The SDMB runs on hamster power because it cannot afford horses. You can construct the modus tollens.
You mean ‘free to you’. You seem to be glossing over the fact that someone else is paying for this. They have paid for our use of a forum for the “free contribution and dissemination of knowledge.” They have lost money in the effort. I’m guessing they are tired of it.
.
Look, all they want is to stop losing so much money. It’s not like they are gonna profit from it. And even if they did profit, how is that a bad thing?
Actually, it needs to be pretty well set in stone. If I were a newbie and paid fifteen bucks after my thirty days, only to find out they changed the structure the week after so newbies can post five posts per month (about what I do), I’d be pissed.
Get pissed then, Slacker.
Or else be obnoxious shits in their last couple of days.
I have lurked for a long time. I just got the nerve to finally start posting recently. In my time lurking here, I have learned a great deal. One of the things that I learned was that this board can get s-l-o-w. If by paying, I can help enable them to upgrade the infrastructure to handle the load better, I will pay. But, if the change to subscriptions causes the content quality to drop drastically, I won’t renew.
Well, I guess I can’t speak for all we lurkers, so I’ll just speak for myself…
I’ve been floating around the boards since the days of AOL. I used to post there, lost track of the SDMB for a few years, and came back around to read maybe 18 months ago.
Remembering back to my foolish youth, where I argued here that all sorts of nonsense theatre folklore were actually true (the origins of “break a leg” for one), I decided to simply lurk around for a while and get a feel for the boards instead of laying my ignorance out there to be skewered. 
I’ve posted–what does my count say now? Like 10 times?–in the past few months and was meaning to try to make a more substantial contribution, but maybe I’d only post another ten times or so. It seems pretty wasteful for me to potentially pay .50c a post.
Honestly, I really can’t justify the $5 for something that I might make use of. Is $5 that much? No. But the $5 for a SDMB subscription that I might use, and the $10 for the extra Hotmail storage that I might use, and the $15 for access to www.ew.com that I might use… it all adds up with all the other tempting-and-reasonably-priced online services being offered to me. It’s best for me not to start that trend before I bury myself in fees.
So what’s the point of my babbling? I’m willing to guess that there are probably quite a few lurkers out there like me; people who could make a great contribution to the board (or maybe go down in infamy as one of the great witless weirdoes of SDMB history) who will never get the opportunity to post. (Beyond 30 days, which isn’t that long to get the feel for an online community that’s new to you.)
Maybe it’s no big loss. You’ve apparently gotten along just fine without all we o lurkers too shy/busy/lazy/ignorant/whatever to post. Just thought I’d throw it out there.
All the same, best wishes to the SDMB for a successful financial venture, and as long as the boards are here, I’ll keep reading.
DPLeC
Okay, so I did speak for all we lurkers. Sorry 'bout that.
@$&%! I previewed that post like seven times. Now I know why I don’t post that much. Maybe the new fee structure is just saving me inevitable frustration.
DPLeC
*posted by *Libertarian:
Posts like these are the reason I’m still thinking of becoming a member. I can afford to pay. I can even afford to ‘sponsor’ one SDMBer. I’m not sure I want to belong to a club with creeps like Libertarian, though. Maybe Libertarian would like insight in our bank accounts?
I’ve offered to pay for 11 people, so I guess I’m 11 times the creep you are. 
Indeed.
Well, in the 3 years that I’ve been here, my opinion still hasn’t changed. I won’t pay. I’m not a “cheapskate”, either. I can’t see myself paying for ANY messageboard, ever. There are lots of places that are still and will remain free.
So yes, it looks as if the SDMB will probably wind down, but definitely won’t die.
Maybe I will, I guess my decision will finally be made when I have that “subscribe” message before my eyes.
Sam
I come to the SDMB to read all the insightfull posts OTHER people make, i don’t post much myself. So for me there really is no question, its not worth 5, or 4, or 1 dollar when i will still get all of the enjoyement out the message boards i did before. The only difference it seems is that now this wonderfully smart, insightfull, funny, and downright amazing community of people will actually be paying to entertain me. Uh, thanks i guess.
I’ve already made clear that i’m happy to pay for the new service, and see how it goes. But this sentence really sticks in my craw.
Now, it may be that i’m inattentive or just a bit stupid, but i can’t say that i’ve ever noticed any direct correlation between Dopers’ “fiscal responsibility” and the quality of their posts. Hell, unless people specifically say what they do for a living or how financially secure they are, i often have no idea at all of their economic situation.
