As of when I’m writing this, all of the threads on the first page of GQ have been posted to within the last two hours. On MPSIMS, within the last five hours. On GD, OTOH, there are threads that haven’t been posted to since yesterday.
All of which is normal for each of these forums.
So, no effect yet, far as I can tell, anecdotal evidence aside.
I got to agree with the other posters. The dilemma for a goood messageboard is that it’s absolutely dependent on a constant influx of new users. Choke off that source, and you kill your own product.
I happily paid my $4.95, and would have paid ten times that amount. But I also believe a better solution was to figure out some way to make this place member supported by voluntary donation and the selling of ‘premium’ services. Rather than take away all the boards, it would have been better to expand the board by offering new member-only forums while leaving the current ones alone. At the same time, sell ‘premium’ subscriptions that get you things like avatars and search functionality. Charge a good price for that - $49 a year. All us hardcores would gladly pony up if you suggested to us that the heavy users might want to contribute a bit more to help the board out. In fact, I suspect you might have raised a lot more money that way than you’ll get by charging 1000 people 5 bucks a year.
In the end, it’s your board. But some of us have invested an awful lot of time here and have quite a vested interest in seeing this place survive. There’s really nothing else quite like it on the net.