews: The full regularly updated library of the models and moulds that have been made by each brand for a wide variety of different aircraft types.
• Detailed Mould Comparisons: Looking in detail at how competing moulds compare to each other and scoring them to decide who is the best in the business.
• Exclusive Mould Sample Insights: First looks at new moulds from manufacturers such as NG Models, Panda Models and JC Wings.
• The Latest Model News and Reviews: All the latest news from China about what is being made, why and whether you should buy it.
• The History of 1:400 Brands: A growing history of who's who and the background of all the major brands since 1:400 scale began in the late 1990s.

I will be looking at reporting more closely at new releases and expanding out the above sections to keep you up to date with all facets of the scale.

Thanks,

Richard

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Richard


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JayBird

Would you consider a yearly rate in addition to monthly?

RStretton

I did consider it but it adds complexity and introduces the issue of cancellation refunds, which I can't easily do, and what happens if I can't sustain the site for an entire year (that's not likely but you never know what might happen). So if refunds are taken off the table I'm open to the concept.

What is the issue with a monthly subscription? I'm happy to discuss an annual fee on a 1:1 basis - you can contact me through the contact form here: https://www.yesterdaysairlines.com/about.html . It might be possible for me to send some form of invoice - not sure.

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Richard


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romeomike

Hi Richard, I just subscribed. Going forward, I would prefer a single annual payment, if you can make it work. To me, $4 a month is a very reasonable amount to ask subscribers to pay, considering the wealth of information made available by you. I do hope that collectors will respond positively to your initiative. In my mind, I knew it would only be a matter of time before you would have to take this step. Best wishes!

RStretton

Thank you Roy. I've held off this decision as long as I can but the cost of the site is getting out of hand and the effort involved in producing the material is substantial.

I don't want to charge people an annual fee if there isn't enough demand to support it as if enough people don't join up I'll have to rethink things, but I'll see how it goes. Also having a second product introduces a substantial extra cost as Weebly doesn't support subscription products out of the box annoyingly.

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Richard


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FrenjaminBanklin

By cost of running the site are you referring to hosting costs?

RStretton

That is one of the costs yes plus the domain name. The other is the Flickr pro license, which has got very expensive and is used to support and publicise the material on the forums especially. Obviously I'm not doing this just to cover those costs. They were typically just about covered by the donation drive in previous years but that relied on several individuals being very generous.

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Richard


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FrenjaminBanklin

I am only asking out of interest because I have and manage my own web hosting servers, so I am familiar with the costs and effort involved. Of course the true cost in time/effort is much higher than a few dollars spent on hosting, to produce the quality content that you do. I wish you success in this venture.

JayBird

I was just thinking that it's a "small" monthly charge - and I'd prefer to have 1 bigger charge - but it's fine. Especially if it adds complexity/costs to you - that's not something that I'd want to see happen. I'm going to go sign-up now. Thanks!

RStretton

Thank you very much. I just sent through the link to get access.

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Richard


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JJ Skippy

Honest opinion: I’m not a fan of this premium subscription to access more content, but I fully understand why you’re doing it. I wish you the best of luck for you and your website in the future.

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My BIGGEST requests for new 1:400 releases
- Frontier 737-200 Saul Bass
- United Airbus A320 Evo Blue
- Allegiant Douglas DC-9, first livery
- Northwest Airlink CRJ-200 Bowling Shoe
- North Central DC-9-30 w/ Gold Trim

Latest arrivals: GeminiJets Delta MD-90 Widget

doug seeley

What about an 'a la carte' option - an idea that may be impracticable, and perhaps unworkable, but maybe a 'Pay for View" option, where someone looking for a review of a model of personal interest might pay a one-time charge to view a particular review - maybe a $3 charge using PayPal to facilitate the transaction? Just a thought, Doug

RStretton

That is unlikely to bring in enough revenue to be worthwhile and is also impossible to implement. You guys understand that this isn't my job and I don't hand code the website?

This isn't aimed at you Doug but the lack of support from the community for such a tiny charge is galling. Basically people want the content but refuse to pay anything for it. No wonder almost all magazines and papers are in trouble.

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Richard


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RStretton

Hi,
Unfortunately it is clear that there aren't enough people willing to actively support my work at Yesterday's Airlines and so reluctantly I am cancelling the Premium concept. I want to thank those who did subscribe, your support was deeply appreciated.

The feedback I received prior to the go-live was positive but obviously the feedback from the community has on the whole not been so and I see little prospect of that changing enough to make it a viable proposition.

What does that mean for the site? To be honest I'm not sure. I will try and cut my costs and add some advertising, but also most likely just cut back on producing content, especially that which provides me with no return on investment. Whether there is a viable way forward for the site I can't say for certain.

I am once again dependent on donations to cover my costs so if anyone wants to help cover the renewal fees the donation button is available on the homepage. I have reverted the entire site back to free access.

Thanks once again to those that subscribed.

