watched this presentation from WordCamp US.
Any news on S2 update?
Does he address the point about not using JSON? If not, so what?
You do know, don’t you, that Morten has previously said that Gutenberg means that WordPress will be forked?
Any news on the update front?
To put people’s minds at rest, I spoke to Jason last week, and s2 development is definitely still going on - the platform is under no threat of abandonment.
It could be a few months until major changes begin to happen, but the plugin is being actively maintained for now.
I’m sure @raamdev will confirm this at some point. 
1 Like
I thought Jason sold s2member? Is he still part of development? That would be a relief if thats true.
Yeah, Jason has handed the project over to the other WP Sharks devs, but is still actively helping them take control of it apparently.
Hopefully we’ll get some updates from the team soon.
There are thousands of people who have built their businesses around s2 - so it would be cool to see it developed and have new features added too.
I’d love to see Apple Pay for Stripe integrated for example.
I’d be happy to pay a monthly sub for active development too.
1 Like
Agreed, I’d happily pay a monthly subscription for s2member if it is actively supported and developed. My entire business relies on it.
I’m a Pro customer. If youre going to update please add the ability for users to have a billing history of their membership payments? This is a big reason we are thinking of migrating away from s2. I’m also +1 on zapier integration!
Without Jason actively involved, I am afraid we may be witnessing a slooow painful death of s2member like Blackberry!
When I spoke to Jason, he said he’s still working with the new devs to ensure they fully understand the plugin.
If they moved it to a SAAS product and charged a monthly fee, they’d make a very profitable business out of it, I reckon.
We’d all be happy to pay, I’m sure?
It would be pointless to wind it down surely!
I doubt there would be enough current users prepared to do so to make that worthwhile. There would need to be at least two major changes so as to make it easier to reach new users, especially via wordpress.org, who could then support the plugin:
-
For both the free and pro versions, a complete revamp of the admin pages. They are what put people off using s2Member. Unlike what happens on the front-end, they aren’t built to current WordPress standards and so look very forbidding and unfamiliar. Things also need re-organizing to reflect additions made to s2Member over the years, and some of the labels needs changing to be more self-explanatory and user-friendly.
-
For the Pro version only, either Zapier integration or a much easier API with which to integrate different payment processors.
But there is also the challenge of the horrendous Gutenburg to address. That’s far more problematic because Gutenburg has the potential to completely destroy many business sites, even if s2Member is adapted to work with it. That’s why I have previously said that the s2Member devs should hold off doing anything about Gutenburg until it’s much clearer how the land lies. Otherwise they risk putting in a ton of work, and spending a lot of time and money, on changes that few might actually use.
To be honest, I don’t see the same need for active development of s2Member that some others seem to. I think wordpress.org has conditioned WP users to think that regular updates are good. But, to me, they are just hassle unless there is something specific that I am looking for. And I don’t plan to upgrade to WP 5.0 when it comes out in order to avoid the impending Gutenburg disaster, so I don’t need any modifications for that.
The main reason for using s2Member is its incredible means of protecting content and files while keeping sites blazing fast and running nicely with other code. (I run 70+ plugins on my sites, yet pages currently load in less than 0.3 seconds.) I don’t see any of that being undermined by changes to WP or PHP any time soon. So the only potential issues for me relate to the purchase of memberships, which are dependent on possible changes to payment processors’ APIs.
Even then, I am happy with Stripe so don’t need Zapier or other payment processors. And, if s2Member stops working well with Stripe, I will just use something like Role-O-Matic with WooCommerce to sell roles, while still having s2Member protecting content and files.
So a SAAS model for s2Member at this stage offers me very little. If others’ current usage of s2Member is at all like mine, then a SAAS model has little to offer more generally. So attracting new users with a completely-redesigned backend seems to me to be the only way to make that idea financially viable.
1 Like
Not for a SAAS model.
Our clients did and would continue to be happy to pay for support for pro version.
IMHO Jason, Raam and gang did not charge enough. I think they charged $19/year for support. It should be 50-75% of purchase price for 2nd and subsequent years I cannot see how $19 is sustainable. $49 a year might.
I’ld be happy to pay a lot more (200-300€ yearly) - but only if they get rid of all the bugs which plague s2member and a completely new pro form checkout. Or even 1000€ a year if they manage a fully 100% reliable invoice management without the need to use quaderno.io for that.
Could anyone write a somehow usable tutorial on how to use Role-O-Matic or similar with WooCommerce for selling s2member Memberships? Needs to include instructions not only for 1time selling, but also paypal subscriptions (well Stripe subscriptions are so broken with s2member that I don’t sell them anymore).
What s2member indeed is good at is conditionals and protecting files. What it’s horrible at is any kind of checkout, billing, payment history and so on - it’s really impossible to build a fully legal business on top of s2member without those kind of things - especially with VATMOSS (and similar rules for India, Japan, Russia, Australia, New-Zealand, Switzerland, …) , GDPR and so on…
1 Like
I agree that Gutenberg may be a big problem for sites.
How is it a problem for s2member?
Because s2Member uses meta boxes to protect posts and pages, and meta boxes won’t work with Gutenberg.
Ahh, thanks for clarifying about the meta boxes.
Well s2 is gonna need a bit of an overhaul, along with lots of other plugins, to remain compatible.
I SO HOPE the team do continue development of this.
It’s still been mighty quiet @raamdev!
Can you give us any kind of update at all?
Would put our minds at rest, and enable me to plan for a future, built on s2.
Much appreciated!
Ross
Ross,
Gutenberg is going to be a disaster. It’s only installed on 10,000 sites, whereas it was supposed to be on 100,000 before GB was rolled out. And yet the reviews are still terrible – and for good reason.
So I don’t think it’s at all given that GB will be the future of WP. There will be many people sticking with 4.x, and many of those who move to 5.0 will install the Classic Editor plugin. If you go that route, I would suggest also installing the Classic Editor Add-on. This will ensure you can use s2Member and its metaboxes.
And then we can watch what happens. It won’t be pretty.
Wow - does NOT sound good at all @KTS915!
I’l be in no hurry at all to upgrade in that case.
That’s the only thing that concerns me now about WP - is it’s getting to the point where I feel changes are being made for little good reason.
As I said in my previous posts, I just really hope S2 development continues.
I hope to hear from s2member devs soon, I am really worried. I checked membership alternatives in case s2 is broken by Gutenberg, the alternatives are expensive and will need weeks of work to re-code all the premium lessons on my website. If I have to work on my website for weeks thanks to gutenberg update, I will change CMS for good.
What Automattic is going to do is a deliberate act of prevarication. The “classic editor plugin” is going to be like the South African Apartheid, or the Indian Reservations for the Native American Tribes. I don’t think free people should accept it.