Quote from gotetiaditya@outlook.com on July 9, 2023, 3:35 pm

That's Not Fair.
I signed up for the PU course only because it is for life time access.
I want the access back.

Quote from gotetiaditya@outlook.com on July 9, 2023, 3:45 pm

I want ot download all the lessons and books at least for my version.  Give me Lifetime Access.

It is totally unfair to suddenly stop access to my course.

Looking for my access back as soon. as possible.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 9, 2023, 4:31 pm

Quote from gotetiaditya@outlook.com on July 9, 2023, 3:35 pm

That's Not Fair.
I signed up for the PU course only because it is for life time access.
I want the access back.

Write support for the extension, please.

As for discussing the decision, let me preface I'm unluckily very biased here.

With that fundamental preface in place, here's what I think:

I frankly think it's a manipulative power move to say "I only signed up because... ". 

Here's why:

Would you sign up if you thought that it would add zero value to your life, only because it was lifetime access?

An extreme example can well show the dynamics here:

Imagine I'm going to launch a "PU v2" right now.
Just for you.
It's one single lesson, written in hieroglyphics.
BUT... It's lifetime access.

Would you sign up?
If you take your decisions based only on lifetime access, then... You would.

But my guess is that you wouldn't.

In truth, you signed up for PU also because you thought it could add value to your life.
To deny that, is:

• Insulting to the creator of the course (and the whole community who contributed, to it)
• Insulting to you, too, since if it were true, it's not very smart to spend without making sure you're getting value back

But most of all, it's:

• A damn blatant lie that framed you really poorly at a character level

Maybe the "unlimited access" was also important for you.

That's certainly possible.

Unluckily, when one starts with the manipulative angle, it's tough to then grant the benefit of the doubt.

And it's tough for them to go back to a more balanced -and honest- stance because his reputation is half-burned -or completely burned-.

HONEST DISCUSSIONS WELCOME

The funny thing is that you'd have a valid right to demand your access which I also totally recognize.

Not a legal one because of the T&Cs, but certainly a moral one. (Still one wants to be careful how he goes about it, else it turns into a guilt trip. See for example the man who tries to keep his spouse in a relationship reminding her of the wedding vows and making her feel guilty, while forgetting how the relationship turned toxic).

So if anyone still disagrees, please do share.

I'm happy to have an honest discussion with anyone who disagrees or thinks this is unfair.

And I'm also happy to share more details if anyone wants to know, as well as welcoming alternative solutions (John's ideas were wonderful for example, just of difficult implementation for now).

MANIPULATIVE APPROACHES, NOT...

But of all the places, TPM knows this:

You cannot have an honest exchange with someone who manipulates and pulls power moves.

If you're a person who wants to be honest and fair, it'd be a terrible lose-win sucker's trade to deal with them.

You treat them well and as worthy of respect, and they attack you and disempower you -and not treat you respectfully-.

When the other person has sub-communicated his win-lose agenda very clearly, you can only lose to engage them honestly.

In this case:

• Started with a manipulative move, the "I only joined for the unlimited access" (yeah, sure... )
• Started with a disempowering power move: "I want my access back (move your ass)" rather than, say, a more power-protecting one such as "so I ask for..." or "so I think it's only fair if... "
• Disregarded all your reasons to go ahead, ie. the stance is "I only care about what's in it for me, and don't give a fuck if you'd have to operate at a loss and have to shut down business in the future"

I don't know if I'm more disappointed at this whole approach, or that PU failed to teach better as well more effective ways.

On the plus side and to end on a positive note, I want to add this:

Many have already written for an extension.
The vast, vast majority of people have been understanding and welcoming to the point that I felt both blessed, proud, and honored to have so many great folks in PU.

Quote from Gguwad on July 9, 2023, 6:38 pm

Agreeing with John here.

