recently, i've been getting more frequently those $1-$2 donations via paypal... while i appreciate the gesture, unfortunately paypal charges me a fee for every donation made with credit card, and for low amounts, the fee takes most of the donation away.
as an example, for $1 donation, the fee is $0.34. that's a whopping 34% fee
so, the net donation i get is 66 cents.
many people usually ask me if there is a typical amount, or a lowest amount. i have posted it before in this thread. let's say
minimum is $5, and
typical is somewhere in the range of $5-$15.
on a separate note, this is the current status on the scanner development:
- the feedback i've got on the OCR (parsing of skill names and values) is very positive. this was the part i wanted to have more stable before releasing it publicly, so most likely, i'll release the public version (v0.52) during this week.
- i've been reported about some problems (mostly memory and speed), and i have tried to address some of them, while others don't have a good solution. but i don't really need to wait for them to be solved, before releasing the new version.
- this version will have all features enabled: raw and net market value, skill signature, progress tracking, history tracking charts, everything. it will be available for a few weeks, so everyone can try it out for free.
- after that, i will go back to a free/premium model, as before. however it is not decided yet what will be free and what will be premium.
of course, donators (current account holders) will have all features enabled indefinitely. after these few weeks, for new account requests, i will see what model to follow.