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Comment by scubakid | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for trying it out! I agree the recovery dialog needs some improvement. Ideally I'd like a way to let people back in for a limited time if they accidentally close their browser. Couldn't think of a sufficiently tamper-resistant implementation with the current architecture.. but as another commenter pointed out, maybe that's still net better(?)

Sounds like your notional usage pattern fits with how I use the tool as well, i.e. more like monthly/quarterly. If a discount or extended trial of the annual plan would be helpful, always happy to set those up as mentioned on the pricing page.

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What about $5 for a one week unlock, so I can make quarterly adjustments as necessary? Or, say, $10 for a week during Q1 of the year so I can plan out my taxes for the upcoming year? (While I’m not paying the info is read-only, tempting me to play with it for $5/week.)

Currently you can do $14 for a month of access at a time. Does that scratch this itch? Or is there something about having access for even smaller windows of time that appeals to you?

The read-only idea outside of those windows is an interesting idea. I don't have a mechanism for that at the moment, but I'll consider it if some other folks express interest in this kind of plan.

Read-only is definitely an interesting and compelling idea.

This is what would do it for me. I make planning and big decisions once or twice a year where having write access is needed. I'd be happy to pay $14 for it.

For the rest of the year I'm just checking in from time to time to see how I'm tracking against the plan, so a free read-only mode would be ideal.

Yes indeed, that'd be grand. I'm finding lots of stuff as I play with it, but after a bit I don't need (or want!) to fiddle with it regularly. A read-only option, whether free or even for a modest fee, would be ideal, especially when paired with occasional editing "unlocks" or "only-monthly/quarterly-progress-point-additions" or the like.

I wonder if the commenter who was talking about dark patterns might look at the notional implementation for this and say it feels like the tool holding your plans hostage.

I'm also curious how much you would see yourself returning to this "read-only" view. I don't imagine there would be a lot to do if you can't make changes to anything.

All good points! I mostly just don’t want my personal use to be I spend each day adjusting models. Having a thing I can check scratches some of the need for action/anxiety about the future/etc. Right now I have some complex-ish spreadsheets, and while not much changes, I find I often look at things just to feel like I’ve “done something.” And yeah, I do sometimes say “what if better market/worse inflation” and then change the values back, so I take your point well.

Yeah that kind of tinkering is what the app is made for. So it's hard not to wonder if cutting people off from that until they buy another "access pass" to their own plans might feel more frustrating than they realize.

+1 for read-only access

I would do $14 for a month's worth of access, and while I'm outside of those months, the data is read-only. This would let me spend ~$50/year for me to check in 2-3 times and make necessary adjustments to my financial plan.

When I'm outside those times, being able to do drive-by reviews of the data and/or show other people the plan that I've created (for validation/sharing the joy, etc.) sounds ideal.

I want to join the chorus of praise for your work, it's really outstanding! Good enough that I created my HN account after decades of lurking to praise your work. I intend to tell my own advisor that adopting PL would be a huge improvement over his current, spreadsheet-based methods for modeling my financial future. Regarding my usage pattern, I'd be glad to spend the $14 for month's access on the two or three months in a year when I might want to update my personal plans iff when I re-up it can start out using the data I persisted in previous sessions after the subscription hiatus. Does it work that way?

Thanks so much! And yep, you should be able to sign up for a month, cancel when you're done, then resubscribe later and pick back up where you left off :)

And you can always export your data to JSON too, if you prefer to have a local backup just to be safe.

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