We all know we’re going to have this discussion again. Maybe if we do it more slowly, and not while fighting against a tight upcoming QGM deadline, we can keep it thoughtful and unpressured.
Shall we start by gathering up points for and against charging?
For:
The laser tube is expensive ($3000?) and slowly wears out with use.
Filter maintenance costs money (how much?) and takes the time of a small number of dedicated VHSers.
It’s a scarce resource that can be hard to access on busy nights.
Any system that tracks laser time could help ensure only trained, current members are using the laser.
Against:
It’s been a great membership draw, so one could argue it pays for itself already under the current VHS fee structure.
Who’s going to track laser time and collect fees?
If time isn’t policed by some automated system you haven’t built yet, we’ll probably end up with underpayments, suspicions of underpayments and all kinds of unpleasant dynamics between members.
VHS is supposed to be accessible to people of limited means, and yet another fee on the laser may exclude some users.
The $30 training fee was supposed to cover laser tube replacement costs.
What else belongs on those lists?
I’m sure at least some of the negatives could be addressed with enough hack-fu, and even if we decided to start charging we could make the decision and then hold off on implementation until we were comfortable that the necessary systems were in place.
I don’t see this conversation ever going away. Even if we add a fee per min. The fee the amount and technical aspects of charing will alway be up for debate. I do like having a well thought out conversation here that we can link to in 2-3 years when the conversation comes up again.
Agents
Prevents experimentation - If the machines cost money for usage, I am experiment less with interesting ideas.
For
Replacement parts - If our membership is built up from people that want to use the laser and the laser gets damaged then these members leave. We need to have ready to go replacement parts, maybe even two laser cutters incase the first one goes down. The $30 training fee does not cover this cost. The increase of membership may cover some of this cost but its impossible to gauge.
I do believe that we need to start charging for the laser cutter. For those counting, I was heavily against this when it got put to a vote last August.
Stay tuned for a post I have to make about “expansion and the future of VHS” in a few months.
With that in mind:
There are three potential payment models:
Charge by minute
Charge a “laser usage” monthly fee on top of membership for all members that choose to do so
Standard VHS membership includes a certain amount of laser time per month. Anything after that is charged according to one of the above schemes.
I’m still extremely against scheme #1, because it would prevent me personally from wanting to experiment, as @funvill said.
.#3 is way out in the other direction. It would almost entirely affect the people using the laser cutter as a production machine. This is the minimum course of action we need to take.
This is the first idea in this category that I like.
I’m not sure this has been tracked explicitly. Since moving to the bunker we have used Eventbrite so one of the directors could log in and give us a dollar figure from there, prior to that we only have a list of names (who presumably paid $30 each).