Site will grow and seems like there will be thousands more that will be happy to sign for the course so at least there shouldn't be a problem with future sustainability ( I don't know that really, demand may not be as high as I think or competition is tough ). It may even come to a point when users from the past are small amount of all users.

You lose a lot of loyalty from them. People that used this site for years may feel angry and when the deadline approaches, they will get all the content they can and never return as they will feel cheated that they agreed on lifetime access and yet it turned into something they have to pay yearly.

Agreeing that lifetime access is unsustainable and will have to be changed sooner or later.

Also biased here, of course lifetime access is a value for me and if possible I want to preserve it but the things I learned already from 4 months of being here are so big and for sure I will do 100% before 12 months end, that I won't be angry if I lose access at the end. But many will be, no matter the words one uses and even if it is fair.

I don't know the numbers, there are under 4000 forum users, all people that bought PU I would say is at max 10000? Knowing that this is so little percent of all the people that know english and would be interested in this content is there even a need to think about restricting access to old users? I may have the numbers wrong but if there are so many possible customers all that is achieved is losing a brand credibility, as people may turn angry and spread bad word about ThePowerMoves.

In the end it's your website so you know what's the best for it, it may just be so accepting possible losses and limiting access for everyone will be the best option.

Quote from Maxi_Levi on July 9, 2023, 6:39 pm

Hello, Lucio. These news are indeed disappointing to read. i agree with John (and i'll highlight exactly with what of what he said i agree; and what i don't agree with in my quote of him, i wont highlight), on the matter of this retroactive decision being quite unfair towards existing Customers/Students/Alumni, with whom, in the past (but pointing to a future via an ever continuous present), you've already struck the deal of lifetime access to power university AND its updates...

Quote from John Freeman on July 4, 2023, 1:18 pm

Hello Lucio,

personally I'm not in favour for restricting access to past customers in general. Changing the duration of the access and support for new customers I totally understand. For past customers who accepted the term of the contract as "unlimited access" this retroactive change of the terms feels unfair to me. It feels like a unilateral change of the terms of the contract. So I think this could be solved by changing the rules for future customers and leaving the unlimited access to past customers untouched.

Regarding the support, I totally agree with you to limit it. Personally I think it's fair that support is limited in time and don't mind that this rule is applied retroactively in my specific case. However, for coherence's sake I think this also should apply from now on to new customers only. Differentiating access and support does not bother me at all.

There is also a side-effect on your end I believe. If past customers don't have access anymore to PU, they won't probably buy it yearly. They also might try to download it to secure their continuous access to it. So it creates a grey zone that incentivize people to download it whereas they would have no gain from doing so before since they would be assured of continuous access. So I actually think this would incentivize piracy.

Moreover, they won't go back-and-forth over time (Learning power dynamics is a process in years) so it might limit their learning and the potential feed-back they could give based on their learning. So to me, applying it to past customers is lose-lose. That's how I feel.

A suggestion would be to ask for a fee to past customers for each new version and if not paid, the person would stay at the previous version. For instance, each update could cost 5-10 dollars per customer.

To me, the problem is less about continuous access than continuous support. So personally I would only address the later and leave unchanged the former.

Edit: Personally, receiving reminders that I have to finish an online course, whatever the topic I don't like it. There are already enough deadlines and constraints in our personal and professional lives. Self-development is not something where I want to feel pressured like I have a deadline.

If the matter is that financially the deal does not work on your side for unlimited access, another option is to have 2 different fees: yearly fee or unlimited fee (that you could charge more of course).

Going back on your word concerning the conditions of a deal already made (i.e., your customer gets lifetime access to your product "Power University" AND its future updates, in exchange for a 1 time fee that they pay upfront), no doubt, in my view, is damaging to all parties involved...

