Implications Of Alby's New Pricing \ stacker news ~bitcoin

pull down to refresh

1609 sats \ 26 comments \ @siggy47 27 Dec bitcoin

Disclosure: I am a big fan of Albys, and particularly their recent Alby Hub innovations.

This morning I was one of those who woke up to an email linking to this Alby blog post: https://blog.getalby.com/pricing-how-we-approach-user-feedback-and-improve/

The news is mostly good, although it won't apply to me, since I use Alby Hub connected to my own node. Alby has lowered the price of its cloud hosting service from $119 per year.

That's great. What's not so great is their need to price their services in dollars rather than sats:

Somehow, prices in sats are still problematic for planning, even for bitcoiners. So we tried to clarify how we see the prices evolve by adding more content to the checkout page.

Thanks to the recent bull run, the need to act came sooner than we anticipated. What we learned from this experience is how deeply ingrained traditional thinking patterns are. After all, who are we to demand that people change their mindset overnight? Our goal is to build tools that make people’s lives easier—not more complicated. That’s why we decided to introduce fiat-denominated pricing for our subscription plans. While bitcoin may no longer serve as the unit of account for these plans, it remains an excellent medium of exchange.

I don't blame Alby. They are addressing the needs of the market. This reality makes it glaringly obvious that bitcoin has a long way to go re traditional understandings of "unit of account" and "means of exchange." I don't blame the consumer either. Everyone has to look out for their own financial interest.

The " store of value asset" gang is clearly benefitting from this bull market. Perhaps all we need is patience? I don't know.

view all related items

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 11h

I like Coinos.io LN wallet sure its custodial but for LN all I want is easy to use and low fees and Coinos has that.

Albys fees in comparison, are approaching rentseeking imo.

116 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheWildHustle 20h

I almost signed up when I saw the discount. Might still do it.....

123 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Dec

I've thought about this a bit and I think there are a couple of ways to approach it.

Give hefty discounts for paying in bitcoin, based on some future estimate of bitcoin's purchasing power. That might be hard on the business, which has immediate fiat expenses, but it would be a boon to the ecosystem as a whole and really help bitcoiners take another step towards unit of account. Maybe the resulting expansion of the ecosystem makes up for the shortfall.
Do some sort of average bitcoin pricing, like some utilities companies do. The customer would get a flat monthly rate based on current exchange rates, or expected or whatever, and then the next year's prices would be adjusted to account for any shortfalls or overpays as well as the updated exchange rate.

26 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 27 Dec

In terms of point 1, I think the argument for accepting bitcoin as a competitive advantage is a good one. If I can charge you 10-15% less than my competition because I am getting paid in bitcoin and I am confident it will go up in value that should be a boon to my ability to attract customers.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 27 Dec

I think the discount has to be much steeper, though. Bitcoin can move 10-15% in a day, which would leave your bitcoiner customers "underwater".

For it to be a better rate, reliably into the future, I'm imagining a 50-90% discount. That's what I think would be tough. Alby can't pay their bills with the courage of their convictions.

32 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 27 Dec

Alby is just selling software and cloud hosting so the margins are pretty significant. Might be feasible for them to offer a 50% discount to get paid in Bitcoin. I don't think it is as feasible for a small business that has employees and suppliers who need to be paid in fiat. If you started from scratch you could work out deals with employees and suppliers to pay them in Bitcoin as well but then you are going to end up spending most of your Bitcoin.

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @Miranda 22h

I certainly agree with you, it is not anyone's fault, really a financial tradition of seeing hard currency does not change overnight but I am in favor of every day to talk about the issue and create solutions that customers see attractive and favors them in their environment, a hosting, domains that bill in sats, services to customers, companies, and so see the sats as a method of safe and efficient payment. the alsist market is facing but little by little you can create awareness bitcoiner and that people see the benefits of this ecosystem.

thanks for sharing sats for everyone

101 sats \ 6 replies \ @SatoshiNakanodo 27 Dec

Dios mio people... Pay in bitcoin and then replace the amount you spent with fresh bitcoin immediately. It's that simple.

Alby is in a position to educate their base. Play this on repeat...

"Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace. Spend and replace..."

121 sats \ 1 reply \ @nichro 23h

People don't understand what spend and replace means and still think they're losing out by spending BTC.

