Mint Forum

That’s totally a complaint.

Anyway, Shaun wrote about why he thinks the upgrade was worthwhile on his blog. Maybe check there.

It definitely is worth the upgrade. Sure, it’s not an entirely new product, but the updates definitely deserve a new version. If you’re happy with Mint 1, stick with it, otherwise look at the $19 as a great investment. I’d rather pay that than spend potentially hundreds of hours creating the same thing.

Definitely complaining…if it’s not worth 19 bucks…don’t pay it. Really.

Other theme is just darker … I like the default more.

It’s very different than the first … but overall I’ve been happy with the upgrade, especially since it’s a great tool, and 2.0 (should) be much more useful powerful than the first, with API enhancements (thus more Pepper) and add-ins like Bird Feeder.

Have you seen this mod to Mint 2? mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2007/01/oh-minty-day

My first reaction, I was quite disapointed, when I saw that there was 19$ upgrade, but when I saw the new interface and upgraded features, it didn’t matter anymore.

Although I haven’t upgraded yet (still need to finish my new design), I definitely going to. (hopefully the end of the month)

BTW, how long will this 19$ upgrade be available for Mint v1 users?

Actually Shaun stated quite a few times on the forum that incremental upgrades were free but a major revision change (1.0 -> 2.0) would have a price attached.

Yeah, the price is in the same region as far as initial cost goes. There’re probably less expensive examples that’d be more suitable, but the fact is that if we’re going to be paying $19 every time Shaun considers an update major, it’ll mount up — especially for those who run multiple sites. $100 for just a few, bearing in mind we’re bearing the server resource load? Yeah, okay.

And Ginger, fair enough, but the fact is that while buying there was no indication you’re only purchasing the current version and won’t be entitled to updates that Shaun considers major. Granted, a small clause was thrown into the FAQ later into 2006, but that seems a bit dodgy to me.

If Mint 2 were dramatically different and introduced lots of exciting new features it’d be fine, but the fact is it isn’t and doesn’t. A better strategy would have been to allow loyal adopters of the previous version to have it for free, and then work on using their word of mouth and the new presentation to attract new customers. Instead, the strategy seems to be to sap the current audience for all it’s worth which is more likely to cause disgruntled users, plenty of whom I’ve come across.

But never mind. What’s done is done.

Thinking about it, I think the reason I’m a little bitter is because the first update after I bought Mint happened to be this one. Although I think my points still stand, the best way of easing poor hearts like mine would have been either a longer grandfather period or a lower upgrade price. The price being paid for the upgrade is disproportionate to the price of buying the whole thing afresh, as there certainly isn’t a 60% increase in value (again, factoring Peppers into the equation).

I do have a degree of understanding as this is the first major upgrade and Shaun has nothing to base the experience on, but I think better treatment of past customers would have gone a long way. Real world companies often bend over backwards to ensure every last customer is happy, even if it means being less feisty with pricing.

While I know Mint has a loyal user base who are happy to be vocal in its defence, this kind of repeated steep pricing is going to drive the product further into a niche as only people with money pouring out of their arse or trendy designers will bother with it as long as free (even if less capable) alternatives like FeedBurner and w3counter exist — especially considering you have to pay per site, which is without a doubt my biggest issue with the software considering the maintenance costs to Shaun are zero whether I run it on one or 50 sites. But then again, maybe limiting appeal is Shaun’s plan?

Ryan, that’s exactly my issue as well.

It is a fine bit of software but I can’t justify spending $95 to upgrade five hobby sites. The per-domain pricing when I originally bought was annoying, but since I bought each license separately, spread out over a couple of years at that, it was tolerable.

But per-domain upgrade pricing for something that has no extra support costs, grates a bit. That coupled with the price being 2/3 of a new user license and the very short grandfather interval grates more. The fact that I bought my fifth license on Dec 29, 2006 grates a lot.

A photoshop upgrade is less than a third of the cost of a full version and you know that it is coming out WAY ahead of time so the grandfather duration is irrelevant.

I’m sure everyone is just going to say “cheap bastard” and “you don’t have to upgrade”. Blah, blah. I already paid for five licenses (no pirate here). $150 is enough.

And now for the rest of time I have to stare at the “update available” badge on all five of my Mint Widgets in Dashboard.

I myself bought the upgrade, but was quite disappointed with the price. $19, when someone can buy it new for $30? I can’t really justify it.

Especially since, in my opinion the only real difference is the interface improvements. The other “changes” are nearly all simple performance improvements and changes that I would have expected in a 1.xx patch.

The additional peppers are cool, but the functionality already existed in third party peppers. Due to this, I feel Shaun let down the developers who worked so hard, only to have their creations rendered irrelevant.

I bought it anyway as if I had stayed on 1.x, I doubt Shaun would have provided us with additional improvements to it, choosing to continue to work on 2.x. It’s almost as if the upgrade was forced.

On a more positive note, I still love Mint itself! The new graphics are a welcome change, and I still love the Junior Mint integration. The graphs are neat, especially as they are pure CSS and not SVG, and therefore no need for an additional plugin.

I would say that if Mint 1.x works for you now, there is no reason you can’t stick with it and upgrade gradually later on. If the 3rd party peppers are working for you right now, keep using them. Heck, I just released a pepper for Mint 1 yesterday, so not everything is moving to Mint 2 yet.

In production environments, upgrades are not always done upon first release. You might want to wait out the bugs. Or you might just not need the new features. But later when you decide, “maybe that Bird Feeder pepper might be nice for this one site”, then you can justify the upgrade.

For my part, I purchased Mint in Dec 2005 and I only run the one site as a hobby site. But I understand how it can add up. These costs are part of the reason why I never made more than one hobby site. Personally I think the grandfather period should be 30 days rather than since Jan 1.