I wouldn’t say that they are being penalised. I do agree that the current business model favours regular visitors and is not geared to the casual once-a-month poster. But those people are mostly reading anyway (if they’re reading at all) and so the free model allows them to do 90% of what they want to do for free.
And the board was run this way for years. Those years were better in some ways and worse in other ways (most notably, the board, in those days, was often very very slow during the day.)
We have new members all the time so I don’t think we’re dissuading people from subscribing – just the opposite, I would say – while it would always be nice to have more (if for no other reason than the fact the more that’s going on the more interesting it is) I don’t think this is something you can force people into. Either they get it and get it enough to become a subscribing member or they don’t.
I don’t understand the perception that someone who does not post a lot is somehow getting less value for their money. It’s their choice to post or not, we’re not forcing them into it or keeping them from it. And there’s other functions that are conferred with membership that perhaps they value more highly, like search and private messaging. Value is perceived individually, it’s a judgment call by every one of us. Your message board experience here is what you make of it.
I think a penny a post is about right. People like Arnold Winkelried would pay 10,792 cents over 8 years = $13.50/year, about like now. And newbies could just buy whatever comfort level they have. A dollar brings 100 posts, that should be an easy baby step to take. Then when sucked in and with the boards’ charms destroying their common sense, they can shift to increments of $100
