Some have e-mailed us asking if the SDMB will soon be switching from pay-to-post to pay-for-no-ads, as discussed last fall. Short answer: we haven’t decided, but it seems like a reasonable thing to do in light of changing Web economics and our members’ strong dislike of ads. Annual ad revenue per user roughly equals the subscription fee. If you want to let your subscription expire pending a switch, that’s up to you, but I can’t predict if and when the change will occur. For the time being we remain P2P.
What part of “changing web economics” leads you to this decision?
The fact that there’s now a market for online ads, mostly on a remnant although sometimes a rate-card basis, whereas when we started P2P you couldn’t give the space away. In any case let me emphasize that there has been no decision.
Once again, I raise the issue of becoming an Amazon Associate site.
The SDMB would get 5% of all sales, if members clicked through a link to Amazon.
We are readers, big time. A good idea, this. Do it.
This seems like a pretty good idea. Why hasn’t it been implemented?
Are there any other changes in the works that you can hint about?
How does that (Amazon) work? Is it to buy only advertised products or could I click-thru and buy anything with the SDMB getting 5%?
I buy all my textbooks on Amazon… Not that that will matter after March, but I’m still very much their bitch.
I spend hundred of £ (*2 in $) annually on Amazon (mainly on US films and TV shows 
).
If it doesn’t cost me anything, I don’t mind ordering through the SDMB.
It’d be a simple click-through link. Right now it’s Sluggy Freelance that gets my 5%, but you’d better believe I’ll make the switch once the SDMB stops not wanting the extra money.
I too would funnel my ~$250 in annual purchases from Amazon through this website.
Heck, I’ve got a Wacom Intuos tablet in my shopping cart at Amazon right now just waiting for the right moment of financial optimism. I’d be happy if I knew that part of what I spent on that and the many, many books and games I buy through them was going to keep the Dope vital (and ad-free, if possible).
Would it have to be Amazon? I never use them because of their policy of selling information about their customers.
I also favor the idea of becoming an affiliate site. Newegg has one too.
I just looked my my spending last year on Amazon. This place could have collected over $100 from me, rather than the $7.95 they got. Seems like a no-brainer.
Given that about a quarter of my wishlist over there has “sdmb” in the memo line, it seems like an obvious move.
I’ve had that link bookmarked for years, & on several computers.
But the SDMB comes first.
Hell, available light and I even have an Amazon Visa, with the reward being free Amazon gift certificates.
I leave the logical conclusion as an exercise for the Reader.
The conclusion or the logical conclusion?
I would fight that pretty hard. The independent bookstores have an affiliate program, too, and I (like many others) don’t like Amazon.
Isn’t this board mostly liberal? Why support the big bad corporation that’s killing indy bookstores when you can support the indy bookstores directly with a American Booksellers Association affiliate program?
So just order from your independent bookstores.
What’s being talked about is a catchall that, should a link be given to Amazon, which already happens dozens of times a day on the SDMB, any purchases that are already being made from that online source, give some commission to the SDMB.
Also, though there are many liberals on the board, it is nominally independent, and shouldn’t bend to your perception of its politics. It needs to make money too ya know.