I just posted the following* in Ed’s main thread -didn’t realise this thread was alive and kicking too. To answer your question, pulykamell:
*when you say “four cents” a day, or “20 pence” or whatever, sure, it doesn’t sound like any money at all and everyone has a bloody good laugh about it: however, 20 pence is almost a small loaf bread (28p for a Danish loaf from Tesco), or it’s just under the cost of a tin of baked beans, with 3 pence “change” - a meal. Whilst the teeming millions may be fine, some people - and yes, that includes me - are living in Interesting Times; no, I don’t want to talk about it on a public forum.
I don’t have paypal access, or a credit/debit card and I couldn’t afford it regardless; leaving aside the argument about info. and discussion being free to all, and going through the for / against subscription arguments to start with.
Someone mentioned here that if you could afford 'net access, then you could afford to subscribe? Well, I guess it seems a fair point, but in the UK, if your 'phone line goes down because you can’t afford to maintain the 'phone and/or the ISP charge, libraries now offer free internet access - for set periods I grant you, but it’s better than the alternative.
Yeah, sure, you think you can atone that easily, do you? Just drop one ‘f’ and you’re free and clear?
Think again, friend: all your ‘f’ are belong to us!!!
Oh yeah - anyone who wants to send me a check and have me Paypal their subscription, when you email me, make sure ‘SDMB’ is part of the subject line, to keep it distinguishable from the spam.
I tried posting before, but the hamsters ate it. I guess that slimming down membership will produce at least one benefit.
But, as I tried to post, I’m sorry to see this happen. Part of the liveliness of the SDMB is that discussion is open to all. Restricting access (and I’m not talking about people who have been banned) will be detrimental to the whole community.
As for me, I’ve been around about 9 months. I read often but rarely post. I haven’t made any friends nor any enemies (that I know about). Sure, I can afford the $5 a year, but my conscience informs me that I could put that to better use than for entertainment. So I don’t know if I’ll hang around or not.
For complete newbies, it’s even worse. They get access for 30 days - not really long enough to hook them nor to build the relationships with other Dopers that seem to be one of the most important characteristics of these boards - and then they have to pay $14.95? At that rate, the few newbies who do join will most likely already know someone on the board who talks them into it. Hardly a way to bring new life and new ideas into discussions.
This place can be insular enough now; it’s about to get very much worse.
I probably sound bitter, but it’s unintentional. I just can’t express myself well today.
Content is king. It’s the only thing that makes this board popular; it’s the only reason that it exists.
We provide the content to the Chicago Reader for free. I don’t have a problem with that, as it’s great to have a public forum in which to hash out issues.
I have two major problems with this change.
It means that I’d be paying to have my writing featured here. As has been said in any number of threads on vanity publishing, money should flow towards the author, otherwise you’re just another doofus who wants to see his name in print. I don’t mind posting for free, because it has any number of side benefits. Paying someone to get my writing into the public eye seems demeaning.
My second problem is that the forum is no longer public. While anyone will be able to read the posts, the discussion will grow to be between people who are willing to cough up dough to see their writing published. I believe this will cause the boards to become increasingly insular and considerably less interesting.
Keep in mind that the boards that have become successful on subscription models do so on the strength of their professionally-produced content, and not on the popularity of their boards. As anyone on the web knows, there are thousands of message boards out there. Who pays for what you can get for free?
I proposed the idea of the SDMB classifieds a couple of times over the past year and a half, and it was considered by the Reader’s staff, and rejected. As someone has written already, before they took an approach that had the potential to kill off the goose that lays the golden eggs, they should have been trying alternate revenue sources. There are thousands of people here who would have been happy to contribute to the cause, if it was a voluntary contribution and not a requirement. Now, it seems to me that the boards will slowly die off as the old-timers and the blowhards get to be bigger and bigger fish in a smaller and smaller pond. The Reader, meanwhile, will collect some good revenues to start with, and then wonder what happened to their profits as the boards become extinct.
DON"T TELL YOUR WIFE!!! I’ll pay for you! I neeeeeeeed true NFL fans to trash talk. And I’ll be able to talk so much trash this year for your lowly Steelers, while my revamped-D Vikings waltz all the way to the big dance!
Well, good bye SDMD. Its been fun, being around since Satan asking about being penetrated by his then GF who went psycho. Oh well, not going to pay five dollars for something I’ll find somewhere else for free.
Well guys, it was nice talking to you. I don’t post enough to justify paying the $4.95, even if I could afford it. Being near the end of my last year of college, I don’t even know if I’ll have internet access after I graduate. Don’t worry, if I do have internet, I’ll be lurking and reading, but you just won’t know I’m here. Kinda like now…
Instead of individual members paying for other individual members, would it be possible to create a general “Indigent Dopers’ Fund”? Anyone who wanted to could contribute, and anyone for whom the charge is a problem could apply for a “scholarship.”
