gramps
7827d239e2
The commercial plan was spread over five documents written in five different weeks, and they contradicted each other: product.md sold the Store, decisions.md called the Store dead then re-opened, Distribution.md (736 lines) still described Polar as a download host, MARCOM.md quoted "no subscription" next to a paid tier, and README.md promised "free forever". An outsider could not tell what ships. docs/ai/commercial.md is now the only place money is decided: free = whole app at a 921,600 px / 30 fps output profile covering the recording as well as the stream; Pro = $10/mo or $400 lifetime through Polar, key bound to the buyer's YouTube channel ID via a claim page, 2 activations, 7–14 day lease with offline grace, fail closed, never downgrade a running stream; one portable zip + winget primary, Steam and the Store parked; Azure Trusted Signing (~$9.99/mo), no EV; Founding 200 promo; ~$135/yr costs; anti-piracy posture and what is permanently rejected. Everything else now points at it instead of restating it: - product.md — money sections replaced with pointers; packaging rewritten to winget-first, Store parked; signing updated to Trusted Signing. - decisions.md — graveyard with cause of death for free-forever, the Store ordering, the updater, and the 2026-10-30 reversal of the quality-ceiling rejection. - Distribution.md — rewritten to release mechanics only (artifact, GitHub Releases, winget manifest, signing, checklist, takedown): 736 → 120 lines. - TASKS.md — TASK 54 rewritten, TASK 48's route settled, TASK 10 superseded, five new rows (entitlement seam, output-profile gate, licence UI, system messages, packaging). - README.md — "free forever" replaced with the real split. - capture.md — obs-backgroundremoval is GPL-3.0 and so licence-INCOMPATIBLE since the proprietary EULA; the old "compatible" line was falsified by that change. - TASKS/task-10, task-48, task-51, task-54 — superseded-banner at the top of each, so none of them reads as current policy. - HANDOFF.md — rewritten: plan settled, next code unit is the entitlement seam. MARCOM.md and MONETIZATION.md (gitignored) were corrected in place: policy pointer at the top of each, the flash removed from every live claim, the Polar fee break-even corrected to ~$900/mo, and the projections flagged as written against a dead model.
153 lines
8.8 KiB
Markdown
153 lines
8.8 KiB
Markdown
# Commercial: pricing, entitlement, channels
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The single source of truth for what LlamaCasty charges, what a licence entitles, and how it
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ships. Read before any pricing, licensing, distribution, storefront or promo work. Cause of death
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for every retired path: [`decisions.md`](decisions.md).
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## Model
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- **Free tier — every feature, every scene, every overlay**, free forever, no account, no
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watermark, nothing nagged inside the output. It is not a trial.
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- **Pro — $10/month or $400 lifetime.** No annual tier.
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- **The only delta is output quality.** Features are never gated; a payment buys pixels.
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- **No watermark, ever**, in either edition. The branding flash is retired as a paid delta and
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stays off (`ShowBrandFlash`, default `false`).
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- **Clean numbers, no `.99`**, no discount codes, no countdowns, no fake scarcity.
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- **The site publishes the model, never the numbers** — "free forever, every feature unlocked, a
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paid edition with higher output quality at launch". Price, tier name, cap and frame rate are
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published by the **app**, at the point of sale, not by the page.
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## Output profile — the one entitlement rule
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The cap is a pixel budget plus a frame rate, not the word "720p":
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| | Free | Pro |
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|---|---|---|
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| Pixels | ≤ **921,600** | any shipped tier |
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| Frame rate | ≤ **30 fps** | any shipped tier |
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| Landscape | 1280×720 @30 | 1280×720 @60 · 1920×1080 @30 · @60 |
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| Vertical 9:16 | 720×1280 @30 | 1080×1920 @60 |
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- **Records too.** The cap governs the file the creator keeps as well as the stream; otherwise
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free 1080p recording is a re-upload hole. One `OutputProfile`, resolved once per session and
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consumed by **both** the stream encoder and the recorder — never two checks.
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- **Fail closed.** Unresolved, unreadable or unvalidated entitlement = free tier. Never Pro.
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- **Never downgrade a running stream.** The gate applies to the next start; pulling quality out
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of a live broadcast is a worse bug than one free 1080p session.
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- **The greyed menu entry is the sales surface.** It stays clickable, says what it costs, opens
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checkout, and is labelled ("720p30 · free tier") — never silently missing, because silence
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reads as broken.
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- **Activation is live**, not restart-gated: activating enables the high tiers and a lapse
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(cancel, revoke, sign-out, channel switch) greys them again on the next refresh.
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- **Bitrate follows the profile** — a capped user is not offered a 1080p bitrate.
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## Entitlement
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**Polar is the merchant of record and the only source of truth.** It takes the money, remits
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VAT/GST, handles refunds and chargebacks, and holds the keys. Nothing of ours sits in the middle.
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- **Key** — `LCYT-` prefix; org `c05fb364-…` and the endpoint are in `CREDENTIALS.md`. No
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product is created yet.
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- **Bound to the creator's YouTube channel ID** (`UC…` from `channels.list?mine=true`) — the
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**active** brand account's channel, never the `@handle`. Written once through a **claim page**
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after purchase (OAuth), not prefilled at checkout: the buyer's browser may be signed into a
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different Google account, and that is manual reconciliation forever.
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- **Two activations**, any machine, one channel. A second channel is a second key. Two keys for
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one channel is never sold — it doubles the support surface and invites "give one to a friend".
