OLC needs money, or is this just poor marketing?

Today on OLC there have been interesting comments from the OLC Team.

Basically OLC are complaining to all pilots for not supporting them and paying the 10 Euros to get a smiley

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...l?dsId=3412529

Unfortunately this is in German, but I personally think it is disgraceful.

Surely it is up to the individual pilot to decide if he want to voluntarily pay or not.

Strangely there have already been guys jump camp to the newly formed Skylines.

https://www.skylines-project.org/flights/latest

These are also the guys that bring you XC Soar.
I am a neutral person in all this, never paid OLC, and never used Skylines, but I will be interested to see where it all goes from here.

OLC has done great job and their "competitions" are respected
by most pilots here. SkyLines project is more for flight analyzing
and sharing information with other pilots - even online.

Do not see that these two compete, and both are good. Got to
pay my €10...

At 21:14 29 October 2013, Romeozulu wrote:
Today on OLC there have been interesting comments from the
OLC Team.

Basically OLC are complaining to all pilots for not supporting
them and
paying the 10 Euros to get a smiley

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...ightinfo.html?
dsId=3412529

Unfortunately this is in German, but I personally think it is
disgraceful.

Surely it is up to the individual pilot to decide if he want to
voluntarily
pay or not.

Strangely there have already been guys jump camp to the
newly formed
Skylines.

https://www.skylines-project.org/flights/latest

These are also the guys that bring you XC Soar.
I am a neutral person in all this, never paid OLC, and never
used Skylines,
but I will be interested to see where it all goes from here.

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 10:39:02 PM UTC+1, wrote:
- Would love to support them

The OLC doesn't need your support. It's a commercial company, and it gets plenty of money from sponsors. This campaign is a ridiculous attempt to make even more money.

Remember, you're not OLC's customer - you're their product. (Same with Google, Facebook etc.)

Looks like they only pinged the daily top 5 that don't have a smiley? Or maybe the first 5 to submit that don't have a smiley? Or, pressure from a club or flying site?

Interesting.

I use both...

I use OLC since the Albuquerque Soaring Club likes for us local guys to log
our flights to keep them in or near the top slot.

I use skylines because it has a **MUCH BETTER MAP** (are you listening,
OLC?) and it allows me to choose my units, i.e., knots and feet, and it
gives me a direct readout of flight time. One can also view two (perhaps
more) flights overlayed with each other. Finally, being open source, the
people are way more friendly.


"Romeozulu" wrote in message
...
Today on OLC there have been interesting comments from the OLC Team.

Basically OLC are complaining to all pilots for not supporting them and
paying the 10 Euros to get a smiley

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...l?dsId=3412529

Unfortunately this is in German, but I personally think it is disgraceful.

Surely it is up to the individual pilot to decide if he want to
voluntarily pay or not.

Strangely there have already been guys jump camp to the newly formed
Skylines.

https://www.skylines-project.org/flights/latest

These are also the guys that bring you XC Soar.
I am a neutral person in all this, never paid OLC, and never used
Skylines, but I will be interested to see where it all goes from here.

At 22:01 29 October 2013, Max Kellermann wrote:

The OLC doesn't need your support. It's a commercial company,
and it gets
plenty of money from sponsors. This campaign is a ridiculous
attempt to
make even more money.

Remember, you're not OLC's customer - you're their product.
(Same with
Google, Facebook etc.)



Are you saying that the description on the OLC website is not a
true representation of their organisation?

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...zene/cms.html?
url=olcorganisation

John Galloway

On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 10:03:48 AM UTC+1, John Galloway wrote:
At 22:01 29 October 2013, Max Kellermann wrote:



The OLC doesn't need your support. It's a commercial company,

and it gets

plenty of money from sponsors. This campaign is a ridiculous

attempt to

make even more money.



Remember, you're not OLC's customer - you're their product.

(Same with

Google, Facebook etc.)







Are you saying that the description on the OLC website is not a

true representation of their organisation?



http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...zene/cms.html?

url=olcorganisation



John Galloway

I think the comment is just a bad marketing move. Based on their website information they are using this extra money to support the hardware to prevent becoming a victim of their own success.
As for the German text - Google translate helps ;-)

Should we pay that money or not? If you're using OLC a lot and flying 50.000USD/EUR+ material then what are we talking about?
This is almost like the complaints i see about the planned (?) yearly fee of 1 USD for Whatsapp. What is wrong for asking a tiny bit of money for a service that you choose to use?

On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 10:03:48 AM UTC+1, John Galloway wrote:
Are you saying that the description on the OLC website is not a
true representation of their organisation?

What you read there has nothing to do with what I wrote.

The OLC is "owned" by the Segelflugszene gGmbH, a company owned by Reiner Rose (source: www.bundesanzeiger.de). The donations however go to Segelflugszene e.V., a charitable club. Even though the base name is the same, they are completely different legal entities. I suppose this was made to trick people into thinking the OLC is a charity.

Much of the OLC is organized by people who work without pay for Reiner Rose's company. Those people are listed on the link you provided.

Apart from that, the OLC gets a lot of money from advertisers (called "sponsors"). Plus, many national organizations pay money to the OLC. For example, the German Aeroclub pays 5-figure each year to the OLC (i.e. Segelflugszene gGmbH) so the OLC provides the technical platform for the DMSt.

The company has more than enough money to pay for server hosting. I mean, how much does server hosting cost? Maybe a few thousand bucks per year. But certainly in the five figure range.

Where does the rest of the money go? Why does the OLC beg its users for more money, in spite of earning already more than enough through commercial contracts?

Yes it was a bad approach, perhaps after having a talk with Friedl Weber?
Only seems they did this intentional embarrassment to Germans.

The OLC has pushed people to fly more, faster and further every year. Almost every glider now has a logger. What a great thing for the sport!
People gladly pay a hundred times this amount for television with lots of ads.
Jim

The OLC has pushed people to fly more, faster and further every year. Almost every glider now has a logger. What a great thing for the sport!

Yet all this data which we produce is sitting on their servers and cannot be used for research (I've tried).
This is my personal objection against OLC, they are not willing to cooperate with researchers and I obtained a ban when I started to download lots of files for my personal research.
And the files which you download are tagged too, the file you download is not identical to the file that was uploaded for that flight.

Yet we pay them, sponsors pay them, and we fill their website with content. Content attracts users, which makes the site an attractive place to advertize for the sponsors.