SDMB Charging for Access - Comments

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161

As a corporate entity the Reader cannot accept donations. This is not PBS.

Why won’t they spin it off into a nonprofit? That might be more convenient for you and more palatable to other users, but what would it benefit the Reader?

Ed was straight up honest with you about the situation. I don’t know what else to tell you.

I’m very attached to this site and want to see it survive if at all possible. I’ve spent a good chunk of the past five years of my life toiling in the SD vineyard and while it’s been close to being my life’s work (gods, that’s pathetic) it’s not my livelihood. I don’t expect it to be so either but it would be nice if it was around at least a little longer. I would do a lot to save it and so I don’t have as much patience as perhaps I should.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

162

The Boards would benefit the Reader more if they were being run by a non-profit with appropriate agreements with the Reader than if they were gone altogether. I think it’s pretty obvious that going to pay-for-play will kill the Boards. The question is, can the Reader keep them up without pay-for-play? And if not, will they just pull the plug?

163

Well, it certainly won’t benefit the Reader if the SDMB dies.

Like I’ve said before, I am willing to pay. However, I’m afraid pay-to-post will kill the board.

164

[list][list][list]I move to adjourn

165

Melodramatic? Why yes! Yes I’m being melodramatic. It’s not every day that one contemplates the extinction of one’s favorite cyberspot.

But I’m not being melodramatic in the way you think, Tuba. You have no argument from me at all that the Reader deserves to make money from this. I just don’t think that this will do it.

Gaargh - I hate dealing with hippies and artists (big wink). No business sense whatsoever.

Look. If you want to make this work, you have to identify exactly what outgo you expect. That is what several people - e.g. KellyM, London_Calling and I - have been trying to do in this thread.

Then you need to identify the revenue stream. For that you need data. The past is a guide to the future, so long as you make the appropriate trends and adjestments.

You need to identify the elasticity of demand - i.e. how many people will pony up the bucks at each price.

(Incidentally Green Bean - look again at what I wrote. I specifically talked about take up percentages at different rates, citing (in effect) 7.5% take-up @ $7.50, 8% @ $5 and 5.5% @ $10 as possible examples).

What you can’t do is stick your finger in the air and pick a price out of your ass, then hope it all works out OK.

Price models. Cashflow projections. You tell me that the Reader wants to make money, I’m telling you that to do that you need a business plan. You tell me that the Reader can’t afford no fancy-schmancy high-faluting big-city financial types, I’m telling you that we have those right here on the boards willing to give their time for free.

I think that pay-to-play can work. But I think that:

  1. Pricing needs to be treated with extreme care
  2. There must be some kind of hook
  3. The registration agreement needs to be totally reworked and passed by lawyers.
  4. You have to accept that there will be a shift from guests to customers on the boards, who will expect certain things for their money. What is more, new blood will be harder to come by so it will be far more important to hang on to who you have.

One thing to sum it up, and it’s something already mentioned: It’s hard to make money off of a closed business. So try not to break your toy.

In other news: coincidentally enough, as I was trying to think of a decent “hook”, I came up with one idea we’ve already seen in effect on this thread! Namely: Have Cecil post more. After all, most traffic comes via fans of the column. If you could pay to have the chance to converse with the master himself, it would certainly be a selling point.

pan

166

Listen, Anthracite, if you think I’m getting sucked into another one of those deals where I personally greet everybody on the board (thread, whatever), you’re crazy. That said, how’s Mom? Little Jack? His disposition is so much improved since you had him dewormed. Ah, look at the time, I must run. Don’t be a stranger!

The things I do.

167

Now now kids. Off to the Pit with you.

168

Mornin’ (again) kabbes –

Of course the thing about arty girls is always that once you get 'em wasted, their oyster is your world.
Okay, a quick recap of a couple of points :

Then, in relation to this issue:

If this makes sense, what causes a little bell to go off in my head is that your analysis assumes (if I understand you) 10% of those who joined in 1999 are still posting at 1+ per day, as are 10% of those who joined in Feb 2001 – I’m just having trouble thinking that is the best way to consider the data.

For example, wouldn’t it be better to discount those who posted once or not at all, and then build in the ‘lifespan’ analysis ?
Am I being thick ?

169

KellyM – Thinking onwards about your cost breakdown:

  • The Server is underpowered at present user levels but if we assume that’s going to shrink after PTP maybe The Reader will allow use of the space given they already have the hardware (and assuming they don’t plan to use it for anything else) and it’s good for their regular business ?

  • Ditto the software (already in situ). So no installation/configuration costs.

  • The T1 is $800 a month including full plumbing (?) and shared with the rest of the site. How about saying the suits would be off the valium for half that = $400 a month ($4,800 per annum)

  • Labour (‘Labor’ even) – ouch. You think the board itself needs $30,000 labour a year dedicated to it (not a shared cost with the Reader ?). It’s just that I kind of got the impression that jdavies turns up with a couple of spanners and a soldering iron every other Saturday on a semi-charitable basis…okay, $30,000 it is. Feel free to re-think that, though :wink:

  • Depreciation on the hardware assets – what’s the depreciation on a 10-year old Skoda ? I guess that could be a cost delayed until new hardware replaces the existing system and even then it could be shared with The Reader (a referred cost of 50% of $416 = $218 per month or $2,616 per annum) ?

