Excluding porn sites I’m curious as to whether sites like ancestry.com that charges a fairly hefty annual fee make money? The zeitgeist with relation to online content seems to be that it should be available for free so how do these sites fare?
For newspapers, I believe the answer is that approximately one web site makes money, i.e. the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times is still free (and one of the best bargains on the Internet). Other newspapers that have tried a subscription model have either gone out of business or stopped charging.
On the other hand, there are lots of examples of sites that don’t use a subscription model, but charge for items purchased or services rendered, for example scholarly journals that charge you $25 for each paper you download.
I’m just talking off the top of my head, so I will be interested to hear what others know about this topic.
NYT just decided to start charging again, hasn’t started yet but it will. Should be interesting to see what happens, but the odds are certainly against them.
Why do people pay for porn when there are many free sites?
I can’t give you a GQ answer as to whether they make a profit or not, but I can tell you that ancestry.com gets away with charging because of their multi-tier system, excellent tools, and having a LOT of content that’s difficult or impossible to find anywhere else. I pay their $300 a year premium fee, and it has helped immensely with my genealogical research.
Quality, quantity, and niche fetishes. Or at least specialization.
Some folks don’t like viruses or malware popping up during their jo sessions. Not speaking for myself, of course, this is just what I’ve heard. 
The New York Times plans only to charge people only after they’ve viewed a certain number of articles for free. So the charge will only hit the heaviest users of the site. (And it doesn’t start until next year.) And in addition to the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times charges, as does Newsday, and a few other papers plan to start charging. Some magazines charge as well, although most make the content free for print subscribers, although I think that the Consumer Reports site charges print subscribers separately for access to the website.
Besides dating/porn sites, it seems to me that there has been a change in how websites are attempting to charge. Rather than a “pay up or you see nothing” method, many are moving towards “accessing certain features costs you.” One interesting example is imdb.com. As a term of their sale, the founders stipulated that the site must remain free for the basic information as the site was founded. The current owners of imdb are trying like hell to come up with different ways to charge, imdb pro for example.
I recently was strong-armed into joining facebook. I played a few games and quickly realized that many features of the games were only available if you ponied up cash. It surprised me that someone sat down and figured out, hey, people will use this site for free, but if they want an orchid for their farm, they will pay!
Also, I’m utterly convinced that pain-in-the-ass billing practices made ancestry.com the company it is today. I’ve heard lots of people having to close their checking accounts because they couldn’t deactivate ancestry.com accounts. Now granted, they aren’t the only company that did/does this, but they are the most legitimate. I never understood why they chose to go that route since they do have an excellent site and few would argue that it isn’t a good value.
Heck, look at this site. I was a happily paying member for quite a few years, certainly longer than I ever was anywhere else, and through crappy communication and an utter lack of respect for the users I was motivated to NOT pay and instead, use this site for free.
Realizing that some rather intangible things can inspire people to open their wallets is, in my opinion, the way of the future. Some companies just get it more than say, this one does.
what things exactly does payment on this site make available to you?
I actually felt pretty good paying money for this site. Not just the ability to post, but the idea that I was helping to support a site that promoted fantastic discussions, interesting topics and well, some toasty pittings. I do think that this site is rather unique in the quality and variety of topics. That and it gave me the ability to participate.
Now of course, I don’t have to pay to post, but in the transition, while the original concepts that drew me here, for the most part still exist, I’m thrilled enough with the content to still come here on occasion, the management opinion of the users negated my desire to financially support them in a tangible way.
I know that for not paying, I’m considered a “guest” which in my world, means someone who is expected to leave. My location is not visible, nor is my post count. Although I have been here many years, I, as a user, can easily be confused with someone who just walked in the door.
It may not mean much to others being a guest, however, it does rankle my feathers. It is like going to a friends house, helping yourself to a drink, bringing over a snack, relaxing, having a good time, then going over one day to be told you have to have a formal invitation, ask to get a drink, ask to use the bathroom, ask to sit on the couch. The rules changed. So I changed as well.
Some pr9n sites also do audience requests, and even audience participation. Or so I’ve heard.
Mostly they don’t anymore.
The Advocate had an article last year (May 2009) about the “Porn Panic” hitting the gay porn industry, where the sales of gay porn movies had dropped by about half, and even online pay sites were having trouble surviving – all because so many people were willing to post free porn online, frequently starring themselves.
Those academic journal sites are charging subscriptions, hefty ones, to academic libraries. I am confident that the $25 or so they occasionally make by selling an article to someone who does not have have access to an academic library is a tiny fraction of their income. For some reason, individuals are not generally allowed to subscribe to the online versions of these journals, although they can often subscribe to the paper version of a journal for a lot less (maybe half) of what a library has to pay. Sometimes if a library subscribes to the paper version of a journal it will also get free access to an online version, but individual subscribers will not get this access. But a lot of library subscriptions these days are online only (even though, in many cases, a print version is also produced).
Anyway, the point is that academic journal sites are indeed making money, often a lot of money, out of paid subscriptions, even though in most cases you, as an individual, will not be able to subscribe, even if you could afford the exorbitant rates the libraries have to pay. On the other hand, there are now thousands of academic journals that are published only in online form, and which are made available totally for free to anyone who can get on the net.
The economics of academic publishing are totally fucked up.
what i understand from your post is that the management of this site began to charge a fee to use the site and then changed course a few years later. Is this correct?
“… management opinion of the users negated…” i do not understand this part. some insult received?
When I joined, this site was pay to post. It has recently changed to primarily (I assume) an advertising supported site. During that time, many things were said by The Powers That Be that offended me as a long time user, enough that I have chosen not to pay for this site anymore.
I did in fact, leave for quite a while and do not return with a regular frequency. It used to be that I always had a page open to the SDMB and checked it numerous times a day.
I’m causing this thread to go on a tangent, however, it is the paid site I have the most experience with. IMHO, while it may be more financially successful now, I think it was conceptually more successful before the big shake up.