Speaking only for myself, the “member” title has no importance. I’m just willing to chip in $15. If money was tight, I’d certainly refrain.
Dammit! I agree with Starving Artist about something again. He’s right, folks. About this.
This is my case. I paid for 2 or 3 years, but SD subscriptions felt more like dealing with surly bill collectors rather than being a customer friendly service. I got busy for a few months, came back to the board, then it was ‘sucks to be you’ and lost the low-rate member credit. Given that there are many other boards on the web that open up user functionality much more, for free, I decided my pure charity dollars don’t have any need-based drive to be spent here.
Awhile back, there was a special limited-time offer for lapsed Charter Members to get their Charter status back. Looks like a few may have missed that. Maybe it’s time to offer it again?
Must have been before I lost mine. I’m sure I’d have noted and taken advantage of it if afterward.
I like seeing how many posts I have next to my name and I don’t mind paying $15 to help the SDMB for that privilege.
I know time flies, but it seems like it wasn’t more than a couple of years ago, three max.
Hopefully it’s decent beer, not something like Bud or Miller. Cuz that’s highway robbery.
So what do you want, a cookie? :rolleyes: You act like you’re doing some noble deed. It’s just a freaking message board, not a major priority in my life.
I just checked the date of my PM to Jerry asking for reinstatement. It was dated 5-21-14, so almost exactly two years ago.
In re-reading my message at the time it appears there were a couple of other problematic circumstances that preceded my discovery of the reminder email. Jerry had apparently posted a sticky about renewals and I misunderstood the meaning of the date it referenced, and due to having recently bought my computer from a relative who apparently had ad blockers in place I wasn’t tipped off that my membership had expired by the sudden appearance of ads. The message I sent to Jerry at the time was as follows:
So it was really sort of a perfect storm of adverse circumstances that led to my having lost my charter membership. I guess it just wasn’t in the stars for me to retain it. Which is too bad because I rather enjoyed being on record as an original supporter of the board.
That’s pretty much my mindset, too. As for the “no advertising,” I have Adblock Plus on anyway.
I’ve been here since 2002, had someone pay my first year when it was announced that it would be a pay-only board, and then disappeared for years until a couple of weeks ago.
Someone else said that they don’t pay for any other message boards, and I agree with that as well.
Like yet another poster, I am genuinely on a fixed income, although I don’t have Paypal. (my finances might be further in the red if so - but then others could transfer money to me, too… but I don’t want to take advantage of that)
Good grief, talk about a blast from the past.
Hey Flamster! 
When I logged in here for the first time in many years, I still recognized some names. Then I read that “In Memoriam” thread just now, and I was surprised that I recognized some of the names on that list.
Hey, Kambuckta! I hope you’re doing well.
Yep, doing very well. About 14 yrs older than the last time we met online, but apart from a few more creaks and groans, going fabulously. You??
For all my having disagreed with you, I for one would wish to see this restored.
Well, you’re pretty honest about it on those (rare) occasions when we agree, so I can’t say I’m surprised.
Thanks. 
That’s the thing - time is marching upon us all. Sometimes I have a feeling that I’m getting to that “getting older” stage, but overall, I’m doing well.
This board logs me out all the time anyway, so I would get ads whether I was a member or not, depending on whether the page was opened before or after I was automatically logged out. Good thing I have adblock plus and don’t depend on the kindness of strangers to remove unwanted eyesores from my browser.
I paid back when it was required. I’d probably do it again if they asked me to. Like the OP said, $15/year isn’t much, but compared to almost everything else online, it’s expensive. Everything is expensive when compared to free. Also, the customers create the content, so it’s not like paying Netflix or Disney to create good TV shows or movies for me.
Yeah, the server has some costs to cover, and if I ever felt like the SDMB was in danger of turning the lights off, I’d pitch in. But nothing on this board has made me think they needed the money. Membership costs are just a way to keep posters who both a) hate ads and b) don’t know how to block them. The ads seem to pay the bills just fine. And they probably generate a small profit, no membership fees required.
An added comment and maybe general feedback if adminstrators read this…
I use adblock on SD, not to deny revenue from the SD, but because there have been and continue to be some horribly clunky ads that cause background process to run and have significant performance hits on my computer, locking up and crashing the browser even (I’m on firefox). As an experiment, I turned it off today and there was a McDonalds ad that nearly halted my browser (brought my mouse click response to a 3-second delay stuttering in the browser).
If SD clamps down on their semi-malicious HD full-motion active-content ads, and goes to static plain images, I would consider viewing them and not denying SD the revenue.
What an odd way to interpret what I said. 
What I meant was that I’m more willing to do something voluntarily than I am to do it when it is demanded of me.
I remember there briefly being an opportunity to regain Charter Member status, but I don’t care to give the SDMB any more money and it didn’t seem worth it anyway considering how eagerly TPTB snatch people’s Charter Member status away again if they’re even a day late paying up.
FWIW it’s my recollection that it was a lot longer ago than that.