Hey @cookywook - thanks for starting this discussion. I think it’s an important one to have.
I’ve been reflecting on this, and I think that the Plus team finds themselves in a difficult position: they’re being asked to do a job (create a paid for account) and to explain why they’ve been asked to do that job. Now, it seems to me that they are well qualified to do the former, but less so the latter. And that has, inadvertently, led them into conflict with the community - because we ask questions they can’t answer. So they don’t engage. Which makes folk here grumpy. And the cycle continues…
So I think there are perhaps two conversations that need to be had here: one around the details of paid plans. I’ve said before that I think that creating paid plans are a bit different to software development, so are probably best done in private for longer*. But where there are good points for feedback, to check-in or to talk progress that would be good to know.
But there’s another, and perhaps more important conversation about strategy - why is Monzo pursuing paid plans? To what extent is anything/everything up for grabs? Why? What’s the context? That conversation can’t come from the Plus team - because that’s not their job. They’ve been asked to deliver a package, not to determine if delivering a package is the right thing to do. Whenever Monzo has been brutally honest / radically transparent about its drivers then that has worked in your favour. I’d suggest doing the same again.
So I wonder if a blog post would be useful to set out the business rationale, what difficult trade-offs you’re trying to make, and why this is the best thing for Monzo, its customers, its investors and its community, would be useful?
Many (most?) of us on here are invested in Monzo (be it financially, emotionally or both) and we just want you to be the best you can be. I think there are nerves when we see things that suggest that your values are changing or that the idea of Monzo as something better might be being chipped away at.
So, before this becomes an essay, I haven’t voted because I’m not sure that this is a binary thing. I’d love to see an explanatory blog or something. And then Plus updates whenever it makes sense to do them.
*I actually think there might be a way to engage more, but it might require a radical departure from how things work at the moment. And it’s probably too late in the process. It’s a half formed idea at the moment, so will have a think and post a separate thread if I can crystallise it…