10 day forecast gone
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@whitmart14 Hello, we are sorry that you feel this way. Our users are not forced into anything, the 6-day forecast outlook is still available without any charge for all the forecast models and layers. Also, Windy remains ad-free and keeps most of the main features free as well.
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@Korina I personally would rather see one ad every time I log on and be able to see 10 day forecast than not be able to see it at all because I dont pay you. I have never seen another app TAKE AWAY access for free users after so many years of building an awesome name for yourselves. You guys could have just added other cool features as an incentive and to "thank your supporters." So many of us rely on the 10 day forecast to plan trips (etc) and can not afford a 30 dollar app. This should be a space where you listen to the people who promote your app and use it on the daily. I might not be a paying member but I have personally referred at least 15 paying members (and probably 50 free members) to you guys. Ads are EVERYWHERE. If thats an inconvenience that I have to go through to not pay, I am happy to do that. Premium people can get the luxury of no ads.
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@whitmart14 it is difficult when things change. I mean we are constantly having benefits removed from apps that were free or available in games and social media apps and I have never seen such squabbling over it. Yes I am a premium member I am on a fixed income, I travel in a 30+ year old motorhome. Having premium SAVES me money by knowing the wind conditions along my path. And anyone who uses this app apparently has some sense of value for their life or equipment or you wouldn't be using it, free or not. And at about $3.00 a month I find it worth every penny to keep me safe and my motorhomes six tires on the pavement not the flip side of it. Wind sports need info too and if 6 days is too short a window and you can't plan for a 10 day event because of the change, think of this.....the weather is always changing, I base my trips on the 7 day forecast but verify it DAILY and it has changed drastically in 24 hrs, from calm to severe winds and visa versa. Really you are not losing out at all. You are just being required to check more frequently and have better infor for it. And whatever you do try to be kind, it's a skill I suck at but I'm working on it.
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@hokee
I want to encourage the people at windy to put out a poll for the people who can not afford it. I'm sure over 90 percent of people would love the the 10 day feature with Ads rather than no ads and no access. Great that you are able to afford it. Some people can't though and have monthly bills that are way more than life on the road in a camper with a fixed income. I do base trips off of the 10 day forecast and also check the weather when I am there (obviously) but decide to drive out 6+ hours or not depending on the future forecast because it is not worth a drive if there's only one good day. We clearly are not on the same page with our activities (or our finances) and I have found another app that does the same thing as windy for free so I will use them instead. I do not think you should be irritated that people who can not afford it are so bothered by this. I really am not being mean to anyone but just saying that windy is avoiding ads so much that they are hurting the non paying members who probably don't mind an ad or two to see whats going on in the next 10 days. And you are right. So many companies DO have ads and I am not bothered by that because I am not paying to use their service and they need to make money. -
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@whitmart14 As I mentioned in my previous response, we put a great emphasis on user experience, this is why we continue to avoid displaying ads, as they would be incredibly frustrating to the majority of users. Thank you @hokee for a nice summary and feedback. As he mentioned, the 6-day forecast outlook is still available, as well as all models and layers.
Our goal is not to be "like other apps", we are Windy, and we have our own values and vision.
Korina
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In light of the recent change does anyone have any suggestions for alternatives to Windy.com that do have a 10 day forecast? There are plenty of websites for weather but is there anything as good as Windy that provide this service for free?
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@burrelltb There is nothing I have found that is as easy to use and understand, visually pleasing, and has this much information at the users fingertips. They've truly done a fantastic job.
From my experience as a meteorologist, I've spent years searching for different websites and models to compare manually and all for a price. The ability to compare multiple forecast models yourself incredibly quickly and easily is amazing and shouldn't be taken for granted. Not to mention the integration of different data layers available is pretty outstanding. -
Also disappointed to see the 10 day forecast disappear from the basic app. I understand it’s a business and the end goal is to make money. Unfortunately in this world of subscription based services this is one app I can do without. Don’t get me wrong, I love the app, but when everyone is trying to reach into my pocket it’s difficult to justify when I can go elsewhere to get the information for free.
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@evolab People are complaining for a great reason. I share my sport with a huge group of people around the world and many do not speak english so they do not have the ability to get on here and have this discussion and a lot live in third world countries. 30 dollars a year is a HUGE expense for most of the world (beyond the wealthy countries like usa canada and all of europe.) So many people are having issues with this. And to say what someones financial situation is based off of the ability to take 5 minutes to try to show a company that this is wrong doesn't make sense at all. It shows me that this is an app that many people rely on and taking away a basic feature just because they do not want ads is super strange when they havent actually asked the non paying people what they would rather have. My whole argument is that they should ask the free users what they prefer instead of just assuming everyone would rather have limited options with no ads.