Because you'd (and by extension your business TPM) most likely lose a great degree of trust, respect and credibility; Any person or business reneging on their promises/commitments/agreements, would "suffer" the same, as their integrity and reliability come into considerable question...A man's word is james bond?

if it were the other way around, and you were the customer of any other business, that made a deal with you, with certain beneficial conditions in place, and gave you a guarantee that these conditions are permanent (lifetime access and such...), and then, at some point, unilaterally, decided to go back on your deal, and change the conditions, renege on its commitments towards you, as per the original deal's agreement, leaving you with conditions that are worse off than what you mutually agreed upon, originally, you would, most likely, correct me if i'm wrong on this, not appreciate that, to say the least...you'd probably get upset/angry/pissed off, to this or that degree ("dissapointed" is the lesser degree; i think that's the basic given sentiment that such a situation would likely arise in most customers), because you'd feel the obvious unfairness directed towards you, by said business.

On the other hand, changing the proposed conditions, in deals offered to future customers/students, hence forth, is, as far as i see it, a totally legitimate business decision and course/direction change; Future potential customers may decide if these new deal conditions suit them or not, and proceed accordingly, but for existing (legacy) customers/students/alumni, with whom the conditions of the deal were different (and more adventagous), this is a definite lose, and a worsening of the conditions they agreed to...whether it's a Lose-Lose or more of a Win-Lose, it's definitely not a Win-Win scenario for Legacy Customers/Students/Alumni of PU.

In such an unfavorable scenario/reality, being able to, at least, download (or/and have continuing online access to) the latest version of PU (but then, a clear notice of a a whole year, upfront, would be more appropriate, in my view), that a student was on, before his year was up, would be in order. However, although definitely better than not doing it (as some compensation, as it were, is better than no compensation, of course), it still wouldn't be all the way fair, just because the original agreement included not only lifetime access to PU, as it is, but also to all its subsequent future updates...since it's an ever evolving and developing  project...(that as mentioned in this thread, also benifits and grows, due to PU community members' feedback, interactions, participations, discussions and contributions).

That's my personal view on this issue.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 9, 2023, 8:41 pm

Quote from DGX37 on July 9, 2023, 6:38 pm

Site will grow and seems like there will be thousands more that will be happy to sign for the course so at least there shouldn't be a problem with future sustainability ( I don't know that really, demand may not be as high as I think or competition is tough ). It may even come to a point when users from the past are small amount of all users.

You lose a lot of loyalty from them. People that used this site for years may feel angry and when the deadline approaches, they will get all the content they can and never return as they will feel cheated that they agreed on lifetime access and yet it turned into something they have to pay yearly.

Agreeing that lifetime access is unsustainable and will have to be changed sooner or later.

Also biased here, of course lifetime access is a value for me and if possible I want to preserve it but the things I learned already from 4 months of being here are so big and for sure I will do 100% before 12 months end, that I won't be angry if I lose access at the end. But many will be, no matter the words one uses and even if it is fair.

I don't know the numbers, there are under 4000 forum users, all people that bought PU I would say is at max 10000? Knowing that this is so little percent of all the people that know english and would be interested in this content is there even a need to think about restricting access to old users? I may have the numbers wrong but if there are so many possible customers all that is achieved is losing a brand credibility, as people may turn angry and spread bad word about ThePowerMoves.

In the end it's your website so you know what's the best for it, it may just be so accepting possible losses and limiting access for everyone will be the best option.

Not really the case, I'm afraid.

The financial side and how it weighed on this decision is an important part of this.

I can't go too much in details here, but this should be publicly accessible info from Semrush, and it's not too far off:

Site has been hit by several waves of demotions.

The official stance is that searchers find the best information and content.

But that's obviously not true: TPM has improved immensely from the peak of visits: both in quantity and quality.
And it also reflects on the metrics that should form the "objective backbone". Those who land here now spend more time and visit more pages compared to when it had a lot more visitors.

So, what gives?

Is there throttling going on?

I only have some speculations.

But bottom line is that while this may recover, it may also worsen (and if it's true that trends tend to keep on going, well...).

You're right that the addressable market is huge, but that never was the constraint.
It doesn't matter where there are 1 billion people that speak English, half or that, or 10 times that.
If you don't reach them, it doesn't mean anything.

