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Change to donations system

A GM/IM would have to agree to do it. I haven't seen any GM/IMs writing to us about wanting to help out with a raffle like that.
I could take care of that if I get word that Lichess is genuinely interested in this sort of idea. I know plenty that would do it simply for the free exposure.
@ 40/41 Refine this idea slightly to you (as lichess) pay one experienced trainer for one hour of work and to record it
(lets forget about issue #1- the equipment for the work, just assume you have it ready and your chess master is at our place to use it). Also lets neglect first the costs for his work as we are talking about high quality work (it should really stand out and not to be something average by an amateur if possible) and something like this (good player with trainer experience and knowing the basics perfectly himself to explain it) might be worth up to 100€. (E.g. the price for a lesson with GM Artur Jussupow, the husband of my trainer, and for whom I'm working sometimes. IM Jaroslaw Krassowizkij, 1st German Bundesliga, 2nd Board if someone doubts me).
But as you see, there are many players who loves chess and love to support it (e.g. the ones on youtube sharing their experience games for free). Surely one of that guys will be glad to make videos for even only 20€/hour (since they do it for free now). Here you just have to select a real good one, who knows what he is doing, and who can provide you with stuff that is at least a bit more interesting than youtube :)
But in the final end it won't even matter how much his work will cost you, if you e.g. charge a premium for this video (and e.g. half the price if you are premium member). And might even not matter if it cost you 20 or 100, if you get an additional value of 500 out of it. And the whole idea is, in the short term you have lets say 5 hours of interesting material/month to see (so much time/money are the members willing to pay). But after time, you have a collection of series, which well planned will be your prime asset.
And if you think about it, you might see these videos (and also promote them as such) as the incoming donations for your site, so that all the profit goes to you to sustain/get the few working members a sallary. [It can work btw, as if you know the wargaming "world of warships", the members officially say they are willing to buy 2 premium ships each ~50€ to support their free to play game.] All you have to do is to find a competent master for your work, and I think you will get a lot of demand for his position at least (you might even include me if you like, as I am a co-trainer of the jussupows chess academy, altough only on specific areas)
So in short, not a premuim members pays his fee and get a free lesson, but you pay the "free" lesson (or about new 5 each month) and leverage these costs in the beginning through the premium charges. Just an idea
#42
Like OhNoMyPants (great name to cite^^) said, there are a lot who are willing to do this stuff, but to get sustainability, a real value in the chess material you get out of this, you have also to put a bit more effort to structure it, think about, and get the right people.
Let's not forget, lichess as it is is great and you don't have to change it after all
#43
@Strategymaster:

Unfortunately, I didn't read beyond "pay". Allow me to explain why:

1. Lichess, as is, does not need to invest in creating chess content. Much like how the free videos library collection is built, there is no real need for Lichess to invest outside the servers and the features it provides for now.

2. Any kind of arbitrary donation bucket split would require work in programming it. The developer (thibault) would need to spend time coding that, especially if it was some kind of criteria like 5% of all donations going to the IM. He could be building another feature instead, so why would he build something like this?

3. Lichess's aim is to provide free, quality chess playing experience for everyone. Having a raffle such that donors get a top-class treatment is fine only if it doesn't affect the free users. The fact that thibault would be working on a bucket like that instead of the primary features would contradict with this point.

Allow me to rephrase:

I haven't seen any GM/IMs writing to us about wanting to help out with a raffle like that for free.

Providing salary for the GM/IMs would give sustainability for the GM/IM's job but it's not in Lichess's necessity to provide that in the current state.
#44 @Strategymaster I think there would be a huge incentive for the masters to put on an excellent show. The whole point of benefit from their perspective is self marketing. Hundreds, probably thousands, of people will see the video. If the teaching and lesson is top notch that master is going to have new students lining up, and perhaps other opportunities as well again thanks to the exposure. On the other hand if the video is not so great then they've accomplished little other than wasting their time.

@Unihedron @thibault - So would Lichess be interested in trying something like this out?
I'll think about it. I'm on other priorities now, but the team will discuss this possibility. Thanks all for bringing it up.
How about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin? No fees. Also simple to implement because you will only have to provide the wallet address. It often has a high volatility but you might get more donors.
@The Stuff behind all this
Your decision is understandable and I won't bother you any further with this. I just thought you might remember this point as I said, my idea was not to generate additional money (or special treatment for any of your subscribers), but to adress the point of "providing quality chess experience (for free)". If your site grows, then you will reach more people for this purpose. I truly believe you did a great job and it should be worshiped and used by more people (especially since you don't do this for money and listen to your members on new features etc.).
If you would like to expand in some dimension (like giving actual chess material, but not the "this is how you play right chess" but rather "this is how it works and how to have more fun") there are ways how to minimize the effort and the time costs behind it, so that's not the point. You don't see the needs for this (rightfully I suppose) so as long as you don't see it as your vision to promote chess (but just to provide a chess platform) we don't even need to debate :) If in the future (as getting bigger e.g.) you might think about the latter point, you might decide otherwise.
Keep up and have a nice weekend!
I understand that you want control your revenue, by asking for a monthly fee. However I'm really reluctant to have a monthly cut on my bank account. What about a one year payment system with some kind of gentle email reminder or similar ? Anyway if I don't have the patron sign I will continue to donate around 50 euros annually.

And what about free (as in freedom) donation to players for making spectacle or recording video or whatever greet content with a fee for lichess ?

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