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@Korina I am asking you to reconsider this and also really want to encourage you to ask your users which one they prefer rather than assuming. Limited access with no ads sounds WAY worse than basic access with ads. There are a lot of people in third world countries who use your app to do their sports too and can not afford 30 dollars a year just to see a 10 day forecast and no other premium services needed.
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@whitmart14 The annual subscription is 18.99 dollars, not 30. The price is relatively low, other similar services charge 20 dollars monthly, not annually, so please consider the bigger picture and actual prices on the market before making such a statement. The 6-day forecast with all layers and models is available freely, so you can still use Windy without Premium.
We all have various subscriptions, so in the end, it is a question of priorities.
Korina
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@Korina So many apps out there money grabbing, the biggest regret I have now is recommending Windy to so many people. Hopefully there will be enough negative press about this decision to see it changed. I can't think that the normal userbase of windy is going to see this as anything other than shocking given that this information has been available to normal non subscribers for years it's obviously affordable to continue to do so.
Comparing it to other services is not as effective as comparing it to itself only a week ago, when all us complainers that aren't paying the money could access the same information we've been accessing for literally years on end.
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@burrelltb Additional to this, it's not even functionally a 6 day forecast, if you click on an area to get the 6 day forecast, half of the final day's wind data is actually obscured by the advert for getting people to try and pay for the subscription to get the 10 day forecast. So it hasn't even gone from 10 days to 6 days, it's 10 days to 5 and a half.
The hilarious part of this is the bit where you're saying it's so us free users don't have the fucking inconvenience of ads effecting our user experience, absolute bollocks. You've literally used your own ad to spoil half that day's wind forecast with not a tiny little thought for the free users. Just goes to show the reasons you're giving boil down to "mo money plx".
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@Korina its over $30 in Australia, & $47.54 for 1 year. In today's economic environment many people won't have the discretionary spend available. As you (curtly) said "Please consider the bigger picture and actual prices on the market before making such a statement".
Per https://app.sensortower.com/android/publisher/publisher/Windyty%2BSE and 10m+ downloads - if you charged .99c/year for all users I'm sure you'd have significantly higher revenue and significantly less inflammation. I gave when you pleaded for donations to (I thought) keep the app free and now I feel misled. I understand you need to make money but there are more constructive ways for Ivo and the team to get a Porsche.If you ignore it, you accept it.
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Yep, basically came here to say the same thing. Windy has made a bad decision and should consider reversing it or they will lose a ton of users.
Value add and charge subscription by all means but removing something as basic and prevalent as 10 day forecast and rainfall totals to try and leverage people into subscriptions and you're going to take a significant blow to your reputation and lose users.
Massive shame but another site will see this as an opportunity and will dig deep to compete.
All the best. Look forward to seeing others recommendations for alternatives.
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@coolwhite well said.
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Hi There,
I can understand why the 10 day forecast is gone now. I know, the bread is not free even for you, but let me explain my point of view here.
Your logic here is wrong, because you are trying to cash one of the least reliable features in your app... your forecast works best within Czech Republic in the range of 1 to 3 days, not more.
I would not mind paying for your app, even though I know I am really cheap in this area. But for God's sake, not for the 10 days overview...
Yeah and not 600 CZK per year...
Czechs are cheap in general and 600 sounds huge. -
@Quanyaye You are referring to the one-time purchase for 29.99 USD, but the normal annual subscription is 18.99 USD.
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Hi @Jakub-Smitka, that is the point - we are moving to Premium such features that are not vital, but many people want them. Since we removed just last 3 days of forecast, Windy remains 95% usable for free users. As you indicated you can not make any decision based on 10-day forecast, because it is totally unreliable. So if you need forecast and weather tools for your planning and decision making, you can use Windy as before and pay nothing for it. In the previous version of Premium many people were cancelling with comments: "There is no difference between Free and Premium. I am happy with Free version. Buying Premium is just like a donation...And so on." To have a sustainable income, we need to give more value for Premium. If we just wanted to get money, we could have closed the free version completely, but we didn't. We did not remove any feature that is necessary for the forecasting, we just removed feature that is very popular.