So it's about thriving and... I also gotta think about surviving.

Thriving because if you want to improve, you need to invest.
Professionally done infographics, better and more self-produced videos, and maybe a better delivery system in the future. PU needs that to get to the next level.
TPM is investing now and going counter-cyclically. We're betting that, eventually, top quality will pay off-.
But it's just that, a bet -hopefully, an informed one-.

And surviving because if it continues like that, it is about surviving.
If you're struggling to reach out new folks, being able to rely on those who already know the quality may as well provide the shed that saves you from the bubbling storm.

Some will not be happy.

I get that.

It's basic psychology and of all the places, we know that here.
Add more value without marketing it much, and it's human psychology to discount that.
Take the value away, and human psychology enters into "defend the acquired goods" mode.

But if TPM is to help good men reach the top, it needs to thrive and survive to do that first and foremost.

Quote from Maxim Levinsky on July 9, 2023, 6:39 pm

Hello, Lucio. These news are indeed disappointing to read. i agree with John (and i'll highlight exactly with what of what he said i agree; and what i don't agree with in my quote of him, i wont highlight), on the matter of this retroactive decision being quite unfair towards existing Customers/Students/Alumni, with whom, in the past (but pointing to a future via an ever continuous present), you've already struck the deal of lifetime access to power university AND its updates...

Quote from John Freeman on July 4, 2023, 1:18 pm

Hello Lucio,

personally I'm not in favour for restricting access to past customers in general. Changing the duration of the access and support for new customers I totally understand. For past customers who accepted the term of the contract as "unlimited access" this retroactive change of the terms feels unfair to me. It feels like a unilateral change of the terms of the contract. So I think this could be solved by changing the rules for future customers and leaving the unlimited access to past customers untouched.

Regarding the support, I totally agree with you to limit it. Personally I think it's fair that support is limited in time and don't mind that this rule is applied retroactively in my specific case. However, for coherence's sake I think this also should apply from now on to new customers only. Differentiating access and support does not bother me at all.

There is also a side-effect on your end I believe. If past customers don't have access anymore to PU, they won't probably buy it yearly. They also might try to download it to secure their continuous access to it. So it creates a grey zone that incentivize people to download it whereas they would have no gain from doing so before since they would be assured of continuous access. So I actually think this would incentivize piracy.

Moreover, they won't go back-and-forth over time (Learning power dynamics is a process in years) so it might limit their learning and the potential feed-back they could give based on their learning. So to me, applying it to past customers is lose-lose. That's how I feel.

A suggestion would be to ask for a fee to past customers for each new version and if not paid, the person would stay at the previous version. For instance, each update could cost 5-10 dollars per customer.

To me, the problem is less about continuous access than continuous support. So personally I would only address the later and leave unchanged the former.

Edit: Personally, receiving reminders that I have to finish an online course, whatever the topic I don't like it. There are already enough deadlines and constraints in our personal and professional lives. Self-development is not something where I want to feel pressured like I have a deadline.

If the matter is that financially the deal does not work on your side for unlimited access, another option is to have 2 different fees: yearly fee or unlimited fee (that you could charge more of course).

Going back on your word concerning the conditions of a deal already made (i.e., your customer gets lifetime access to your product "Power University" AND its future updates, in exchange for a 1 time fee that they pay upfront), no doubt, in my view, is damaging to all parties involved...

Because you'd (and by extension your business TPM) most likely lose a great degree of trust, respect and credibility; Any person or business reneging on their promises/commitments/agreements, would "suffer" the same, as their integrity and reliability come into considerable question...A man's word is james bond?

if it were the other way around, and you were the customer of any other business, that made a deal with you, with certain beneficial conditions in place, and gave you a guarantee that these conditions are permanent (lifetime access and such...), and then, at some point, unilaterally, decided to go back on your deal, and change the conditions, renege on its commitments towards you, as per the original deal's agreement, leaving you with conditions that are worse off than what you mutually agreed upon, originally, you would, most likely, correct me if i'm wrong on this, not appreciate that, to say the least...you'd probably get upset/angry/pissed off, to this or that degree ("dissapointed" is the lesser degree; i think that's the basic given sentiment that such a situation would likely arise in most customers), because you'd feel the obvious unfairness directed towards you, by said business.

