I downloaded the lessons app to my iPhone 13 a few days ago. I’m still within my 7-day free trial and it works fine.
I’ve seen a screen to invite friends to try it with a 1-month free trial. What’s up with that? Why should first-to-try get 3 weeks less for spreading the word?
I might cancel and try to find a way to get the extra time.
Thanks for getting in touch and we understand that this might seem confusing. The extra time is given to friends who sign up via referral as an extra incentive to get as many people playing as possible. We have found that in the past providing more time for friends referred to the app increases their chances of sticking with the app and continuing to learn. The end goal is to get as many people as possible to play the guitar and this method helps to increase these numbers.
If you’d like to discuss this further, please contact us via the FEEDBACK button in the app and we’ll get back to you asap! 
Wouldn’t the line of thinking apply to everone not just friends of app users? What makes friends of app users different from someone who comes accross the app on the google play or apple store without friends using the app. Wouldn’t giving them a month to try the app increase the chance they stick with the app?
Ditto what stitch said. I’m cool with incentivizing “Tell a friend”, but usually that means the referrer gets a perk, too (if the referral pays for a sub). In this case, I saw:
and rather than think, “Maybe I’ll invite a friend,” I thought, “Great, now I have to cancel my 7-day trial, uninstall the app, get my wife to install it, and have her “invite” me so I can get a free trial that’s four times as long.”
I want to be clear, I don’t think the product is over-priced or that a 7-day free trial is insufficient. I think Justin the person and Justin Guitar the company are well worth supporting and I’m happy to do that by supplementing the free material I’ve enjoyed with paid products that I’m interested in. What I can’t reconcile is why if I basically cold call someone, they should get a better incentive up front than I did for coming to the product on my own and being enthusiastic enough about it to cold call someone. (I know sending a link to click isn’t technically a “cold call”, but it’s a nicer way to describe an unsolicited link than “spam”.)
I respectfully suggest that you either equalize the free trial so it’s the same for givers and receivers of referrals, or reward the referrer with some perk if (and only if) someone they refer signs up, like adding an add’l month free to the referrer’s existing subscription after a minimum of 6 months paid subscription by the new person.
As it stands, the discrepancy makes me less likely to invite a friend instead of more likely. I know that’s probably stupid since it’s a product I already like, but even knowing that, I went and cancelled my free trial right before composing this. People are stupid sometimes.
@KrazGuitar Maybe someone here or someone @MusopiaApps will share it with you.
I would but I don’t have the app. I prefer to learn songs the old fashioned way.
I have a feeling that since the download of the app is tied to my AppleID, it won’t be possible to get treated as a “new” download anymore, even if someone invites me (like my wife), but it’s not enough of a dealbreaker to make me boycott the app. I’ll just grit my teeth and tolerate the dollar or so I’m missing out on by not getting three add’l weeks of extra service. I hope for future referrers sake, that Musopia will rethink that little bit of policy.
Let me see if I got this right:
You signed up for a 7-day free trial for a product, were happy with it and decided it was worth paying for. You recommended it to your friends, presumably because you thought it was a good product and they would appreciate it, and are now disappointed because they are getting a longer free trial than you did?
Justin is a generous, altruistic teacher who provides most of his content online to anyone who wants for free. Like everyone else, he does have to make a living and there are ‘fringe accessories’ that people can purchase if they wish.
The app is one of these and is run by Musopia. If their market research suggests that 7 days is the optimal free trial period for people who research the app to secure a purchase, so be it. If they find that ‘friend referrals’ may have a better uptake after a longer period, it makes sense to do that.
I pay a regular subscription for the theory course. If it was suddenly announced it was to be free for all new subscribers, I would be happy for them, not hard done by.
Please don’t take this as me being critical of you. I understand the point you are making and am simply suggesting a different way of looking at it, which might make you feel less cheated.
I hope you continue to enjoy the app 
I didn’t intend to belabor the point, but I’ve been asked (implicitly), so this is what’s bugging me. I know the economic impact of paying three more weeks for this service is negligible, and I don’t feel cheated or less likely to recommend it to any friends I think might like it, but as a customer still in a trial period of his own, I found it jarring to be invited to extend a better deal than I got to someone who showed even less initial interest in being a customer than me. If that person invites a friend, does their friend get three months free? I doubt it, but the same reasoning would make it advisable. It doesn’t make sense to me.
