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Answered How many PRO feature have been taken away in the last two years?

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The Jungle Explorer

I should have been born 200 years ago!
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Is it just me, or has TB been slowly eliminating features and making all new features a higher-level subscription? I have lost count of how many PRO features have gone away. It is almost to the point that there is very little difference between the PRO version and the Free version. In the last couple years, TB has created several new tools, but they have all been for the higher tier versions, not for the PRO version. At least, it seems this way to me.
 

Nody | Team TB

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Can you tell me some of the new features that have been released for the pro version, because I must have missed them? About every time I try to use a feature that used to be included with Pro, it is either not working (with no hope of a solution), or it has been replaced by a feature that is limited in Pro but fully unlocked in Legend. I am glad that you agree with me that there are only a few fully unlocked features in Pro left. I do not consider new features that are Limited in Pro to be a new feature of Pro. I consider them to be an advertisement for Legend. All free software has Limited features to encourage people to buy the full program. So, when you say that there are "New Features" that have been added to Pro, please do not refer to Legend features that are limited in Pro. Pro customers are paying customers too. While we do not expect to get all the features of Legend for what we pay, it is very discouraging for us to continue paying TB for Pro when we constantly see all of the features we used to get with our subscription eroded away and discontinued to only be replaced by Limited features that are told we have to upgrade to Legend to get full access to.

The new features that I meant to mention will definitely be limited to the base license or "Pro" here. Let's not forget that at the end of the day, it's business, and TubeBuddy needs to make sure that they're recovering the cost with a small amount of the profit for the tools that they're providing to the user. The cost of maintaining those features and developing them won't be recoverable if we keep providing all the high-end features to base license or tier. Of course, some of the basic features such as Keyword Explorer, SEO studio, competition scorecard, and many more that are planned in the long run will be made available to the fullest with the base paid license, but certain features that are currently limited will stay limited (until things change otherwise and trust me... it's changing very often than before). But until then, we need to respect the efforts and the resources that these high-end tools utilize. That said, which is why we lowered the pricing of our legend license( if you compare it with 2021 or 2022 pricing ) so that people who wish to get the best out of these tools can subscribe to our legend license and do so.

Also... back then, we had three licenses, which are now limited to two. Of course, there will be certain features that will be moved up and down depending on the resources it demands. Nonetheless, I respect where you're coming from, and such decisions are made by upper management, where there's very little we can do. They know their game better, and honestly, things have changed a lot... YouTube API is always a pain in the butt, and there's always something that breaks when they decide to change things. The cost of keeping those high-end features and fixing them to ensure that those features stay in business as long as possible, suffering from the loss which resulted in that wear-tear and whatnot, we will never really understand how those works but can only imagine it's not easy to keep up with everything.

Also, we didn't discontinue any major features. Most of the features that were available in Pro are still there; the only thing is that those features that were available in the Star license have been moved up with the Legend license. Also... We introduced a couple of AI features (limited yet useful) for Pro and, recently, our product team has recently introduced a couple of bulk tools which earlier were only available to the Legend license. From my point of view, I feel this is really great. Even though you're being provided with limited access, you ain't paying more and are being provided with limited usage of high-tier tools with the same pricing. Maybe in the future, such tools will be made available for their full utilization... we wouldn't know, but can only hope.

Also... if you're wondering what're the new features that are introduced to our licenses, you can check out our pricing website (www.tubebuddy.com/pricing), scroll down and there's a feature comparison chart that will provide you a detailed distinction between the features pertaining to each of the licenses.
 
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Nody | Team TB

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Honestly, there are still a couple of features that are available in the Pro license. Back then, we had a Star license, which is why some of the features were available in Star, but now, since the Star license is no longer available due to the industrial changes for the upfront purchase, all the high-end features have been spread between the Pro and the Legend license. We have introduced a couple of new features for the Pro license, and there are many more features that are planned to be introduced in the upcoming years. We don't have any full details or disclosure for that just yet, but keep your eyes peeled and your inbox open to see any product updates coming from our marketing team.
 