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- **Runtime rule:** Pro requires `licence.channelId == connected.channelId`. Equal → Pro.
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Anything else → free tier, working normally, with *"This licence belongs to another channel"*
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and a link to the Polar customer portal. Never an error wall, never a blocked stream.
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- **Lease, not a permanent cache:** validate on launch and daily; **7–14 days offline grace**;
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no network past grace = free tier until Polar answers. Never lock a paying user out on a DNS
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failure.
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- **Four states, and nothing else:** valid → Pro · expired → free with a banner · activation
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limit reached → "manage devices" portal link · mismatch or offline → free, explained.
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- **CLI activation** — `--activate LCYT-…` so silent and fleet installs never meet a dialog.
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Interactive entry in Settings is the secondary path.
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- **Notice cadence** — 7 days out, 1 day out, and on the day, inline in the go-live panel with a
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date and a portal link. Recording gets the banner only. Never modal, never blocking a Start,
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never orange (orange is the dev-only label colour).
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## Channels
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**One artifact, three ways to get it.** A self-contained single-file `LlamaCasty.exe` plus the
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bundled `ffmpeg\` folder, zipped. No .NET install, no admin, no installer framework. Trimming
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stays off (WPF reflection), so expect ~110–150 MB.
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1. **Direct download** — `llamacasty.com` links the zip; the binaries live on **GitHub Releases**,
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not the droplet (free CDN, durable URLs, release notes).
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2. **winget — the primary channel.** Manifest in `microsoft/winget-pkgs`, `InstallerType:
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portable`, pinned SHA-256. That hash pin is the anti-tamper wall: the official channel delivers
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exactly the published artifact or fails. One `wingetcreate update` PR per release. Optional:
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Scoop and Chocolatey manifests over the same zip.
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3. **Steam — parked at $100.** Lifetime Pro as DLC only (Steam has no subscriptions), page public
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two weeks before release, 30% cut, and price parity with the site.
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4. **Microsoft Store — parked.** $19 Individual account; the only storefront that bills a
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subscription natively and installs without a warning. Bans self-updaters, so a Store build
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ships without one.
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**Not channels, ever:** Patreon or any subscription platform of our own, paywalled early access,
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a paid beta, a Discord. Support is a public GitHub issue tracker. Content is the funnel; the
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channel is only the checkout.
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**Portable mode:** a `portable.txt` marker beside the exe keeps the layout DB and settings in
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`.\data\` instead of `%APPDATA%\ytLlive` — the USB-stick case, hung off `LayoutPathOverride`.
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## Signing
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- **Azure Trusted Signing, ~$9.99/month**, is the intended certificate: Microsoft-issued, accrues
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SmartScreen reputation, enrols individuals after identity verification.
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- **No EV certificate** — Microsoft removed the SmartScreen instant-bypass in March 2024.
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- Until it is in place, builds ship unsigned and the "unknown publisher" line is accepted. winget
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spares the browser prompt, not the publisher warning.
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- Every release: same signing pass, SHA-256 in the manifest, licence ID visible in About.
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## Founding 200 promo
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Cash cost **$0**; it is priced in support time and forgone list revenue.
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- **90 days free** — a 100%-off Polar coupon, `duration = repeating, months = 3`.
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- **Founder price lock** — their $10/month stays $10 permanently.
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- **Credits + in-app Founder badge** (opt-in channel name on the site).
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- **30-day passes** — unique keys carrying the issuer's channel, issued **one per 30 active days,
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max 3 held**, activation limit 1–2, expiring 30 days **after activation**. Earned, never handed
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out: a pass nobody uses teaches nothing.
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- Optional **$250 lifetime** window in the first 90 days — converting a founder beats three
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months of free.
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- Reminders at day 75 and 85; the renewal cliff is where founders churn.
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- Terms, one paragraph: one per person, passes expire 30 days after activation, no cash value,
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revoked for resale or abuse, price lock void if the subscription lapses.
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## Costs
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| Item | Cost |
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|---|---|
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| Azure Trusted Signing | $9.99/month (~$120/yr) |
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| Domain | ~$15/yr |
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| Droplet | $0 — serves the existing site |
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| GitHub Releases, winget, Scoop, Chocolatey | $0 |
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| Polar | 5% + 50¢ per sale → $10 nets $9.00, $400 nets $379.50 |
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| Steam Direct (optional) | $100 once, recoupable after $1,000 AGR |
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| Microsoft Store (optional) | $19 once |
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Fixed year one ≈ **$135**, and the same every year after. **Break-even is two subscribers**
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(15 subscriber-months ≈ $135); one $400 lifetime sale covers nearly three years.
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## Anti-piracy posture
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**Any check that runs on the user's machine can be removed.** The goal is a crack that is
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pointless and a leak that is traceable — not an unbreakable binary.
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- **The free tier is the real defence.** If the only delta is pixels above 921,600, a cracked
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build buys almost nothing and forfeits updates, support and the publisher's signature.
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- **Hash-pinned delivery + signed builds** — a patched build cannot arrive through winget, and a
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forged one is not signed as us.
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- **Short leases** — a revoked or refunded key dies inside the grace window.
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- **Licence ID in About** — a leaked build traces back to a purchase.
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⛔ **Rejected, do not re-propose:** a native helper DLL for "IP protection", obfuscation, hardware
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locking, remote code that downloads and executes, and gating asset downloads as an auth check.
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None of them make a licence enforceable; the first three add failure modes without buying
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anything, the fourth needs the server this plan exists to avoid, and the fifth is Store policy
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10.2.2.
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