Is there any point donating to The Geeks Toy if...

That Geek geezer seems like a nice guy, but i really can't see why would anyone pay the money he suggested (10-20 pm) over Gruss. I use Gruss with excel triggers so i might be biased, but when i downloaded Toy just to try it, I couldn't see any advantage over Gruss and it was using much more memory. On the other hand, i never read manual for Toy so maybe i wasn't using it to the full potential.

You're right, you can't do that with TGT.

I'd be happy to pay for it and am impressed with what it does but I can't see it being worth more than any of the other products already out there. I'd be surprised if they charged £20 a month.

To be fair to the geek he's always said it'll be free for 2010 so if you've no qualms anout donating just donate what you think it's worth til 2010. Personally I find it quite funny some of the more vocal supporters haven't donated and have got into allsorts of strops now he's asking for donations

I'd hardly call it a strop. I just don't think I should donate if I'm then going to be asked to pay a subscription to use it.

And you're right, I haven't paid anything yet. I think that's the reason the software is so very popular. If I had been asked to pay from the very start, would I have chosen TGT?

I'm more than happy to donate though.

we are testing it for free.

the plan is to get us prefer the toy then charge. i wont donate but will decide if i want to pay for this product or buy something else when the time comes. im not paying for the development costs of a product im gonna get charged for.

your move.

pawn to king 4, check.

The Toy is free for at least 2010.

Who said I was going to charge?

are you going to charge in 2011?

It seems increasingly likely, TGT.

Don't think I'm holding that against you though because I'm not.

if the plan is never to charge i will defo donate. if the plan is for a future charge then no.

As soon as I know the answer to that I will let you know.

Despite some interesting assumptions by people, the reason for The Toy being free is way off any speculation.

i beleive its a spoiler product for your previous employers product. what is stopping you from telling us what your intentions are going forward. tell us what you are thinking :-)

If the thread heads into this sort of territory I'll ask for it to be deleted, that wasn't my intention.

I was really only thinking aloud...should I donate for something that I may find myself paying for in a few months anyway.

His rhymes and reasons are his own business and are not why I started the thread.

I started pondering after the new adverts on launch-up.

ok i have thought about this for too long.

if i don't donate i promise that i will stop using the toy if you dont want me to use it?

once you have decided on its future i will take another think about things.

getintheir

Like I said, speculation is way off.  I never worked for RT, I just bailed Adam out of a very big hole a couple of years ago and kept him ticking over until last year when we went our separate ways.

Commercial confidence is stopping me from telling you my intentions going forward.  I think you should just assume I'm going to charge on 1st January, and then take every day it is free after that as a total bonus. 

Rocket to the FACE
The start up messages are a cross between a polite reminder & a joke and you will only see them circa once a month.  Donations are purely voluntary and are put towards the running costs of the site & the product.

Rocket to the FACE  BTW The £20 figure on the message was a joke.  Dunno if you used The Toy yesterday, but this was the greeting message then......

http://geekstoy.com
/forum/showpost.php?p=30624&postcount=3

Re your comment "I just don't think I should donate if I'm then going to be asked to pay a subscription to use it."

It's free.   Nobody has to donate anything.  If you want to chip in because the toy or the community has been of some value to you in the past then feel free.  I don't quite get what me charging at some point in the future have to do with you not donating though. 

The truth of the matter is that I do not even know myself at this juncture whether TT will be free for 2011 as it relies on factors beyond my control.  Rest assured though, whenever / if ever I do decide to charge, there will be plenty of notice.

In the meantime, eat your hearts out with the best free product you're ever likely to find round these parts & and just smile when you see the donate message. 

Ok, cards on the table. I'm a user and a donator. I donated because the software has helped me generate profit and i appreciate the time and effort that someone has gone to. I don't care about what motives are behind the generosity, if i use something i don't mind giving a 'good will' gesture back.

I know a lot of people will use the tool and still lose money, i can understand why donating might not appeal in their case.

If i were using Gruss, i'd be charged £72 per year, at the moment i'm using free (and superior IMO) software for much less.