Regards,

Richard

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Richard


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Big Al

Sorry it hasn't worked out for you. In my profession we too are experiencing cuts and redundancies because of the ever increasing numbers of people who refuse to pay and expect to consume our output for free. I myself did consider your service having enjoyed it previously, but decided against any more cost in a hobby that I'll probably be slowly extracting myself from in the next year or so, owing to it's overall increasing unaffordability. But hey ho, there you go.

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Let's be having, the British Airways/British, Negus & Negus BAC 1-11-500 in 1:400 please !

barison82

I'm sorry too Richard, and what Big Al says above mirrors my position as well. I cannot afford any more added cost to what is an already very expensive hobby. I'll have to slowly wind it in myself at some point.

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Storm

For myself i like what you do Richard and think it has great merits in the hobby, especially allowing new people in the hobby a great location to learn various things from. And i'm sure there is something for everyone. And in no way do i think you should stop what you are doing, especially as it's a hobby of your's too.
I echo the comments of others, that at the moment i too am trying to reduce any outgoings. For myself specifically though i found it a little questionable to be paying a monthly fee of nearly 50% of the cost of Netflix to access the content on your site. If your costs are that great i'm sure there most be something on the market cheaper! Perhaps (this is only a suggestion and please feel free to ignore), if you to be transparent with costings etc on a crowdfunding page or some such thing i'm sure you would be hitting and covering costs very quickly via donations and allow you to carry on doing the great work you are doing.

Please don't take any of this the wrong way, because i like what you are doing and hope that you continue.

JJ Skippy

I’m sorry the premium service didn’t work out for you and I’ll apologize as well if I was so harsh on you for doing this. I’ve been getting fed up with other websites doing the same thing, but I’ve always understood why they were doing it, including you. Just know I fully respect you and your website and I look forward to what’s to come.

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My BIGGEST requests for new 1:400 releases
- Frontier 737-200 Saul Bass
- United Airbus A320 Evo Blue
- Allegiant Douglas DC-9, first livery
- Northwest Airlink CRJ-200 Bowling Shoe
- North Central DC-9-30 w/ Gold Trim

Latest arrivals: GeminiJets Delta MD-90 Widget

romeomike

Richard, I received your email last evening and am very sorry at these developments. I truly appreciate your work and contributions to the hobby and have no issue with supporting the site financially. I will continue to do so.

I look at it this way. At $48 per annum, the subscription fee represented the average price of one new model from my suppliers. It is a small price to pay for the many hundreds of dollars I've saved by reading/watching your reviews prior to buying models. I've been saved from making some bad choices!

I do hope that you will receive the financial support needed to ensure the viability of Yesterday's Airlines. It would be a huge blow to the hobby to lose it.

Good luck and best wishes are you seek the right solution.

Smol_Plane

I'm really sorry it didn't work out, Richard. My plan had been to subscribe when you released something that I really wanted to look at (i.e. a new mould review), but it seems that this project fell through quite quickly.

I really hope you're able to keep the site going, since it has proved to be an extremely valuable resource for me as a new 1:400 collector, and also probably many more people out there.

I looked at it the same way as romeomike, and hence was willing to subscribe, so I may consider donating now, since clearly the site requires it to keep going.

Thanks,

Smol_Plane

RStretton

In regards to being 50% of a Netflix subscription - the business model is hardly the same and Netflix is supported by shareholders and operates in a massive volume market. It is arguable whether it really makes any money anyway.

I am one person manually creating 100% of the site content. I have a day job and a family. Creating content for this site probably consumes 20-30 hours a week of my time. I'm not going to mention what I get paid an hour but it is a lot more than $0 which is what I get for the work at Yesterday's Airlines. Yes it is my hobby and yes I enjoy it, mostly, but the question is whether it is worth the cost to me to do it for nothing which apparently is the expectation of many - who themselves do nothing.

The idea of premium wasn't just to cover my hosting costs it was to support the creation of the work itself. People chose not to do that, for many reasons I understand, but it hardly leaves me feeling like continuing business as usual. As I said the site isn't dead but I need to find a way to make it more worth my while. That may or may not be possible.

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Richard


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Aviaction

Although my site is a different area of aviation, just to show all the Crap I have! I went with Go Daddy and costs are under £100? for two years.

Agree on time I still have to photo 350 odd 1/400 BA models.

Can you not migrate to a cheaper website host?
Or use the old trick -telephone and say you are leaving....

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https://www.londonairport.info

RStretton

I will say this one more time. Premium wasn't about just paying the fees for the site. It was also about getting some return on the huge investment I put in.

I also use Weebly, which offers tools and capability that others don't such as some hosting service like GoDaddy. I have a site with literally thousands of pages of information on it. Transferring isn't an option for both technical and functional reasons. I am over hearing of alternative solutions thanks.

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Richard


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LiveryCollector

To be honest, I understand why people bring up the cost of the website. Because in your initial post it seems like that was the main reason for premium, not your invested time. And although I completely understand that the effort you put in the website is huge, asking people to get something in return for time invested or running cost are 2 different things in my opinion. I feel like the latter changes what you do a little more from a hobby into work.