I've gone through it numerous times. have to play out each scenario step by step, even better if you show it on a whiteboard.

It's the Bitcoin pizza fallacy.

"he lost millions by using Bitcoin to pay for pizza, he should've used fiat and kept BTC."

Yeah but by using fiat, that's fiat that went to pizza instead of BTC. So it's the same thing. He didn't lose anything. Both scenarios are equivalent.

If anything the only right answer is he lost out by buying pizza in the first place, even if paid with fiat, that's 10$ he could've bought BTC with therefore he lost BTC by paying with fiat.

TL;DR were still early and people still have ways to go thinking about money, economics and opportunity costs

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SatoshiNakanodo 23h

You buy it back immediately, rather than later at a higher dollar price. This is the key they are missing.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @denlillaapan 27 Dec

so... I'm confused. I speeend... and then, what do I do?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @SatoshiNakanodo 23h

If for example you spend 100 dollars worth of bitcoin on some good or service, immediately trade $100 for new bitcoin to replenish the BTC you just spent.

It's how you spend in BTC while maintaining your same bitcoin stack.

If Laszlo had done this in 2010 after buying his pizzas he'd still have his 10,000 BTC.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 22h

sorry, fren. I was taking the piss out of you.

I'm well aware :)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SatoshiNakanodo 22h

I like it. Makes me feel ALIVE!

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder 27 Dec

it reminds me of many, many years ago when my friend was renting a flat in Moscow, his rent was denominated in dollars, but when the dollar weakened, they would fix his rent in rubles, then flip flop back and forth based on which currency was performing better

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 27 Dec

I feel like a lot of the debates about Bitcoin as a MoE vs. a SoV are circumstantial rather than "ontological". That is, they're debates about the function Bitcoin fills now, as opposed to what Bitcoin is or can be.

I think as things currently stand, it makes total sense that Bitcoin is viewed more as a SoV than a MoE:

Most daily expenses are still priced in fiat, and thus for financial stability it is more useful to have income denominated in fiat.
Gresham's Law. If we expect the fiat-price of Bitcoin to keep going up, people will naturally prefer to spend fiat and hold Bitcoin versus the other way around.
The "user interface" of fiat is still more intuitive for most people; using Bitcoin can seem complicated and scary, even for people who are convinced of Bitcoin's utility.

I try to support the Bitcoin economy when I can, but I'm in no rush for Bitcoin to be commonly used as a MoE. I think at this stage of Bitcoin's adoption cycle, it is expected that it will function more as a SoV than a MoE, for all the reasons above. This was also recognized and discussed even in an academic papers. That doesn't mean Bitcoin can't function as a MoE in the long run, but it will take time to get there

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 27 Dec

Perhaps all we need is patience? I don't know.

Always.

Its both. One is just eaiser to see now and more needed.

67 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 27 Dec

Well, well.

I was about to pay their 10,000 sats a month a few weeks back. Got distracted and then when I looked at it just now it was $6.50 or whatever. Uh-hu. Guess I'll take the fiat discount already

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 27 Dec

Yep! Why not?

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @jakoyoh629 27 Dec

When pricing in sats, is it advantageous to have a dynamic price or a more fixed dollar equivalent? I'm totally fine with Alby's decision.

41 sats \ 2 replies \ @Aardvark 27 Dec

I read this as Arby's and was looking for roast beef news....

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 27 Dec

They have the meats.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @crrdlx 27 Dec

From the bitcoin-food-politics department, I heard somewhere Arby's customers were much more pro-Trump in the election. Certainly beef and meat places are. (Bitcoiners be liking their beef!) Couldn't find the exact survey, but this is an interesting breakdown: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2024/campaign-spending-fast-food-mcdonalds/

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Rsync25 27 Dec

People aren’t enough educated about Sats. I will go not judge them. I think each person knows what is best for them, not me.

26 sats \ 1 reply \ @saunter 27 Dec

It's just not practical to price in sats now. Within a few weeks, price of Hub doubled for users, we would need to lower the price manually every few weeks in this bullrun. It's impossible to do any predictions about service cost when you price in btc

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rsync25 27 Dec

Exactly. By this I’m not judging them. This would be hypocritical with myself.