For some context to start with: I'm a software engineer working in the mobile games industry, so I'm well familiar with the problem of providing a service that people think should be free and still trying to make a living. Partially because of that, I feel that it's important to support products that I use with moneydollars whenever it's feasible / occurs to me.

There is a little bit of a problem with plug's model right now in that I feel there's almost no actual benefit to subscribing other than supporting plug. As /u/CoMiGa said in the subscription feedback thread:

I am glad that Plug found a revenue model and it is not advertising. However, for me I have no desire to pay to have avatars or badges. Maybe I am not the correct audience but I use plug to have a place to listen to music and chat with folks. I find the avatars, and to a lesser extent the badges, pretty juvenile.

How many times do you really need to change your nickname? Who gives a rat's ass about badges and avatars? This little crown by my name is more annoying than cool. I don't want to subscribe to be "cool".

But I'm not writing this post just to complain, I want to start a discussion about ideas for features/bonuses that subscriptions could provide with minimal development changes necessary. Couple examples:

• Unlimited or higher limit on room creation - limit users to hosting 1-3 rooms, and unlock the limit for subscribers
• Unlimited or more staff - remove the 3 host/co-host limit and 10 manager limit for rooms sponsored by a certain # of subscribers (or perhaps hosted by a subscriber
• Unlimited or higher number of playlists - cap the # of playlists a user can have, and unlock it for subscribers
• Customize player profile - unlock the player profile (plug.dj/@/username) before level 5, and be able to add some personal flair to it such as a custom image, about me text, etc.
• Custom play area background - when/if room backgrounds get implemented, give subscribers the ability to upload their own personal image background regardless of room.
• Raise the limit on # of songs in a playlist - current playlists are limited to 200 songs, set the limit for subscribers to something like 500-1000.

This kind of thing would give people more of incentive to subscribe, while still allowing them to experience the fully featured product if they can't. I don't think things like "allow x feature only for subscribers" are a great idea because it's kind of elitist and reduces the sense of community (which is what plug is all about. However, I do think you can provide useful / practical benefits to subscribers without alienating non-subscribers.

Any other ideas? Of the "you can certainly get by just fine without this, but it's real nice to have" variety?