[Is POSCON Dead?]

Andrew Heath on Discord  — 2022-09-05 03:40

 

POSCON's path forward relies on funding. I have been self-funding this project for many years and I can no longer continue to do this. Going forward, there will be two parts to the POSCON project:

1.) For-profit, under Positive Control LLC

2.) Non-profit, under POSCON Inc. which will continue to support a free public membership

The for-profit side of this project is being formed in order to help fund the non-profit organization. My team will be focusing our development efforts exclusively on the for-profit business.

 

This announcement here I believe, was the killing blow. 

The whole situation is a Catch-22.

On one hand, POSCON is FAR from ready to be a paid-for service, with practically no one online ever. At this moment, there are 0 flights on POSCON. Vatsim reports 704 flights, IVAO reports 475 with a top of 852 the past 24 hours. Why would I pay to log on to POSCON and do my flight in complete silence? All the bells and whistles POSCON and the surrounding software (which I like a lot, the launcher is very good) has to offer mean nothing if there is no one around to use it. And furthermore, announcing that the free public membership members are shafted from any updates from now on surely doesn't help at all. 

On the other hand, POSCON won't ever become a new Vatsim unless people start to pay. I haven't made a single flight, I was scared away in the Beta, when pretty much all information I recieved was how I could be banned or punished, even for small infractions like using the wrong terminology when asking for a clearance. The reply I got when voicing those concerns in Discord can be boiled down to "be better, or use ghost lol". It was never meant for casual flyers, and they recieved what they ordered. 

For all intents and purposes as it looks today, the answer to the original post would be:  Yes, POSCON is dead.