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The Jungle Explorer

The Jungle Explorer

I should have been born 200 years ago!
TubeBuddy Pro
549
19
Subscriber Goal
20000
Can you tell me some of the new features that have been released for the pro version, because I must have missed them? About every time I try to use a feature that used to be included with Pro, it is either not working (with no hope of a solution), or it has been replaced by a feature that is limited in Pro but fully unlocked in Legend. I am glad that you agree with me that there are only a few fully unlocked features in Pro left. I do not consider new features that are Limited in Pro to be a new feature of Pro. I consider them to be an advertisement for Legend. All free software has Limited features to encourage people to buy the full program. So, when you say that there are "New Features" that have been added to Pro, please do not refer to Legend features that are limited in Pro. Pro customers are paying customers too. While we do not expect to get all the features of Legend for what we pay, it is very discouraging for us to continue paying TB for Pro when we constantly see all of the features we used to get with our subscription eroded away and discontinued to only be replaced by Limited features that are told we have to upgrade to Legend to get full access to.
 

Nody | Team TB

Administrator
Administrator
Moderator
TubeBuddy Staff
1,489
26
Subscriber Goal
2000
Can you tell me some of the new features that have been released for the pro version, because I must have missed them? About every time I try to use a feature that used to be included with Pro, it is either not working (with no hope of a solution), or it has been replaced by a feature that is limited in Pro but fully unlocked in Legend. I am glad that you agree with me that there are only a few fully unlocked features in Pro left. I do not consider new features that are Limited in Pro to be a new feature of Pro. I consider them to be an advertisement for Legend. All free software has Limited features to encourage people to buy the full program. So, when you say that there are "New Features" that have been added to Pro, please do not refer to Legend features that are limited in Pro. Pro customers are paying customers too. While we do not expect to get all the features of Legend for what we pay, it is very discouraging for us to continue paying TB for Pro when we constantly see all of the features we used to get with our subscription eroded away and discontinued to only be replaced by Limited features that are told we have to upgrade to Legend to get full access to.

The new features that I meant to mention will definitely be limited to the base license or "Pro" here. Let's not forget that at the end of the day, it's business, and TubeBuddy needs to make sure that they're recovering the cost with a small amount of the profit for the tools that they're providing to the user. The cost of maintaining those features and developing them won't be recoverable if we keep providing all the high-end features to base license or tier. Of course, some of the basic features such as Keyword Explorer, SEO studio, competition scorecard, and many more that are planned in the long run will be made available to the fullest with the base paid license, but certain features that are currently limited will stay limited (until things change otherwise and trust me... it's changing very often than before). But until then, we need to respect the efforts and the resources that these high-end tools utilize. That said, which is why we lowered the pricing of our legend license( if you compare it with 2021 or 2022 pricing ) so that people who wish to get the best out of these tools can subscribe to our legend license and do so.

Also... back then, we had three licenses, which are now limited to two. Of course, there will be certain features that will be moved up and down depending on the resources it demands. Nonetheless, I respect where you're coming from, and such decisions are made by upper management, where there's very little we can do. They know their game better, and honestly, things have changed a lot... YouTube API is always a pain in the butt, and there's always something that breaks when they decide to change things. The cost of keeping those high-end features and fixing them to ensure that those features stay in business as long as possible, suffering from the loss which resulted in that wear-tear and whatnot, we will never really understand how those works but can only imagine it's not easy to keep up with everything.

Also, we didn't discontinue any major features. Most of the features that were available in Pro are still there; the only thing is that those features that were available in the Star license have been moved up with the Legend license. Also... We introduced a couple of AI features (limited yet useful) for Pro and, recently, our product team has recently introduced a couple of bulk tools which earlier were only available to the Legend license. From my point of view, I feel this is really great. Even though you're being provided with limited access, you ain't paying more and are being provided with limited usage of high-tier tools with the same pricing. Maybe in the future, such tools will be made available for their full utilization... we wouldn't know, but can only hope.

