I’m sorry, but this is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen posted on this board. Essentially, you’re telling the community that you’re willing to kiss off paid subscriptions just because it’s kind of a hassle to make it possible for people to give you money.
Considering that the board software was only updated from 3.7 to 3.8 this hardly constitutes a version upgrade. It’s more like a small patch, forced onto our reluctant PTB because not updating for some 6 years prior allowed the boards to get hacked recently. And in applying this patch they didn’t take a few simple steps to preserve things like the add-on for gift payments or the old board smilies.
We are still in vBulletin “3.x” so it would just be a matter of downloading the add-on and configuring it. Restoring the lost board smilies would be even simpler - literally just copying a few gif images into a directory on the server, writing over the ones already there with the same names. But that was also answered with “sorry, no time for this.” Things must really be hoppin’ in that server room.
Ironically if the SDMB takes in less for memberships as a result of being such a low priority to whoever the current mothership is, they will become even less of a priority to them and a vicious circle will ensue.
I’m thinking this is a management thing and Jerry isn’t getting the support he needs. Your anger is just but I think it’s misdirected.
Poopy. That makes me sad. 
I hope something changes soon. 
Another data point if anyone cares. I unsuccessfully tried to give the Chicago Reader my money today in the form of purchasing a gift membership.
I am bumping this thread to see if anyone has information about paying for someone else’s membership. So far, it doesn’t look likely, but you never know. I have PM’d a mod, but this way it dosen’t fall on just one person to come up with something.
I, looks like mistakenly, promised to buy a gift membership for someone without first looking into if that was possible. If it isn’t possible, I’ll come up with something for the Promised Guest; but before I throw in the towel, I am bringing this to the attention of anyone who reads this. Is this a possible thing for me to do?
Thanks
It really is stupid if there is NO WAY to buy someone a gift subscription.