What this reminds me of is when telecom providers, for example, offer great promotional pricing, but only for new customers, while existing customers don’t get those deals. Really determined customers can sometimes get those prices or at least some discount if they haggle with “retention” departments once a year, but mostly the existing customers are counted on to keep paying “regular” rates without complaining. I’ve always hated that, but I also get it’s how business works. I can’t change it.
However, here’s what has never happened to me:
I have never had a company I’m not already a customer of, offer me a free week of service while I decide whether to sign up, but if I can refer someone else who might sign up, they’ll get a month to decide, without any perk trickling down to me if we both become paying customers.
I knock on the company’s door – free week. I knock on another door for them – free month for that person. I’m not even a paying customer yet, and already there’s a sweeter deal I can’t get because I walked in the door myself.
I love all things JG and will continue to partake, and probably pay for the partaking when I get to those parts, but this difference in trial periods to two different kinds of new customers, still deciding whether to pay, doesn’t make sense to me.
The message I hope Musopia hears from me isn’t, “I’ve been swindled! Give me my pennies!”. I hope the message they hear is, “This better deal for someone else while I’m still deciding kinda sucked a little. Can you fix that?”
“Cheated” is too strong a word for what I feel about this, but I appreciate your framing and already agree with most of it.
How do you like that music theory course? I’m very close to paying for that, too. I’ve already watched the two free modules so I know I like it, but I’m not sure whether I’d be better off waiting until I’m farther into my guitar journey to reap more benefits from it. I’m in the consolidation stage of Grade 1, so I’m still a noob.
If you get the life time access the sooner the better, your not getting any younger 
Haha, no worries mate. I probably shouldn’t have posted, as I was a bit overtired/grumpy and aware of myself picking holes in arguments 
Life’s too short
Speaking of which, @stitch is right about the theory. It’s useful in as a stand-alone course and I found it very enjoyable and accessable. If you’re going to stick with the guitar and Justin’s course, I’d get the lifetime one. If you just want to work through it, hang on till you have enough time to concentrate your efforts and then go through as much as you fancy.
I haven’t looked at it in years (despite the best of intentions) but have kept my subscription going instead of making donations. Good luck with whatever you decide.
Cheers
Just for info …
I have notified the team & Justin to read the topic and consider the issues raised.
Cheers.
Richard
Hey, thanks, @Richard_close2u! I’ll be signing up shortly regardless of how the team proceeds, but I much appreciate being heard.
@KrazGuitar @brianlarsen @stitch @Richard_close2u
Hi everyone, thank you for this feedback, it’s feedback like this that helps us to create the best possible version of the Justin Guitar app. We will be discussing ways to make this difference in free trial length more appropriate going forward whilst maintaining the ethos of getting as many people to start playing the guitar as possible.
We’d love to be able to offer extensions for already subscribed users that refer to a friend, however, this is not an available option available to us within the Google Play Store/App Store on our end and instead, it would generate a new 1-month subscription meaning users could end up paying for the subscription twice.
We hope you can understand the difficulty in deploying an incentive for already subscribed users and we apologise for any inconveniences or confusion caused by our previous statement. We’ll be working on a solution and we’ll post in here once we have concluded the best course of action to reward referees!
Thank you @MusopiaApps for taking the time to consider how that free trial incentive could be improved going forward, and to explain how extending a subscription as a reward for referrers is not feasible to implement with the existing app store infrastructure. I can definitely appreciate the difficulties involved. If you can improve that somehow – great! If not, I still appreciate that you communicated and made the effort.
I wholeheartedly support not only the ethos of getting as many people as possible playing the guitar, but promoting and supporting this Justin Guitar operation that has been instrumental in achieving that. (Pun intended.) Justin is the most prominent face of that, but I’m also grateful to the unseen support staff who have supported, refined, and expanded what he does. You guys rock. (Or jazz, or blues, or whatever you’re partial to.)
Oh, and I subscribed. 
