I didn’t think it would come to the stage where I would not be able to use the SDMB but I cannot pay to subscribe. It is strange that people should have to subscribe to have their ignorance sorted out and as many people can access the Internet for free, it is strange that to use parts of it you have to pay. People are entitled to education regardless of how much the have or their place in the world.
But if you do not subscribe, you cannot do many of the things that will help to increase your knowledge. I feel it is wrong for people to be charged to use a message board. Admittedly, the service has not been brilliant at times - there is a time every morning when the board is unavailable and the speed of the server was not good at different times in a day. I also lost the posts I was trying to make because when I clicked Submit it asked me to log in again. I wonder if I did subscibe if this would improve. I first came across this message board when I found a article Cecil wrote on this site and then I registered for the message board. There are some clever people on here but not as clever as Cecil.
Thanks for telling me things I didn’t know and things I didn’t know I didn’t know - I feel that I have learned some good things and some useless things as a result of Cecil - however this is one occasion when I feel that some people responsible for this board have made the wrong decision to get people to subscribe. Many people will not and there will be less users. I wonder how this will affect the SDMB in the long run. There are some fantastic and also weird people on this board and it has been great debating things with you. I hope that some of you will stay as I will still read the boards and may post as a guest but this will probably be one of my last posts. I’ve enjoyed being here with the Teeming Millions and enjoying the discussions with other Dopers on all sorts of subjects. I am sorry I can’t stay so it’s goodbye to everyone and thanks for everything.
do you need help paying?
See here if you need somebody to help you out.
Welcome to the Internet - there are many websites, message boards, etc. that require paid subscriptions and/or donations in order to keep themselves afloat, not to mention banner ads, click-through ads, E-mailed ads, and so on. Servers and bandwidth are not handed out for free to every message board owner out of the good of someone’s heart.
Yet immediately after you talk about how the Internet should be free, you complain about the server’s performance and reliability. This is in large part due to the heavy amount of traffic that all of the free use has been putting on it. The regular unavailable period in the morning is for maintenance purposes.
The previous posters mentioned the sponsorship offers. I find it hard to believe that if you’ve been reading this board at all in the last week or so, you hadn’t seen these offers, but if you haven’t, you have little reason to leave simply because you “can’t” pay.
You do realize that you can read all you want for free, right? You also must realize that someone somewhere has been paying so this place could exist for the last five years…
Haj
Good thing you started a whole new thread about it to inform the masses! I was on pins and needles wondering if you were going to stay or go.
Now I have the Clash in my head.
OMG, the board is going to pay to post? This is the first I’ve heard of it.
Pay to post! Yeah, that would be cool! 
You mean, they’re going to charge [a subscription fee] to post.
- Jinx
Yes, yes they are, you’re absolutely correct. However, they aren’t entitled to a free education.
So can whomever has been paying to:
- buy you a computer or
- buy you access to a computer
- pay for the electricity to power it
- settle the telephone bill
- pay for your internet access
please let us know why they are suddenly baulking at paying the subscription fee for your SDMB access. They must be mean sons-of-bitches…
OK I worry about the traffic falling off but that is all I am worrying about.
But doesn’t that imply that someone else has an obligation to teach? If you believe that your premise is categorically true, then doesn’t that mean that, if no one decided to teach for a living, you would have to establish an institution of slavery so you could force them to teach?
I found out about the subscriptions after not reading the board for a month. I’m looking at the SDMB less and less often and therefore I really don’t think it’s worth paying up.
This made me think. Isn’t the SDMB shooting itself in the foot. Surely professionals is who you want to answer questions, doctors, lawyers etc, who can’t post very often. Surely if they come on the board to discover they now have to pay $14.99 to dispense their pearls of wisdom, do you really think they’re going to bother?
“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”
-Groucho Marx
I feel that I’d like to get opinions and knowledge from anyone and everyone (well, mostly everyone 
). They don’t have to have a doctorate’s for them to dispense good advice.
My opinion is that (most) doctors and lawyers are the very ones who could afford the $14.95. If they never had the time to come on here much in the first place, I doubt that will change much. But, I agree that $14.95 is a bit high for a casual user. $4.95 is way more than reasonable.
Do you think that there could be a way to have the board usage gauged? As in $4.95 a year for someone who generates x amount of hits vs. $14.95 for someone that lives here? That might make paying for this site more palatable. I wonder if something like that is possible.