RIP.ie to charge €100 per death notice from January: Time for an alternative?

Calahonda52

Time for an alternative

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/1217/1487048-rip-death-notice-price/

Some numbers

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-vsys/vitalstatisticsyearlysummary2023/#:~:text=Crude%20Birth%20and%20Death%20Rates&text=There%20were%2035%2C459%20deaths%20registered,2013%2C%20and%207.2%20in%202003.

AMKC

Well that will be the death of it so. By by RIP.ie.

prunudo

Seems expensive for what is essentially a simple listing's service.

Calahonda52

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969245#Comment_122969245

The death rate is c 35,000 so 3.5 mill max

Simple service indeed so an alternative wouldn't be hard, despite the brand recognition

typo corrected

kieran26

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969255#Comment_122969255

It would be 3.5million @ €100 per listing.

plodder

Quite a cynical move. They have got it wrong big time with the size of the charge. The cost of running a service like that no way justifies it. It could easily backfire if someone sets up a competing service.

fletch

https://bas.ie/ I wonder has someone already started on the competitor site

batman75

I think 25 Euro would be a more than ample charge. Looks like new owners looking to claw back their outlay quickly.

Fr Tod Umptious

I'd say by lunchtime this thread will be full of posts from people who are suddenly experts in the economics of the funeral business.

rob w

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969305#Comment_122969305

But it's not really about the economics of the funeral business. The new owner of the site is not really in the funeral business. All they are in for is the cost of running a website, not keeping cars/hearses on the road, staff in suits, funeral homes warm and clean etc etc. I could nearly understand the funeral directors adding a charge with all the expenses they have but that's not what this is.

They are just whacking a charge on top of the price people already pay to funeral directors, hoping nobody will notice another €100 as they aren't paying RIP.ie directly, it's just rolled into the overall cost!

Funerals are expensive enough as it already without people being milked for more money on top. It's a disgrace that the Irish Times group saw this website as an investment opportunity to create a new revenue stream in my opinion.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969322#Comment_122969322

Exactly. The charge will just be passed directly on to the family of the deceased as part of the funeral directors overall costs. You don't need to know anything about the economics of the funeral business to know that.

The real bullsh*t is RIP saying that they're going to put the funds to "support the development and enhancements" of the site. How? What further enhancements to "This person died, here's the funeral details, you can leave a message of condolences for the family" are needed?

headtheball14

Irish times are increasingly using predatory pricing both for their own subscriptions and now for rip.ie. the funeral directors have a perfect opportunity to set up their own listing service and make a smaller charge. could be a opportunity for someone like the journal to jump in and offer their services to set it up. sad to see

Calahonda52

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969382#Comment_122969382

You can imagine the TEMU pop up ads

cut price coffins

mobile bake and shake rigs

VinLieger

IT badly misjudging this, also the claim they cant fund hosting and development of what is an incredibly basic website off advertising is bollox when its in the most visited websites in the country.

Also considering how simple a site it is its not going to take a lot of work for someone to recreate it, all they need is the buy in from the funeral directors which after this move will be easy to get.

Saw a few good replacement domain suggestions, really like slan.ie which someone grabbed in the reddit thread on this.

artanevilla

I'm sure it'll just be included in the undertakers cost.

Boggles

The Irish Times should never been allowed acquire it.

The value is in the database, from a genealogy aspect of it is absolutely priceless.

It should have been bought by the national archives and run as a not for profit.

What will probably happen is the Irish Times will monetise it to within an inch of its life and eventually try and sell off the data to a private genealogy website forcing the government to step in and pay an absolute premium to secure the data.

Cookie_Monster

It's all a bit wierd and creepy "advertising" funerals anyway, I mean do people set up alerts or check it daily or ??

Why would you advertise a funeral?, you are directly inviting anyone who cares / is involved aren't you?

The Nal

100 quid seems harsh enough but not surprised theres going to be a charge with 3.3 million people per month using it. Theres a huge database cost there that a limited amount of ads wont pay for. Dunno if theyre still operating with on prem servers or in the cloud or whatever. Maybe theres a big IT project needed.

Rip.ie is a thing now. Its not just for families of the deceased. Since covid we've tens of thousands of morons scrolling though it for "died suddenly" and "sudden illness" and the like. So blame them.

Not made with hands

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969415#Comment_122969415

Yes and passed on to the public.

artanevilla

"Sorry to hear about the charge, may the free site rest with the angles in the best bed in heaven" - An Irish Mammy

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969441#Comment_122969441

Death notices would have been a lucrative revenue source for papers like the IT in the past. People want to know who has died in their wider communities, not least because they might want to pay their respects at the funeral. I sympathise with the plight of the old media having their lunch eaten by the internet in this and other ways. This isn't the way to redress that problem though.

watchclocker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969441#Comment_122969441

It's not advertising the funeral, it's giving families an easy way of sharing the details of the funeral and allowing people who have heard about the death to find the details, without the grieving person having to start getting in touch directly with everyone they might know, it also now gives links to watch the funeral remotely for those who can't attend which is a surprising useful service for older people and people abroad

Before the Internet, death notices were put in the newspaper, this is just moving with the times

Now there are of course a lot of older people who read it like the younger generation scroll through Instagram but we'll probably do the same at a certain age to see how closer we're getting to being featured

bcklschaps

I hope this attempted exploitation backfires spectacularly on the Irish Times and the government have to get off their ar5es and set up a national obituary portal (where deaths are listed for a nominal fee)

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969521#Comment_122969521

Sadly…..if this happened the cost to the taxpayer would be multiples of the 3.5million IT revenue from 35k deaths.

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969458#Comment_122969458

There are about 100 deaths a day, so 36500 entries a year. A big IT project? You could run that database off your laptop.

You'll get a dedicated server from blacknight for 150 quid a month. Huge database cost my arse.

Packrat

A pity. It has become an important genealogy record which will now probably be incomplete due to people choosing not to use it. A donation popup might have been a better way.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969441#Comment_122969441

Plenty of people check it daily, especially for deaths in their area. Then you're checking it for the actual details of the wake/funeral. Plus you can leave messages of condolence for the family on the site.

While the family will obviously be notifying everyone important about the funeral, there are huge numbers of people for whom RIP has provided a hugely vital service for over the last few years. Including the families of the bereaved who could rely on the death notice and funeral details to be disseminated more easily, and to be able to read peoples condolences after.

hynesie08

Wait, RIP.IE is free? Why the **** was it part of the undertaker bill then?

forumdedum

Once something was free people will not begin to pay imo. Some undertakers put a post on Facebook so that will be where people can check deaths in their locality. Undertaker will ask people if they want to pay for RIP.ie. So it's bye bye I feel.

Wanderer78

ffs, we cant even afford to die now!

Oscar_Madison

The death of Irish citizens shouldn’t be monetised in this manner- it should be government owned and run especially considering how simple the whole thing is in terms of its technological structure.

Government should step in now- create a new site and start again -end of. Or else, IT sell the site to government for money owed on whatever investment it’s made and be done with it - I reckon charging people to leave their condolences will be next - guaranteed