You want the board to change it’s policies or to require every poster to bite their tongue just so you won’t have to deal with your own emotional reactions due to someone disagreeing with your choice?
I think a much simpler solution is for you to accept that different people have different opinions.
I don’t pay because i’m saving up money to get my cats declawed and new carpeting so guests can ruin it when they come over and don’t take their shoes off.
Maybe my post sounded more defensive than I intended it. I intended it merely as an answer to the OP’s question. No hard feelings here, I assure you.
Don’t wanna. No rationalization needed.
Reported.
Sorry, only MEMBERS are allowed to assure anyone.
I paid the first year. I considered that subscription a thank you for the previous years of pleasure.
Then there were a lot of board changes. A lot of poster changes. Moderating style changes. The atmosphere here changed. I ignored the place for a while as my life got busier and it didn’t fill the hole it used to (for me). My subscription lapsed. Then after a bit, I came back. But it’s different now.
That explains my reasons for why I paid once, and then why I stopped paying, but I guess it doesn’t explain why I don’t pay today.
To answer your question: I don’t “rationalise” not paying, . I don’t feel there’s anything to rationalise.
By having an empty wallet more often than not. I know it’s only cents a day, doesn’t mean I always have that much to spare at once, and without a CC or paypal or anything like that there’s hassle of borrowing a card involved as well
When the board did go pay to post, I did without for most of that time, until a very nice person paid for me for a year. Within that year they went back to free to post, so now I’m a guest again.
In the (vain?) hope that my hypothetical subscription payment will help assure that this board remains, I have considered several times that I should ante up. I’m living on a tight budget, but not THAT tight. If I can go out to see The Hobbit, I can cough up for a SDMB membership.
But, note, I have never worked up a really strong sense that I ought to pay. So I’m always sort of sitting on the fence about it.
And then, every time I’m just about to break out the old checkbook, something happens that pisses me off a little bit, and it pushes me just a bit back over the line, toward not-paying. Typically, I get annoyed over board dysfunction (witness my recent rant about recurring log-in problems), or I get annoyed at the mods for decisions that I don’t like. I agree with most of the users here that the the moderation here is fairly light-handed and accommodating, rather than heavily jackbooted (despite all the jokes about it), but as I’ve complained several times, mod decisions often strike me as being capricious.
And then, there’s the paypal thing. As I understand it (ETA: Correct me if I’m wrong), payment MUST be via the paypal medium and none other. What, my gold dubloons aren’t good enough? I’m not ambitious enough to set up a paypal account (which I otherwise have no use for) just to pay SDMB. My complaints about board dysfunction and mod weirdness are generally minor and transient, but having to deal with paypal seems like more trouble than it’s worth for me.
In practical rather than theoretical terms, not seeing ads is only a membership advantage to those with strong ethics, since they are so trivially blocked anyway.
I am a member (as you can see), mostly simply because I like the board; having a user defined title is kind of cool but not important. Having others see a few more details about me (location and post count? I can’t even remember exactly) also falls into the “cool but not important category”. My membership expired earlier in the year; since the board was misbehaving so badly around that time I remained as guest until the problems were (sort of) fixed and then I renewed and became a member again (and no, I did not see ads when I was a guest).
(Missed edit window)
Lemme self-moderate the above remark a bit.
. . . as I’ve complained several times, moderator actions (however mild) [del]often[/del] sometimes strike me a being somewhat capricious.
First, I didn’t become a member because due to some convoluted thing having to do with advertising revenue, it seemed that I’d actually earn the Powers That Be more by *not *becoming a member. I don’t recall the details, and I don’t know if that’s true anymore. But their estimated per-member ad revenue is/was greater than the membership fee.
Then Ed finally succeeding in pissing me off enough that I left for about a year.
Then I didn’t become a member because I was dirt poor, on foodstamps et al and it seemed downright immoral to pay for an unnecessary message board membership when I couldn’t pay my electric bill without assistance.
Now I’m not a member because Paypal and I aren’t on speaking terms. I don’t have a problem with them, per se, but they don’t like me, due to a long ago resolved issue that they can’t seem to resolve fully by actually making my account functional again. I can’t even use an unrelated credit card through them. I’m anathema, so if any site runs things through Paypal only, I’m fucked.
Yes, but we Charter Members know where you live. And we know your real name. And that deep dark secret you swore you’d take to your grave.
No, you do NOT need a Paypal account to subscribe to the SDMB.
The payment mechanism is run through Paypal; payments are made through their portal. But payments can be made with most major credit/debit cards and you do not need any Paypal account at all. This may not be clear to people, as Paypal makes it sooooo easy for you to use your Paypal account that it is obvious in two seconds how to use Paypal to pay for your subscription, big window for that, but you have to search a little bit to find the hyperlinks that takes you to the page that accepts cards.
I assure you, most any major credit/debit card will do. We’ve also had some difficulties with credit cards from foreign countries; apparently there’s something in the foreign exchange part of it that Paypal doesn’t like. Not sure what exactly.
If you like, yes indeed, you CAN use Paypal to make this payment, either as a deduction from your existing Paypal account OR as a deduction from your bank account already linked to Paypal. However, if you use the deduction from your bank account function (I believe Paypal calls it “Check by Mail” or some such,) Paypal holds your funds and holds up the completion of the transaction 5-10 business days, so we discourage people from using that option. but it is available to you.
You have to be sure the credit/debit card you want to use is not linked to Paypal in any way … if it is they will direct you to your Paypal account or refuse the card.
I ain’t saying it’s right but I am saying that’s what they do.
And don’t forget the stainless steel membership card. It comes in handy in my wallet just in case I get shot in my right butt cheek by a little person because I farted in her face. Then there’s the secret handshake you can use in bars to get you a free drink (but only on days not ending in “y”).
So, I’m a member again. Thank for the prod harmonicamoon
I just noticed that guests and members are indistinguishable on Tapatalk.
ETA: welcome back What Exit?
Right back atcha bub.
My billing address is apparently enough to trigger the refusal to process the charge.
Ok, perhaps I was a bit hyperbolic. 
Maybe I’m just defensive 'cause I feel guilty for not paying.