Having through about it slightly more, here's a dynamic that you may not have considered (I'm not sure how it actually affects your calculations, but it's worth thinking about if you haven't):
"Gifting" icon slots around between users. For example, [user 1] posts "I'm going to let my paid account lapse because reasons. Who wants my extra icon slots, since I won't be using them anymore?" [user 2], who has a paid account and likes free stuff, steps up and asks for them, and the slots are transferred to [user 2]'s account.
In and of itself, this may or may not be an issue you've already thought of, but it also creates two new additional sources of headaches that may be less obvious:
- [user 1] buys a paid account again in a year and wants [user 2] to give them back their icon slots. [user 2] either doesn't want to, or, if implemented as upthread where you can't transfer partial amounts of slots, may be unable to due to having also bought other slots. Anger ensues. Presuambly, this can be solved by making it officially Not DW's Problem, but it's worth being aware of.
- [user 1], rather than gifting the slots to [user 2], sells them to [user 2] for less than the cost they'd be to buy originally. [user 1] is happy because they got money for something they aren't able to use anyway, [user 2] is happy because they got a discount, but it creates problems for Dreamwidth since people would presumably look for icons on this "secondary market" before buying directly from DW and thus throw off the cost projections, and also because, no matter what kind of DON'T DO THIS NO REALLY policy DW has in place, users would still get defrauded and then complain to DW when someone didn't follow through with transferring the slots they'd "paid" for.
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"Gifting" icon slots around between users. For example, [user 1] posts "I'm going to let my paid account lapse because reasons. Who wants my extra icon slots, since I won't be using them anymore?" [user 2], who has a paid account and likes free stuff, steps up and asks for them, and the slots are transferred to [user 2]'s account.
In and of itself, this may or may not be an issue you've already thought of, but it also creates two new additional sources of headaches that may be less obvious:
- [user 1] buys a paid account again in a year and wants [user 2] to give them back their icon slots. [user 2] either doesn't want to, or, if implemented as upthread where you can't transfer partial amounts of slots, may be unable to due to having also bought other slots. Anger ensues. Presuambly, this can be solved by making it officially Not DW's Problem, but it's worth being aware of.
- [user 1], rather than gifting the slots to [user 2], sells them to [user 2] for less than the cost they'd be to buy originally. [user 1] is happy because they got money for something they aren't able to use anyway, [user 2] is happy because they got a discount, but it creates problems for Dreamwidth since people would presumably look for icons on this "secondary market" before buying directly from DW and thus throw off the cost projections, and also because, no matter what kind of DON'T DO THIS NO REALLY policy DW has in place, users would still get defrauded and then complain to DW when someone didn't follow through with transferring the slots they'd "paid" for.