There's a significant shift on the horizon, one that I've been both eagerly anticipating and, truth be told, somewhat apprehensive about – Adocasts+. This is our brand-new subscription plan that, among its many benefits, grants you access to all our lessons and content. However, there's a lot more in store that I'm genuinely thrilled about (minus the trepidation! 🥳).

In this post, I'll walk you through these changes, with a primary focus on Adocasts+, its purpose, and what it brings to the table.

Why Introduce a Subscription?

My mission with Adocasts has always been to make learning AdonisJS as accessible as possible. Up to now, everything I've produced has been freely available, supported by advertisements and generous contributions from kind-hearted individuals. Unfortunately, neither of these methods is sustainable in the long run, and I'm committed to ensuring Adocasts remains a valuable resource.

Here's a little-known fact about me – I'm quite frugal. I meticulously track my expenses and am generally hesitant to part with my money, nor do I like asking others to part with theirs. As a result, charging others for my work is a challenge for me. In fact, Adocasts+ marks the first time I've ever ventured into selling a digital subscription/product. It was even my first time working with Stripe. All this to say, if there were another sustainable way forward, I would've happily ceased it.

Despite my initial dread of charging for content, I'm genuinely excited about this change because of the exciting possibilities it opens up for the future. In the near term, we're looking forward to:

• Sponsoring the AdonisJS Core Team with a share of our revenue.

• Exploring opportunities to enhance our content.

• Investing more resources in improving our website.

Changes to Content

Given that I manage and create content for Adocasts in my spare time outside of my day job, I don't have the capacity to immediately release a substantial amount of Adocasts+ exclusive content to provide upfront value for subscribers. As a result, we're introducing timed exclusive content alongside Adocasts+ exclusive content.

Here's how it works: When we release new lessons that are meant to be free, they'll undergo a two-week timed exclusivity period, during which they will only be accessible to Adocasts+ subscribers. After this period, the lesson will become freely available to everyone.

Looking forward, our content will comprise three different release types:

• Free: This includes content from contributors, blogs, code snippets, and more. As the name implies, it's free and accessible to everyone.

• Timed Exclusive: New lessons will undergo a two-week exclusivity period for Adocasts+ subscribers before becoming freely available to all.

• Exclusive: These lessons are reserved for Adocasts+ subscribers.

Price & Benefits

Let's dive into the benefits that come with an Adocasts+ subscription:

• Access to all series and lessons.

• Two-weeks early access to new lessons.

• An ad-free experience while browsing the Adocasts site.

• An Adocasts+ badge displayed on your profile.

As for pricing, we're offering three different options: Monthly, Annually, and for those who prefer a one-time payment, a Forever option. Here are the prices:

• Monthly: $8 per month.

• Annually: $80 per year (equivalent to two months free).

• Forever: $285; pay once and never pay again.

After substantial research, we believe this pricing strikes a balance between affordability, fair value, and the resources we need to move forward.

Adocasts+ will be coming very soon, likely within the next five days. Along with it, we'll be starting a new series specifically for Adocasts+ subscribers called EdgeJS Components. The Adocasts site is ready, we're just wrapping up the first few lessons for this series so we can have them ready to go alongside the launch.

Other Site Updates

Certainly, Adocasts+ is the standout feature in this update, but we've also made several other additions to enhance your experience on the Adocasts site 😄. Everything we're about to mention was released this past Saturday (the 14th) and is ready to use.

Also, special thanks to John Mantas for helping me squash some bugs with this release as well!

User Profiles

Every Adocasts member now has a user profile! You can access yours by clicking your avatar in the top-right corner of the page and selecting "View Your Profile" from the user menu. You can also make your user profile private in your account settings.

Your user profile will display:

• The date you joined Adocasts.

• The number of lessons you've completed.

• The number of comments you've contributed.

• The total hours of our videos you've watched.

Additionally, you'll see a list of your activities over the past year, including comment activity, your likes, completed lessons, and Adocasts anniversaries.

Autoplay Next Lesson

Now, when one series lesson ends, the next lesson in the series will begin automatically. A countdown timer in the top-right corner of the video will indicate this, giving you 15 seconds to cancel autoplay, jump into the next lesson, or let autoplay do its thing. You can disable this feature globally within your account settings.

Mini Player

The mini-player that follows you around the Adocasts site while watching a video can now be turned off, thanks to a new option in your account settings.

Code Block Improvements

Our written content's code blocks have received a facelift!

Learning Paths

We've added support for learning paths, built upon our collection system (the same system used for series). We'll be introducing a learning path for AdonisJS 5, though, this learning path will consist of pre-existing lessons. For AdonisJS 6, we'll plan something specifically for the learning path.

General Site Improvements

We've squashed several bugs and enhanced the site's layout and styling. Our CMS has also undergone some intense bug-fixing, and I can even now directly upload images inside my text editor instead of having to jump into Google Cloud Storage to upload!

We've also added support for contributors. So, you may see others besides myself contributing content to the Adocasts site sometime in the future.

What's Next?

We plan on expanding our profiles by adding achievements and experience points for various activities across the Adocasts site.

I plan on adding support to download lessons for Adocasts+ subscribers, though, I'm not sure exactly what this looks like yet and whether I'll be able to implement this with our YouTube-hosted content.

Lastly, we'll be looking into adding the ability to get notified when a new lesson releases or even if a specific series gets a new lesson.

Wrapping Up

We'd love to hear your thoughts on any/all of the above in the comments! Is there anything in particular you'd like to see, are we heading in the right direction, what do you think? Thanks for reading! 😄