I'm sure there is an army of happy Gruss users that may disagree with you on that one.

Come on GT, do the right thing - go open source, you know you want to

What and have a bunch of Amateur coders in their garage running riot with my baby!  [smiley:crazy]

Be fair! Gruss is £60 per year, not £72. Has been for a long time.

Fred, there is already open source code for bot developers, including with 24 GBP full transactional betfair api access per month.

I know there are some other open source code for bot developers but none of them offers full transactional betfair api, you have to pay betfair 200 per month or use free api only.

http://bit.ly/BotSDK

Thanks pato but I was just having a joke with GT.

However, you are mistaken, your link does not lead to open source software.

Stefan { sorry pato } only posts here with links to his product, so I doubt the link will go anywhere other than BFExploder. 

TGT: I don't quite get what me charging at some point in the future have to do with you not donating though

My thoughts are that if you plan to charge in the future then currently we are not only testing the product but you also have us all as a potential client base in the future. This would be worth a fair bit in itself now but possibly much much more if you do charge and we all stick to what we know.  By donating we have then effectively funded your business venture.

ok if we assume a charge in 2011 are we talking a minimal amount say £1 - £2 per month to cover costs of your hobby or do you wanna make a nice living from us say £10-£20 month? for each amount I would have different service level expectations.

TGT: The truth of the matter is that I do not even know myself at this juncture whether TT will be free for 2011 as it relies on factors beyond my control.  Rest assured though, whenever / if ever I do decide to charge, there will be plenty of notice.

what sort of factors are out of your control? do you confirm that you make the decision to charge or not?

Is there ever going to be a stop loss ?

lux - yes.  Will be in a not too distant release.

getintheir - Ultimately I am the one to make that decision, however because of factors beyond my control I can not make that decision at this time.  Wish I could be less cryptic than that, but that's life.

As for "Testing" the product, testing finished last year.  The Toy has many users with little in the way of bugs / issues, so you can get off your soap box on that one. 

Re "By donating we have then effectively funded your business venture." - Donations don't come anywhere near funding my business venture as you put it.  But it's OK, Gamblers are quite naturally tight with money except when it comes to gambling, so you not making a contribution bothers me not.

If the toy is purely a hobby and you dont intend making a living from us its easy for me, I make a small donation to help you meet some of your costs to date and would consider making additional donations at the end of each month if the toy is active.  My hobbies cost me money and thats fine I enjoy them. 

If your eventual aim is to make a living from us well im afraid I don't donate but wish good luck to you and I hope you have enough savings put by or access to bank loans to finish of your product and make a real success of it etc.

A donation for you means you have no need to ensure the product remains active until the end of the year or beyond. Paying a fee means we should be able to ask for money back if you switch it off before the end of the year.

Your intentions do make a difference to what we do. I dont really know if I can trust you or not so am naturally cautious.

Having tried all the leading one click apps i can only say that ultimately you have to choose the one you feel most comfortable with. GT is very fast and i prefer the graphs but it does take a fair bit of knowing to get out of a position quick enough. There are features on Bet Angel that i find very useful but can't find a way of implementing on GT. Gruss i've only tried a few times but again it does some things better than the others. Ideally to combine the best of all 3 would be fantastic but that's not going to happen unless you want to employ a coder to do it for you.

At this stage it's probably not fair to criticise GT because it's free and probably still being added to. Gruss is great value also whilst BA is comparitively expensive. You really have to try them all because it depends on what you want to actually do (apart from making money of course).

getintheir  As I said before, just assume that I'm going to charge at some point, and take every day until then as a total bonus. 

It's a glass half empty / full analogy.  That way there is only positive vibes, rather than feeling begrudged at some point in the future because a big nasty capitalist feels they should receive some reward for their time. 

If you wish to make a contribution because either The Toy or community has been of some benefit to you in the past, feel free.  However I'm not really interested in people giving me excuses for not donating, as it is 100% voluntary so no excuse is needed.

hobby or business venture?

Both.