Don't get me wrong I will for sure donate this year on your website because I appreciate your work, but my advice would be to mainly keep the hobby fun and balanced for yourself.

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Collector of special airplane liveries in 1/400 scale!

RStretton

I struggle with this attitude as it makes no sense at all.

I produce a product. How many products do you get for free? Do you go into a shop and expect products for free? When you buy a Coke are you paying just for the liquid and the can - of course you aren't. You are paying for a myriad of things especially the time the employees took to make the product.

Do you expect artists and musicians to give you their art for free? Time is the biggest running cost when creative material is involved. I can pay for the site and not put any content in it - would you prefer that? You are not doing me a favour reading the site.

Also I said "to enable it to survive and grow" but in the end it is irrelevant what people thought my reasons were. There was a choice given and people chose. Most weren't willing to support the site costs or me as a creator of content. That is their prerogative.

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Richard


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LiveryCollector

The word 'hobby' is the key here. You produce a product (the website) as a hobby. And that is simply not what a company does.

Imagine if I start a website to show my model airport etc. as a hobby for myself, and partly to share it with others. Initially you don't start that to get your time invested cost back because its a hobby so you enjoy it and you want other people to enjoy it as well. I presume that's also how your website started and with you a lot of others out there.

Now ofcourse during that time you appreciate when people support you with the running cost because that's partly how you keep the hobby alive, especially when it becomes more expensive to keep the website up and running.
The way I was reading your initial post is that premium was the way to keep the hobby alive because of the increasing cost. That's why a lot of people I think came up with ideas regarding website cost because it seemed like the main problem.

To me when people are starting to ask money for the time invested in a hobby it sounds like they either want to make it more like work or are spending to much time/effort on it.

The above is just my 2 cents so I hope you don't get me wrong. I appreciate your work and I will for sure support you this year.

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Collector of special airplane liveries in 1/400 scale!

RStretton

The majority of 1:400 brands and retailers, Aeroclassics for instance, could be described as hobbies so I really don't know what you're on about and the distinction is completely artificial.

You may be right about me spending too much time on it but I think you'll find many hobbies became successful businesses and you seem to suggest there is something wrong with that. Almost as if I'm trying to defraud you somehow. It is irrelevant why I do what I do and I don't need to justify it. The question has always been whether it has value to others and that is all that matters.

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Richard


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LiveryCollector

Maybe our view of a hobby/work/business differ but that is fine.

I don't think we quite understand each other and I don't want to turn this in a very long discussion so I let it rest. The defraud and not wanting you to have a successful business are wrong feelings tho 😉

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Collector of special airplane liveries in 1/400 scale!

Jonatan

Have you tried maybe doing reviews on an Instagram or FB page?
It's less text, less hassle and less expensive.
We are several thousand members on the FB groups, it gives you an idea of the reach.

I don't think paying to access premium content is a bad idea, I understand the value of the time you spend working on the reviews, but maybe it's just too soon for it to work.

RStretton

I post to Facebook groups a lot and Instagram too but if you mean just writing the content on there it'd be so short as to be worthless. I've yet to see anything on Instagram that has any real value. Facebook is almost as bad unless it is linking to elsewhere. DAC is one of the smaller audiences that's for sure.

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Richard


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BWI-ROCman

One can set up a regular $4 monthly donation to Yesterday's Airlines through it's donation link. That's what I did. That's the cost of one bag of Oreos a month. (Yes, I am familiar with the cost of Oreos.)

Jim

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The greatest need in 1:400: Reissues of Major Passenger-Carrier 747 Classics: -100/200, -300, and SP, of NG / Aeroclassics / Big Bird Mk. 1 quality. Examples: American; United Blue-Star, Bass; TWA double globe, double stripe; Pan Am delivery; British Airways Negus, Landor; KLM 70's-80's blue top; Air France 70's-80's; Lufthansa 70's-80's; Aer Lingus delivery; Sabena 80's circle-s; Japan Air Lines 70's-80s; All Nippon 70's; and Qantas 70's-80's.

captainflynn

Although I'm aware of your website I confess that I don't frequently view it but I am aware of the quality content that you post.
It's a shame that your costs for hosting the website have been increasing. My understanding is that you are often sent sample models to review, often they can be worth quite a lot of money and so would it be plausible to possibly sell off some of your samples as a means to fund your server/hosting costs? I can understand why you wouldn't want to do this as samples are rare and unique but this is just a suggestion to help you keep your website alive.
Good luck though.

RStretton

Ironically as I live in NZ selling models is actually really tough. Kiwis don't care about planes on the whole. The NG samples I've been sent also appear largely worthless once they start production of actual models with them.

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Richard


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captainflynn

NG Samples are worthless? I must admit I've never seen any samples from NG on ebay or anywhere so I can't really comment but I thought they might have been popular.
It was just an idea though. Good luck with whatever you choose to do, I hope it works out.