On the other hand, changing the proposed conditions, in deals offered to future customers/students, hence forth, is, as far as i see it, a totally legitimate business decision and course/direction change; Future potential customers may decide if these new deal conditions suit them or not, and proceed accordingly, but for existing (legacy) customers/students/alumni, with whom the conditions of the deal were different (and more adventagous), this is a definite lose, and a worsening of the conditions they agreed to...whether it's a Lose-Lose or more of a Win-Lose, it's definitely not a Win-Win scenario for Legacy Customers/Students/Alumni of PU.

In such an unfavorable scenario/reality, being able to, at least, download (or/and have continuing online access to) the latest version of PU (but then, a clear notice of a a whole year, upfront, would be more appropriate, in my view), that a student was on, before his year was up, would be in order. However, although definitely better than not doing it (as some compensation, as it were, is better than no compensation, of course), it still wouldn't be all the way fair, just because the original agreement included not only lifetime access to PU, as it is, but also to all its subsequent future updates...since it's an ever evolving and developing  project...(that as mentioned in this thread, also benifits and grows, due to PU community members' feedback, interactions, participations, discussions and contributions).

That's my personal view on this issue.

Thank you for sharing, Maxim,

And I in good part agree with you.

I may just have slightly different views when it comes to "words being given" when the backbone of the exchange is still based on giving value.

It's more about how to grow and/or share that pie, rather than taking away the pie -I think this is a key passage that may be missing-.

Because of all the reasons in the first post and the added details in this one, the situation is now where TPM may not afford to give 80% of that shared pie, but needs more of a 60/40 (edit: I mean "60 giving, 40 keeping" with this).

Past customers who want access now all enjoy at least a large extension.
An extension that's more than enough to go through PU at a leisure pace.

And if there was an easy button opion to download, I'd have already offered it (may be not for ever, but for this circumstance at least).
In the absence of that, if anyone wants to find their own way to download or copy-paste, they're more than welcome to.

Finally, you know we've never been standing here with guns at the door.
If someone were to say "I really can't afford to re-join but I couldn't finish it, can you please help me", I think you know what we would do...

Quote from Transitioned on July 9, 2023, 11:43 pm

I agree with Lucio.  I think you sign on the value to you at the time.  My only issue at the time was the lack of Business oriented content.  But then I looked at the forum saw Lucio was active and focused on developing the PU framework.  And thought Lucios built the factory I just have to provide the raw material.  No credit to me without the factory  I d still be sitting in the field with my lumps of wood.  And I wish I d been a bit  better at  curating my input.  It was often too wordy and sometimes too venty.  But people were tolerant and we got there - go team.

I admit I ve been lazy and not sat down and done PU as a course.  That's on me

In every aspect of life laziness  costs you missed opportunities.

Quote from gotetiaditya@outlook.com on July 10, 2023, 5:01 am

There was no prior notification. And also its a breach of contract. I only signed up cz I would have a lifetime access to PU.

I want my access back as soon as possible. Otherwise it seems very doggy to me.

Give me back my access to PU as soon as Possible.

Quote from gotetiaditya@outlook.com on July 10, 2023, 5:05 am

I may not have all the knowledge and the experience to explain the issue like you.
Why was it promised as lifetime access and suddenly not even giving the access without any prior notification ?
Any notice ??
No discussion and suddenly limiting access.
That's absolutely not fair. You may have some loyal followers who support whatever you do without any discussion. If the support the decision, let the loose the acesss. But I want it back.