Of course a big problem would be figuring out who really needed the money–I suppose it would have to be a kind of honor system, which would mean that someone who just didn’t feel like paying might freeload. But I think the majority of people would be honorable about it, and personal sponsorship has the same risk, to a lesser degree.
Another problem is that there would have to be a mod or someone who was willing to manage the fund and evaluate requests for scholarships, and that would not be a pleasant job.
But I think the idea is worth considering because
*you could contribute however much you want–even a dollar could help
*people wouldn’t have to publically appear on the board admitting they need money
*there would no risk of the less self-confident posters not bothering to ask for help because they feel, as Steelerphan says, that “I might as well say goodbye now. Not being one of the more popular posters, I doubt anyone would help me.”
*the fund would be available to new people joining after the price goes up. This is the main advantage, I think, because while it’s true that you have to be very poor for $5 to be a lot, $15 is starting to be real money for some people.
I’ve got some conflicting thoughts over this change. I was reading some of the other revenue suggestions (Amazon linking, etc.) in ATMB and I was really hoping that there could be some way around a “you don’t pay, you don’t post” decision. Seeing that it’s come to this for a guaranteed revenue stream rather than taking a chance on financing the board another way is somewhat disheartening. Still, in business sometimes we have to go with what works instead of risking it, right?
I have to ask myself if the board is worth five bucks. I look on my desk and I’ve got action figures that I’ve spent more than that on, and the Dope has surely given me more entertainment than that. Now I must ask whether it’s worth five dollars to actually participate on the board, and by going over my posting history, I’m not really sure. I very much doubt it’s worth fifteen.
I’ll probably end up paying for the first year, though like others I’m having reservations about what this will mean for the future of the community - the Tolkien thread that shall not be linked to would have stopped at around five pages, I think. Maybe it’ll inspire me to participate more, but perhaps it’ll drive me out. We’ll see in a year, won’t we?
Something Awful has a lot more to attract people to the site than just the forums. There are contests, columns, reviews, stories… an entire culture that revolves around the forums, but doesn’t depend on them. The content outside of the forums serves as a lure to draw people into the forums. As much as I enjoy Cecil’s columns, they’re not enough to draw people to the boards, and get them to pay $15 to stay. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that more people have been drawn to Cecil’s columns from the boards than vice versa recently.
There’s nothing special about these boards, except for the people. And the people can go elsewhere.
Yes, and pretty much everything (with the exception of a few free professional message boards) I’ve seen out there is crap. I’ll gladly pay the five bucks so I don’t have to wade through streams of thoughtless drivel to find real content.
Perhaps there are people out there who really can’t afford the five bucks. I suspect it’s less than a tenth of one percent of our readership. But it’s your choice as a consumer to make, whether the five bucks is worth it. Mow your neighbor’s lawn. Get a paper route. Scour the sidewalks for change. Borrow a dollar from five of your friends (nobody will ask for it back.) Skip lunch. If it’s worth that much to you, I’m sure you can come up with five dollars.
I think you may have company. Myself, though I’ve been here five years, the trend has been heading to zero.
The next 30 days are the test. If I can’t find anything more to post about than I did the last 30 days, I’m done. Everything comes to an end, and in this case I think I just needed the push. Will know in 30 days.
Steelerphan and others, I’ve started a thread over in MPSIMS where you can ask either me or EddyTeddyFreddy (for now) to pay your subscription or volunteer to pay somebody’s.
We’re picking the deserving rather than favorites, so if you want to stay, please apply.
Those of you who think you are not popular enough to “get someone to pay for you” should remember that many more people think highly of you than often will post about it. Some of us who have been here for a year or four (June 2000 registration here) have a long list of folks we enjoy reading, and five bucks for 500 posts (assuming average contribution; some post a lot more, some less) is a penny a post. Some of those posts will be a snarky comment, maybe. Some of them will be five or six paragraphs or a cite nobody else managed to find.
I’ll have to talk to fizzy tonight to find out how many people she thinks we can/should cover.
Personally, I don’t work. I raise an autistic child and sometimes 5 bucks can make or break your day. Yeah, it’s not that much but without an income, it’s not something I can just fork over without a thought. I buy equipment for her therapies that aren’t covered by insurance, along with all the regular child gear (food, medicine, clothes, shoes, field trip expenses, birthday gifts, etc… ). I know what my priorities are and even though I enjoy posting and lurking here, I’m not going to stay. So yes, my budget is rather tight.
Well, I wish they would put the money toward the servers, while the paid subscription idea would cut down on the number of posters, anyone can still read them, right? I mean just look at the views to post counts these days. There will still a lot of traffic coming through.
Somtimes I can hardly even pull up the boards at all.
I think putting the funds toward better and faster servers would be a great idea!
Pretty tight. Things haven’t been going that well for over a year now. There are times that I have to restrict the amount of milk the kids drink because the paycheck won’t be here for a few days.
I don’t want to leave and I’m going to try to squeeze it in somewhere.