For example, in the last few days i’ve been involved in GD and Pit threads with (among many others) the following Dopers:
Starving Artist
Left Hand of Dorkness
Muad’Dib
World Eater
Milroyj
GaWd
Furt
Desmostylus
Eva Luna
Sly_Frog
(these just happen to be the 10 names that i remembered straight away)
If you looked in those threads, you’d see that i had strong disagreements with some of those posters, and that i had close agreement with others.
But i can honestly say that i have no idea how their level of fiscal responsibility is in any way reflected in their contributions to this message board. For all i know, some of the Dopers whose contribution to this message board i value most are verging on indigent, and can only post from a public library after folding up their cardboard boxes and stashing their shopping trolleys. And it’s also possible that some of the people i consider complete idiots are currently living in 20,000 square foot mansions and driving a Ferrari to the ski lodge in Aspen.
To imply that the intellectual content of these boards will somehow be a reflection or a function if its members’ economic “responsibility” is pretty narrow-minded. It suggests either that you have some evidence of the correlation that you implied in your post, or that you’re simply happy to use this opportunity for a little social engineering on the Boards.
Will you require that those 11 people you intend to sponsor provide you with a detailed account of their incomings and outgoings, so you can decide whether or not they are “responsible” enough to receive your largesse?
Again, i’m not making an argument against the subscription service. I’ll be happy to pay and see how it goes. Personally, however, i’m not convinced that losing those who can’t/won’t pay $5/15 will necessarily make these Boards a more interesting place.
mhendo-
It will NOT make this a more interesting place. It simply feeds Lib’s feeling of superiority over those he thinks are “fiscally irresponsible”. That’s bullshit.
Take a look at the economy, Lib, let me know what you see. I make less than half of what I made 3 years ago. I can’t afford rent, and am lucky to live with family. My former position of responsibility and possible promotion in the tech industry was eliminated and I now make $12/hr. as a fucking Legal Assistant. I can definitely understand how people could come up short on $5 these days.
So tell me, where does this air of superiority come from when switching over to a $5/yr. subscription? We’re not talking about a $20 or $30 sub, it’s $5. I’ll probably subscribe, but I’ll wait until I’m asked to do so.
Sam
The fiscally responsible people will look around and see that there are many free message boards around. Like say the one run by micro soft. and go there. The Microsoft ones are pretty good people can be set up as moderators. There are services like the one we used when the boards went down for a few months a while ago. A few dopers here could take collection and setup pretty much the equivalent board there and allow new members to come in for free. They could have pledge drives to pay for it and probably get enough money to keep the boards running.
Mhendo
Practically any sentence lifted from context can sound alarming. What I responded to and was talking about, if you’ll notice, is people who cannot afford a frill like a subscription but rob from essentials anyway to pay it. Suppose I lifted this from one of your posts…
…and said how shocked I am to find that you have a gambling addiction.
Dude, that is such a fucking stretch, it’s unbelievable. :eek:
You can’t be that obtuse…
I wonder if any consideration was given to a PBS style pledge drive. There are some of us who are happy to contribute more than $5 or more than $15 for that matter. All contributors could get a designation like ‘underwiting member’ and some Reader crap depending on the contribution (maybe a t-shirt for $20 bucks, a mug for $30, and autographed pic of Cecil for $50). This would still let newbies get hooked and would probably raise the same amount of money as a general subscription would.
[QUOTE=LeaperSo, I’d like to put the question in front of you all while I still can: what are your experiences with message boards of this type (ie pure forums, no other content) that have gone to this system? What’s happened to them?
And more importantly, what do YOU think will happen to this community once the system goes into effect? How many vibrant posters (or stragglers, if you’re one of the more pessimistic ones) would it take to make this place the kind of place it is now after subscriptions come in?
Is this the last of the SDMB?[/QUOTE]
I started getting interested in message boards around three years ago. The first place I lurked was Salon’s Table Talk which was full of interesting people and fascinating conversations. Just as I was getting up my nerve to start posting…it went pay. And since I wasn’t currently posting, I didn’t join. I still lurk there a lot but Table Talk lost a lot of posters during the transition and only the same old people are posting. And they’re gradually leaving through normal attrition; you rarely see new posters.
Table Talk doesn’t have the 30-day free posting option. I don’t know if that’s gonna make a difference or not. But in my experience, going pay leads to a slow and painful death for a message board…