Anthracite, I think the buying power is comparable if you are buying within the same economy but once you start buying in another country, you start hurting.
$20 Australian to post on an Australian board is within reason but for me, I would spend approximately $80 Australian to get $40 US. I don’t earn twice the average US wage so that my Australian dollars would be equivalent to US dollars.
When an American is travelling overseas, they’re using American dollars to buy local currency so it’s not the same as me using Australian dollars to buy the stronger US dollar.
Am I making any sense at all? What it basically comes down to for me is that if the SDMB is going to cost $40US a year, then I will be charging just under $80AUD on my credit card. And I don’t earn substantially more than the average American to balance out that $80.
Perhaps you missed when Angel of the Lord said this:
And when ladyfoxfyre said this:
I am positive that I could cough up the money to subscribe, but how would I get my parents to use their credit card for it? They have no reason to trust this site with their number. Would I be able to mail in cash? Anyway, as previously said, I don’t want to stay if half of the TM are leaving.
Arden You’re probably one of those that Demo or I would probably agree to “sponsor” since they plainly couldn’t afford it. I think he suggested this, but only after his original posts had gotten him in trouble. I agree with his basic ideas, but would probably have made my observations in a bit more cautious manner.
Without trying to put words in Demo’s mouth, he was talking about people who DO have the free time to get a part time job in order to earn $20-50/YEAR. And many of those people have posted to all of the varied thread here. If you are a college student who has 10-20 hr/week to be on these boards, then you got the time to earn $20-50 buck PER YEAR somehow without prostituting yourself.
While everyone is welcome to their opinion, I have to laugh at posts which say “I can afford to pay, but I won’t. It’s against my principals.” Where’s the smilie for “give me a f–king break?”
I think some people are over-exaggerating the situation here. $20/yr to post is only 38 cents a week! I understand people find themselves in difficult situations, but 38 cents just isn’t the crisis some people are making it out to be. Heck, it costs 34 cents for a stamp to pay a bill or mail a letter, 50 cents to make a local telephone call, and 65 cents for a can of soda pop.
Do you pay your bills? Ever call anyone on the telephone? Drink soda? I know everyone drinks their bottled water these days, but isn’t that like $1-$1.50 a bottle?
I don’t think that people couldn’t afford it, just that they wouldn’t choose to pay it. Which is absolutely fine. But lay off Demo, his point is valid.
I don’t get that. I was fairly poor growing up and my mother didn’t have money to give me for my fun-time activities, so I earned my own money by babysitting and tutoring, getting a “real” job when I was 16 and could legally work.
I’m a profesional on a slary that works out at about A$25 dollars an hour. Share accomodation (if I dodn’t have a mortgage) is about A$60/week. Groceries for an active single man cost me about A$70 So a US$50 subscription to an Australian is the equivalent of 3 hours work for a professional 10 years after graduating, or about a week-and-a-half’s rent or about a 9 days groceries. That’s pretty steep. You can work out your own conversion, but my ‘New Scientist’ subscription used to cost me A$120 PA and that gave me access tot their web site as well. So SDMB will be charging 2/3 of a top-of-the-line magazine/internet subscription and not providing the magazine.
Well I can afford the membership, even with the hideous Aus:US exchange rate. If the discount is reasonable I might even sponsor a worthwhile poster who can’t afford it. So it’s not the money issue for me.
It’s the lack of turnover that worries me. The discussions will get stilted, Everyone will have shared everything of note they’re interested in within 6 months. The number of GQ entries will fall dramatically simply because most of them are from newbies. GD will become a massive boring round of “We did this at 11:47 on October 13 lat year and here’s the link.” Everyone’s opinion on everything will be known within a year at the outside. The only discussions will end up being on news events. That’s OK but seriously a current affairs discussion group is not what I signed up for, most US current affairs is irrelevant to me and there aren’t enough foreigners here to sustain their own discussions.
We really do need to keep fresh blood in here. Without new posters we’ll see little real debate and exchange of views. Unfortunately I think everyone knows that fresh posters are going to become a rarity if they’re charged to post. Like everyone else here I started posting because I felt mildly interested and thought I might have something to contribute, not because I felt like I needed to share something vital.
That aside this board is about fighting ignorance, and the peolpe most in need of its services are not likely to pay for a board full of information.
So the solution?