Also... if you're wondering what're the new features that are introduced to our licenses, you can check out our pricing website (www.tubebuddy.com/pricing), scroll down and there's a feature comparison chart that will provide you a detailed distinction between the features pertaining to each of the licenses.
 
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The Jungle Explorer

The Jungle Explorer

I should have been born 200 years ago!
TubeBuddy Pro
549
19
Subscriber Goal
20000
I fully understand what you are saying. YouTube seems to always be messing with a good thing and ruining it. It happens so frequently that it is difficult for a reasonable person not to conclude that there is a certain amount of intentionality involved. On my end, I have no way of knowing what the cost of operating TB is, so I cannot comment on that. That is why I use words like, "It seems to me" to indicate that what I am saying is only an impression from my perspective. I realize that the Pro version may have many features that have not gone away, so I guess it is mostly the certain features that I most frequently use. There are many features that I do not find useful or helpful that I don't use, but it sure seems like the ones that I do are the ones that have gone away.

As far as the reduction in the fee for Legend being reduced, I had not heard of that. I think that was a good move as the former price was way out of reach (my perspective) for most people. Again, I do not have any understanding of what goes into TB behind the scenes, but I am also a subscriber to Microsoft Office 365, for which I pay $69 a year and get access to the full array of Office software, plus 6 TB of cloud storage. Again, I do not understand the inner workings of TB, but my perspective is that the Pro version fee of TB is looked at by the TB staff to be a unreaonably small amount to access some basic feature of TB, when from my perspective, I am paying less to have full access to a whole suite of elite top level premier world class software. Again, this is just my perspective, and I understand that you have no influence or saying in this matter. From where I am standing, what I pay for Pro is, from a software industry standard, a competitive reasonable price to pay for a top level peice of software. Evene most of Adobe's software comes in under TB Legend monthly fee.



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I want state again, that I fully understand that TB is a for-profit business and I am in no way indicating that anyone is doing anything wrong. I am simply providing end user's perpective.

TB is a useful tool and those that work desrve to earn from their work. They have families to feed, just as I do. However, my income is not guranteed by a monthly fee like developers of TB. As a online content creator for YouTube, I essentially work on commision. If my videos perfomr well, I earn more if they don't I earn less. TB is tool that that is supposed to help me get more views, thus increasing my income. When I first started using TB as Pro subcriber (six years now), the Pro subscription was treated like a top tier subcriotin and all but a few elite feature were reserved to Legend. In those days using TB could produces a measurable difference in views to my videos. Over the years though,many of Pro's best most impactful features dropped off, and now Pro is treated as basically the red-headed-step child version that TB really would rather just get rid of (my perspective). At the same time, many of the top features that have been added, are not really as impactful as we would hope they would be when it comes to increasing views on YT (due to changes in how YT algorythm works).

All this to say, that I have no problem paying for software that I can justify paying for because it gives me a return on investment. Right now, the Pro version of TB is not really reaching that goal. I have tried out Legend in the past, for one year, and did not find had much impact over the Pro version, and was certainly not benefiting me enough to justify the monthly fee. I want the TB devs to prosper and make a living, but I have to do so as well. I am a for-profit business too. On YouTube, just maiking content is not enough. You have to make content people want to watch in order to succedd. I guess that the TB devs are in kind of the same boat. Just adding features is not enough. They need to add features that can tangably help a YouTuber make more money (Mutually profitable relationship).
 

Nody | Team TB

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Totally get you!

We can hope that in coming years we get to see some more amazing features that are made available to all our base(Pro) plan along with the top-tier plan. I will keep you (community) updated if I get any information about any features or product that are planned.

This was really an interesting conversation!
 
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