Ability to see my member number

stoyle

I am a proud early adopter of kagi, and I think a lot of others are as well. I think I joined pretty early, but I don't know how early in comparison to others.

On the account settings page, one can see the date one joined. But would be cool to also know which member number.

Vlad

stoyle Cool idea! Would this count paying members only? Would the number go up/down based on people cancelling/resubscribing? More thoughts on the algo please 🙂

Value7609

Vlad Probably more like a database ID, the same way the IDs work on https://kagifeedback.org it increments for each user, and does never change, if the user before me would cancel the subscription I still would the same number.

e.g. you @Vlad are ID number one kagifeedback.org as seen here: https://kagifeedback.org/api/users/1
I'm ID 1660 as seen here: https://kagifeedback.org/api/users/1660

This is because you were the first to register an account on here and I was the 1660th.

This has multiple advantages over a dynamic one (I'll usage kagifeedback as the example here):

A static number allows me to definitively say "I was the 1660th person to sign up." This has more meaning than saying "I'm the 1660th current member" if numbers shift as people cancel or resubscribe.
A static membership ID is persistent. No matter when I reference my number in the future, I'll always be member #1660. This isn't the case if the number changes.
Having an incrementing ID number conveys "early adopter" status. Higher numbers indicate members who joined later. This concept of order is lost with a dynamic system. e.g. you as the founder are #1 on kagifeedback
It's simpler to understand. A static number mapped to your signup order is intuitive. A shifting number that goes up and down is more confusing.
It encourages retention. If folks could lose their number by cancelling, they'd be less inclined to resubscribe later. 😉

stoyle

Back in the day I was able to get my twitter member number. It may not have been displayed, but I think I found it in their api. Fairly certain is was just basically a counter for when you signed up.

Something like that is more than good enough for me. But you may want to promote sustained membership or something like that. So I think that filtering out those who, for whatever reason, stopped subscribing would be ok. To me, paid membership or not doesn't really matter. I mean, I didn't pay for the first period anyways, but I kept using kagi, cheering you guys on. And I happily started paying once that was possible.

I am just curious how early on I was. And I think for us, early adopters, that would be nice to know.

whatsamonad

I think that it should start from the earliest date that an account submitted a payment for a Kagi product. The subscriptions and usage changed so much that I don't think users should be punished if they let their subscription lapse at one point

Vlad

whatsamonad What if they are no longer a subscriber?

And btw since Kagi does not really need or verify user's email address we get a ton of spam registrations so although we have 20k paying members if you subbed today you would probably get id of 150k or something (with simple ID number)

Value7609

Vlad ah true I didn't think about this. Then I'd say the member count should be defined and incremented once a user subscribed. So the number basically means the {n}th person who subscribed for Kagi Search

gladiator2339

Vlad Slightly out of topic but I'm curious: is the 20k surprise for the paid members at the time of that milestone? What if someone unsubs before the merch store release?

Vlad

Value7609 This runs into a problem that the number would be inflated by the number of people who unsubscribed in the meantime.

So for example you would have id 25,000, but still be in the first 20,000 currently active members (which is what I would assume most people would use this number for)

Vlad

gladiator2339 They would not get the tshirt. We will take 20k first/oldest active subs at the time store launches.

CrunchyFritos

I think basing it on when a user first subscribed (i.e. paid) makes sense, especially since this is how the Kagi stats number appears to be calculated.

A couple arguments for a dynamic number:

A dynamic would encourage retention even more: You lose your number by unsubscribing, and I can increment my number by staying around.
The dynamic number would better match the kagi stats number that was there when I first signed up.

Vlad

CrunchyFritos So basically you are advocating for number being:

"You are active subscriber no. 14516"

And it slowly goes down as you stick around and other people cancel?

Where would this be shown?

What happens if you cancel and resub in the future? I think we should take your first ever sub record not the last one to determine your position?

ps. I hope this simple exercise shows how nothing is ever simple, and requires thought and nuance. Happy to have an engaged community like this to help us bridge things.

CrunchyFritos

Vlad hah. yeah. fair. I can see how it could create more headache than it's worth. In my head I just remember the Kagi stats page was around 14k when I joined so that's the number I think of when I think of my own "member number."

xigoi

I think “the number of accounts who made their first payment before you” is the most intuitive.

Vlad

xigoi

"the number of accounts with an active subscription who made their first payment before you" is closer to what people would expect to see.

Slight issue there, if you cancel but have some days to cancellation, technically you do not have an active subscription, but should be considered a member.

xigoi

I don’t think it should matter whether the other accounts are currently active. They’re still part of Kagi’s history.