Just a little brainstorming but could we allow free new threads in GQ at least? That keeps some fresh input and with the number that are sure to be moved we get new topics. This would also serve to draw some new members in. Charging for GQ really doesn’t sund like a good idea. Aside from the fact that it’s counter-productive to fighting ignorance I’ve been here 12 months and I’ve already had most of my questions answered. I think most regular posters probably average one GQ post/month. The forum would die.
How about trial memberships? Say $5 for one months unlimited posts to get people hooked. That way people feel they’ve got to post a lot to get value for money, get hooked like we all did and hang around. Then you might be able to slug them with a yearly subscription.
Basically I don’t see this working. You’re charging people to engage in intelligent conversation, and most of us have freinds we can do that with for free. I come here to show off partly, and the rest of my motivation is the same as seeing freinds. It’s just socialising, hearing new views etc. I’m not sure I’m willing to pay to socialise and provide entertainment for others.
Donations I can see working. Advertising coupled with really cheap ($5) subscriptions I can see, but not this.
Yes, thank you, you are making sense. Essentially, the buying power is depressed relative to the buying power in the US. That was not my experience in Europe, which is where I normally go, but then Australia and Canada are very different places than Europe.
In that case, the price differential/buying power difference is very unfortunate. Is there a way to make it more fair? Some sort of global “buying power” index for each country? Say “Pay $20 US, or $33 Australian, or $30 Canadian, for the same value?” Of course, this might complicate the matter extremely much as well…
While I was working on getting all that blasted coding done, this thread moved way into page 3 so I didn’t see all the other posts after the one I was responding to, including Demo’s post on this page (assuming we’re still on page 3 when I hit Submit this time).
Oh, and milroyj? Yes, I pay my bills. Which is why I, for one, have a balance way to close to $0.00 in my checking account by payday.
I thought of that myself. $50 a year is less than $5 a month. The problem is, I wouldn’t be PAYING $5 a month. I’d need to come up with $50 right then and there. I never go to movies. I don’t buy books. I don’t eat out. I am a bargain grocery shopper. I can’t think of a time in the past three months when I have had $50 right then and there, a lump sum, that I could afford to spend. I can’t think of a time in the past three months when I had $20 all at once that I didn’t need for something else. Hopefully this will change after I get my car and my job, but then again, after I get the car and the job I’m also going to get more bills, between being charged more tuition (my scholarship is dropping me) and needing to make payments on the car, its insurance, and its gas. If I start saving now and put away a buck or so a week it’s still going to take me a year to save up for the membership fee, so what’s the point?
Demo might have a valid point, but he’s being a bastard in his delivery.
cough I’m 29 and I got my first credit card last year. Not for lack of trying, either. Bad credit sucks, and is the result of being very po’ for several years in my late teens/early 20s. Now, however, I have TWO credit cards! The original, $200 limit one, and the newer $275 limit one. OoooOoooOOoh now I’m stylin’.
FireUnderpantsBoobs, I already stated that I would make the credit card payment for anyone who sent me the cash. I mean it.
samclem:
FTR, no posts of mine have “gotten me in trouble”, but I know what you meant. And, in my defense, I have offered to sponsor people each time the administration has suggested this same idea. As for the rest of your post, you’re not putting words in my mouth at all, you’re right on with your analysis of my meaning and intent.
I barely post here now, as is. I went through a period of . . . hmmm probably six months where I didn’t post here at all. Since Cafe Society opened, I’ve been posting more frequently again, but again, not all tham much.
If the Straight Dope went to a subscription service, I’m not sure. I could afford it, that isn’t really the issue. The question would be whether my really infreqent posting is worth the effort of paying. I could always buy another couple cheap DVD’s for $20.
Larry’s post here should be read again and again. I may pay $20 now to keep on posting, even though the resulting environment will be diluted. I wouldn’t have paid $20 to post when I first found this place, nor even after I had lurked for a while. Hell, if you’d asked me after my first month posting whether I’d log enough hours here to make it worth spending $20, I probably would have said no. Absent something like the “first fifty posts free” that was suggested earlier, the membership of this board is absolutely going to stagnate if it goes to pay status.
I’d like to know how you found this opportunity. The one time I replied to one of these ads, I received not one, but dozens of pyramid scheme offers. Since all of the ads I’ve seen then are worded almost identically, I won’t risk another onslaught to find the exception.
And I submit that if something is true for 99.99% of the cases, “all” is a valid term.
