A year or two ago there was some talk of charging a small annual fee for SDMB membership. What’s the status of that idea?
I favor it. Lately the only times I’ve been able to get pages to load are early mornings or very late evenings. The server seems to be overloaded most of the time. I have DSL; people on dial-up may have it even worse.
I’d gladly pay $5 per year for faster page loading.
Let’s hear from all who agree. The rest of you can suck eggs.
Does that mean only the rich can receive a reprieve from their igonorance? The rest of us would just have to suffer I suppose :rolleyes:
The best way to keep informed about any pay-to-SDMB concepts is to keep an eye on ATMB. Every couple of weeks, the topic will come up. Since the SDMB is such a low priority for the Chicago Reader (understandably so), the process hasn’t made any progress (that I know of) in months.
It’s never easy to enjoy paying for something that was once free, but I wouldn’t mind if the SDMB began to charge a small-ish and reasonable annual fee if this produced some performance benefit. It would be well worth it for the information and entertainment value.
Yeah, wouldn’t break me heart. I’d pay straight away.
The Something Awful forums charge a one-time fee of $9.95 and it’s great. It weeds out jerks right away. It keeps people in line because if you get banned for being a jerk it costs another $9.95 to re-register. Plus, the server speed is great since there is some money to go towards it.
I’d pay a one-time $9.95 for the SDMB.
I’d pay if they accepted a paper cheque mailed through the Post Office.
I don’t understand why the SD is such a low priority for them…there are 40k+ members…doesn’t that count for anything?
As for being willing to pay…I’d probably stick around for one payment’s term and see how things went. I think what makes this place great is the tremendous diversity amongst the members…and if a lot of people didn’t stick around because of membership dues the board would become less interesting…
Just my 1.5 cents…
I don’t know. The fact that it is free makes SDMB a growing and vibrant community. While many current members would continue with a fee (as would I), it would take away some of the fun of meeting new members every single day.
I just feel like the community could grow stale if a fee is imposed, even if it is a small one. Sure, it would keep out the riff-raff. But it would also deter potentially very good new members, who are simply reluctant to pay money when they don’t know what they’re getting. I know if this board had charged money back in the day, I would never have joined in the first place.
Yes we may suffer from slow load times, and an occasional troll. But our Mods are great and always active, and help keep things under control. Don’t see any reason to change it.
Nope.
In the world of the internet, content is king. Without content, you may as well not bother. Asking members to pay to post is like asking your suppliers to pay to drop off goods at your business. It’s a ridiculous business model.
On the other hand, I’ve proposed a system whereby Dopers are given a forum in which they can buy classified ads to advertise services and goods such as cannot be advertised in regular posts. It gives the community a marketplace, and allows charitable dopers to contribute to the boards without the boards having to take contributions, with all the legal wrangling that entails. It allows for personals and shout-outs and gifts and business opportunities. And the Reader already has online classifieds.
Going to a membership-based model has a good chance of killing off the boards. The classifieds would not. If money needs to be made off the boards, I can’t see a reason why the classifieds shouldn’t be tried first.
I have a novel idea: donations. For all you members who love the SD, I am almost sure you could send a nice litttle contribution. A couple of bucks here and there may be significant over time, as always. Also, I bet you could turn it into a tax deduction some how. As in charity, or the small buisness deduction.
A lot of us would pay $20/year if all we got out of it was “Paid Member” under our username. This way you don’t leave the poor ignorant, content doesn’t suffer, and we all (hopefully) get better service.
Actually, nope. Under the last rules I’m aware of, if you want to donate, you have to buy something.
I belong to another large message board that has some parallels to the SDMB. It’s also owned by a magazine wth relatively low circulation, and it’s both the largest message board on its topic and the largest message board hosted by it’s host (Infopop). Bandwidth and costs were getting out of hand for the parent magazine, which is not exactly an organization of great means. Like here, many debates raged over paying for the board. Here’s how the compromise broke down:
They instituted a “Premium Membership” at $10/year. Viewing and posting remained free of charge. Premium members bought the priviledge of posting photographs, a funny little line of their choosing under their name and a certain number of free classifieds in the classifieds section.
I’m not an insider to the runnings of that board but I believe it has worked out fairly well. There are quite a few Premium members.
I rather favor the idea of having the option of a free account, or a paid account with extra features. That way, those who want the extra features (or who just want to support the boards) can pay, and us poor college students can still enjoy the boards 
I like the idea of ‘free for everyone, paid for enhanced features’ idea. I don’t like the idea of it being strictly pay, because General Questions, I think, would suffer greatly from this. GQ is an extremely important part of fighting ignorance, and I really doubt that we’ll get people willing to cough up money to ask one or two questions (and then the fight against ignorance will decline).
The other idea I wouldn’t mind would be to have it free to read all the posts, and free to post in General Questions, but pay to post in the other areas. That way everyone who stumbles across here still has the ability to ask questions and lessen their ignorance. 
[QUOTE=Call me Frank]
I don’t understand why the SD is such a low priority for them…there are 40k+ members…doesn’t that count for anything?
QUOTE] Ummmmm, the SDMB COSTS the Reader money. It doesn’t bring money in. THAT’S why it’s a low priority. The Reader places a higher priority on things that do bring in money.
I advise all of you to go to the ATMB forum, where there are a variety of threads on just this subject. The poll has been done to death. Some people are willing to pay, and some are not. Maybe the board can survive going on a subscription basis, maybe it can’t. But the Reader is not willing to bankroll the board indefinitely.
I’m not going to close this thread down just yet, but before anyone posts any further, I really, really advise reading the ATMB threads. Especially the current sticky thread.
Must…resist…urge…to…point…out…coding…and…how…money…could…be…used…for…refresher…lessons…
My mistake, I didn’t clearly explain my thought. What I mean is that there are 40k+ members and I think that that might be a viable market for the CR. I recall reading in another thread that was along similar lines as this one that what the dopers should do is buy more SD stuff (IE, the shirts, books, and whatnot) so that the SD becomes a larger source of income for them.
Basically, what I’m saying is that I don’t see why CR doesn’t think that there is more money to be made from the SD and the message board.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that I have the perfect solution, or anything like that… I just think that instead of the SDMB being, essentially, a financial liability for the CR that it could be a greater source of profit…given the large population of us loyal 'dopers.