The Marketplace forum does just that.
I registered in June 2005. I can’t remember what the subscription situation was at that time. I know it was after pay-to-post began, but I can’t remember if I had to pay in 2005. I do know that I had been lurking for a while and registered specifically so I could post.
I also remember being a paid member for a few years, then allowing the subscription to lapse because of an issue with PayPal. My wife and I had gotten rid of all but one credit card, and PayPal wouldn’t allow two users to share a credit card, I got pissed at PayPal and just let it lapse. I rejoined later, then let that expire in 2014 during one of Ed and Tuba’s ongoing episodes of egregious customer service.
I don’t care about ads, I don’t care who can see my post count or location, and I can get what I want from the board without paying. I see no reason to pay.
edit: blorp.
I was a member at one time and would do it again but I never knew when renewal was. I just came here one day and my status had changed to guest or whatever it is. To the extent that I’ve ever thought about it, which isn’t much, I think I was sort of under the impression that membership was a thing of the past. Anyway, I’d be glad to pony up to help maintain the site, that is if I’m still allowed to(?)
Forum ate my post and I couldn’t get in under the edit window. Let’s try again.
The Chicago Reader’s current monetization scheme appears to be something along the lines of, "pay us money or live in squalor among those who we subject to an increasingly odious and ill-advised string of internet advertisements. Also we will let you cross-post your eBay listings in the Marketplace forum.’
Not compelling stuff.
I don’t care that the absolute yearly cost isn’t all that much. It’s still more than a membership here is worth to me. If the Dope went away tomorrow, I’m sorry to say that I’d soldier on with minimal fuss.
Also, I’ve said it before: the attitudes that a number of members have towards non-members is at least a good portion of the mortar in the wall of my resistance. Some of y’all can be real jerks about the whole thing, as if Cecil and Ed are eating beans out of a can and only our memberships can save them from lives of abject poverty.
Yup. That wasn’t true for me before this thread, but it sure is now.
Was this post edited by the ghost of Don Martin? 
^^^^^^ That instead of guest.
My employer blocks this site because of the ads. No ads means not blocked.
And it’s half price for being a charter member.
Re-upped this morning.
I don’t pay to be a member of *any *internet site, why should this one be any different?
I paid the first couple of years, then missed the “re-up” window and lost the Charter Member designation - the only reason I paid anyway. Now I pay by allowing ads, which probably nets the enterprise more than $15 per year, certainly more than the half price charter member fee.
Depends on your definition of “good”.
In presenting me with the choice of dealing with ads or paying the membership fee, evidently The Powers That Be have determined that either option is acceptable to them. My guess is that it’s a better deal for them if I don’t pay up: instead of getting 4.1 cents per day from me, they’re serving me dozens, possibly hundreds, of ads and reaping the associated revenue from the advertisers. My guess is that that adds up to more than 4.1 cents.
I don’t see that anyone should feel guilted/shamed into paying, because the alternative is that a portion of your field of view gets occupied by advertising. It would be a different matter if the board subsisted entirely on member fees/donations, and no one was ever served any ads.
As for why I chose not to pay up, I’ve just never felt that bothered by the ads.
Great excuse. Points for creativity and for making something personal that isn’t.
I don’t really understand Paypal, but I was able to pay “through paypal” with my credit card.
I like that I don’t have to wait 2 minutes between searches.
And no ads,
but basically, it’s a donation. The only other place I have paid for content is Andrew Sullivan’s old web log, the Daily Dish. For similar reasons.
Well, it is a product, and it costs money to operate, and it’s only $15, so since I gain satisfaction from the product, I don’t mind paying the $15 for an entire year.
And at only $15 for an entire year, that’s a little over 1¢ a day. It doesn’t even round up to 2¢ a day.
You laugh and mock somebody, not just once but multiple times, for saying something that they didn’t actually say, and then wonder why some people think you’re making this personal?!?
The person upthread who suggested this ought to have been in the Pit had the right idea. Mods, care to move?
You might want to try applying a calculator to that approximation.
I did! Oops, I must’ve fat-fingered it. Okay it is 4¢ per day, not 1¢.
Of course, your point is still valid; it’s a trivial amount to most of us. I just wanted to pick a nit to prove my SDMB bona fides, despite my deadbeat status. 
Well, you’re a dead-beat nit-picker while I, kind sir, pay mightily for such nit-picking.
Almost exactly this.