Just Get RID of the CREDITS!!!!

[MicahWilliamson]

I am an Esri Business Partner. I have had conversations with every one of my clients about credit usage.

Every.

Single.

One. 

In a world of ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Portal, Level 1 Users, Level 2 Users, Server Roles, WebApp Builders, Concurrent licensing On/Off/On. THERE IS ALREADY ENOUGH CONFUSION. 

Please. Please. for my sanity.   Just get rid of the credits.

Either you have access to the tool or not. Go ahead and use the Freemimum model it's fine we're used to it. 

Own that it is the Worst Idea Ever and lets move past it. downwithcredits‌

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Please See my responses below for more clarification...

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[JohnMDye]

That's a fair point and I could concede that perhaps pricing everything in US dollars would not be the best thing to do. Still, Esri could implement some much more robust credit controls for administrators and do many of the other things I mentioned to make credit usage much more transparent and easier to manage.

[EricEagle]

I'm not buying that.  That's what localization is about.  Just pick the currency conversion API and each user will see costs in their own local currency.  This is executed without confusion every day across the internet.

[MarkVolz]

I think credits need to stay.  It costs money for ESRI to store data and run geoprocessing scripts.

What I would like to see is if ArcGIS Online provided better feedback on how certian operations consume credits.  For example, It would be nice if we could get a warning such as "Uploading this dataset will consume about 100 credits per month, or 1200 credits per year.  Are you sure you want to continue..."

In addition I would consider consolidating some of the roles.  Field Worker and Editor seem redundant to me.  Also should it really cost almost twice as much to edit data in the field vs editing data in the office?

[JohnMDye]

I think credits need to stay.  It costs money for ESRI to store data and run geoprocessing scripts.

Mark Volz‌ I don't think anyone is asking for Esri to just make everything free. I think most folks (admittedly not all) understand that there is no free lunch and ArcGIS Online must be able to generate revenue in order to remain viable. The argument being made here (from everything I've read) is to move away from the credit model, which abstracts costs to the point where its difficult for one to immediately recognize the financial impact of running an operation or storing some data, and instead use something more straight forward such as pricing in the user's local currency. The second argument being made is that the existing credit management tools are far from being sufficient.

[JohnMDye]

Pricing in local currency would certainly be ideal.

[JohnMDye]

Paul Christensen‌, fwiw there is a "pay to own" option, it's called ArcGIS Enterprise. 

[Paul_Christensen]

Admittedly my above post was made with very little knowledge or experience on the subject. I now believe that flat cost "pay to own" is not viable. I do not have a solution for ESRI, but I do believe improvements can be made. Not necessarily to do away with credits as I previously believed, but maybe make some improvements. Such as better transparency on credit useage. I haven't seen anything that says what data or process is using what credits, just that storage uses so much and geoprocessing used so much (under credit utilization).

I think it would be great if they told you, when data was uploaded, that it would be this size and cost this credits per day. For now, I upload data and then have to go to the data in AGOL and see the size after it is already uploaded and estimate the cost. Also, when a geoprocessing tool is used, tell me how many features I am processing and the approximate cost of that operation. For now, there are no such messages when credits are being consumed and only after the fact can actual cost be accurately determined.

[Paul_Christensen]

As I have expanded my experience in this, I now agree with this comment. Scaling is a big issue and some organizations would be paying a lot for a little, and others would be paying a little for a lot.

[NicholasRoehrdanz1]

I'd be happy with keeping the credits for geoprocessing and whatnot, but having storage costs be per gb, like every other cloud storage service does.   

[RayburnClipper]

Wow, I cried a little reading this, I thought I was the only person to feel this heavy burden.  I've had so many issues when it comes to renewal time and I plop down a huge chunk of cash to renew all my ESRI items. Then I go to License something and it's not available because of <add excuse here>, so make a call and get the corrected. Then the developers need their EDN, so I go to activate, and can't because some issue.  Get around to the portal and my credits are there but can't use them so a third call to support. Renewal time has become a time of year I don't look forward to and start feeling the dread about a month prior to when everything in my environment is set to expire.  Then tempering expectation because something might not be available because of licensing/renewal delays on the ESRI side. Dealing with the issues of new "Applications" and having the SysAdmins clamping down on security and figuring out just what is wrong where, were all tasks once easily doable by one GIS Manager, now I need a department just to handle the GIS infrastructure and a dept to do the GIS work, within a department that manages the IT infrastructure.