[Feature Discussion] Paid Decks

[s1212z]

Apologies if this has already been discussed but I’d love to see Kitsun to have publisher agreements that would be mutually beneficial to all parties. For instance, I would like a product key that would allow me to upload a publisher developed (or financially backed) SRS deck if I purchase a vocab book such as below (hardcopy or not).

The consumer incentive is obvious but in addition I’d rather have trusted high quality deck w/ example sentences using all of Kitsun’s great features rather than some unknown circulated Unki deck or having to build it myself. For publishers such as SM with various translations, it’s a more technological business angle to attract language learner customers and an element they haven’t lost to the blackmarket already given what is available. For Kitsun, it would build subscribers (international +) and have financial agreements for deck security protection and/or development assuming that is possible.

Of course this is a thinking-out-loud fantasy with little logistical considerations as I’m trying to widen my vocabulary pallet.

[jprspereira]

Related to that, it would be interesting to have parsed decks (a vocabulary list) of books and have them in the system you’re mentioning.

I would love to see that as a long-term goal, but I do feel like now Kitsun isn’t big enough to have that much influence on publishers

[s1212z]

I agree, but they could start small with pilot programs to test the waters to ‘prove’ themselves and provide initial 3rd party benefits.

But I think Kitsun has leverage even right now beyond having a superior SRS interface. These publishers has zero application presence in a world of Duolingo or Memrise (not that I like them, they just seem popular) and they are constantly blackmarketed. Not sure the growth projection of WK or BP, but I imagine it’s been pretty positive (perhaps they would be friendly enough to share basic projections to help Kitsun). Lastly, 99% of 0 is still 0…in other words, people are going to extract custom decks from their materials whether publishers like it or not. They have far more benefits playing along as there are plenty of workarounds to pirating their material within reasonable grounds. Bottomline for users IMHO, I want high quality decks and willing to pay extra for it. In the long, if someone has access to an art dept or voice actors, you may have something unique in the longterm.

On a side note, I see a ton of potential for a Kitsun JP site for English learners. Talking with my small circle, I don’t see Japanese natives having an SRS platform for their studies. I would promote this in a heartbeat to whoever I knew. Given you know Japanese already, you seem well equipped (perhaps reverse deck creation is scriptable?). At the very least, we could all use the extra practice switching to JP if we are the only users .

I have many more ideas that are questionably helpful to Kitsun but I’m sure Neicudi has a vision already.

[Neicudi]

Thank you for giving your detailed thoughts on this matter! Much appreciated I’ll give some quick thoughts as I’m currently away on vacation

I agree that there is a lot of potential in getting “official textbook companion decks” or something similar on Kitsun. It would probably be a win-win situation for both Kitsun and the publishers (as it wouldnt be blackmarketed anymore and they can curate the content).

However, I believe that a lot of textbooks already have their own (paid) companion apps (e.g. Genki). I also think that Kitsun right now is way too small to get into talks with said publishers, but that this might change in the future

Introducing something like paid decks at the moment would be counter effective to the health of Kitsun, but could be interesting in the future

Internationalization of Kitsun is also something I’d like to introduce at some point. Probably through community efforts (letting users suggest translations)

[S-LAM]

I’m coming over from Wanikani in search of an SRS platform to help me pick up Korean vocab. One idea I was thinking of…some people are already scared of the first paywall. Especially when this website doesn’t have much content up. How about allowing creators to earn credit based on their decks, which they can use pay off/reduce some of their subscription. This won’t be a long-term thing, but in order to generate content, attract users and promote community/trade, it might work well. Best of luck!

[Neicudi]

Yeah I think that’s a great idea

I’d like to re-iterate that paid decks are still very very far off if even ever they might become a reality.

I think it would be good to incentivize creators with other benefits like you said. Credit is the obvious one, but not sure what else could be done. I’d love to hear some more ideas on this

[jbasket]

My honest feedback; paid decks would not go over very well in attracting new users, speaking as a very freshly registered user whom just compared products.

This should be years away before any true actual discussions are had.

[Neicudi]

I agree completely, hence why I mentioned it in my previous post above

I’m thinking about eventually holding monthly/quarterly contests with lifetime or yearly rewards for the best new decks or something similar. That way the creators still have some sort of reward for their work