  • Admin re Subscriptions, et al – No bloody idea: How about $100 per week ($1,200 per annum) ?

  • Power, mugs, odds and ends…not a lot, maybe $1,000 per annum ?
    On that (semi-charitable) basis, we’re down to:

$7,000 per annum (Bandwidth, Admin Subscription, Power)
$30,000 Labour (possibly, maybe)

$2,616 per annum (Depreciation) - but not kicking in until the existing hardware is replaced

= $37,000 per annum, or (approx) $700 a week now

Note: What do the services of jdavies cost …?
Any thoughts on the general thrust ?

170

The Reader loses money on this site and has never made any sort of profit from it whatsoever (unless you count the tons of goodwill the site has brought them), so yes, on a strictly cash basis it would benefit the Reader if the board died. Less hassle too. But they’re willing to explore ways for us to go forward.

As users of this board we have a bigger emotional investment in the place than the Reader. To them, it’s business and perhaps we’ve lost sight of that fact.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

171

PS I’m truly impressed with all the analysis I’ve read here. Y’all rock!

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
More than wiling to be schooled by people that know what they’re doing.

172

Woo! Finally! Now I don’t have to shave my privates and join a Fundie Board! :cool:

173

Check out this thread. The inventor of the product being discussed registered and posted to answer the questions about his product. How cool is that? That is what makes this place so special, and what I’m afraid of losing when we go to subscriptions. How many people with specific knowledge about a topic are going to pony up $20 or so bucks just to answer a few questions? I love this place and will pay to help keep it open, but I’m scared that after all the changes it won’t be worth saving.

174

I feel greatly relieved. In this thread, Dopers are actually disagreeing with Admins instead of attacking them. As a result the Admins can give us answers instead of having to waste time defending themselves.

The quality of questions and suggestions and the thoroughness of answers have greatly reduced my anxiety. This is not a step Ed or anybody else takes lightly. TubaDiva has shown that she values the SDMB at least as much as I do(likely even more). Knowing that, we can trust them to weigh any decision *very* carefully.

On a side note-** I gotta response from Unca Cecil!** There’s no smiley with a big enough grin to express what I’m feelin now!

175

Yo L_C

I do see your problem, but I shall attempt to explain why everything is hunky-dory.

To put it simply: No-one is claiming that 2 year-old posters and 2 month-old posters both have 10% posting at 0.75ppd or more. Of course they don’t. But it doesn’t matter as long as there is a stationary population.

Or to put it another way: 10% is a weighted average across all durations.

You see, as long as the profile of the actual membership is represented by my 394 sample members, the calculated 10% will be a suitable figure to apply to it.

To the extent that the actual membership differs in profile from my sample members, 10% will be wrong.

But since my sample membership is based on a cross-section of the population by duration and since it seems to reasonably adequately reflect the incidence of actual members, I think that it isn’t a bad guess at the figure.

If all is not clear, then I’ll try explaining it a different way. Or if I’ve not thought of something then please do speak up.

pan

176

[anal economist] Demand curves are drawn for constant quality, which is not going to be the case here. If close subsitutes are available at zero price, apparent own price elasticity will rapidly approach infinity and we will reach a corner solution (ie no viable Board). [/off. Off, damn you]

I’ll pay, but more in gratitude and hope than expectation. As it is, the Board is certainly worth to me the bottom end of Ed’s suggested price range (even with the $Australian at 50c). My concern is with the refreshing life-blood of newbies in GQ. A free trial sounds a good way to establish an addiction, but it’s got to be an admin nightmare. Unless you require a (unique) credit card number for the free trial, you’re facing our current sock problem with freeloading rather than trouble-making as its motivation. So I think the character of the Board is at serious risk, which would mean my willingness to pay might disappear in the second year.

That being said, can I say this to the admins, mods and the Reader: this is a sad but inevitable development, and I appreciate your position. Whilst the conditions in the advertising industry are partly to blame, the main reason this has to happen is the sheer quality of this Board. It attracts and keeps good posters. And for that you deserve congratulations and the gratitude of a membership which has benefited from Cecil’s reputation and the way this Board has been run. But to be a victim of one’s own success probably feels Pyrrhic at present, and for that you have my sympathies.

I hope that other Dopers are prepared to contribute (if they can) initially as a gesture of thanks, as seed funding, or as a gesture of good faith. Then see how it goes.

177

Alright. Let’s have another brief stab at costing.

We’ll go with $37,000 per year costs (seems high, given the 0.4-0.6 FTE subsequently bandied about, but what the hey).

And we’ll say that there is a population of 1,800 willing to consider the possibility of subscription.

Charging $20 per head would require 1,850 members to meet costs. Problem.

Charging $25 per head would require 1,480 members - a take-up rate of 82%. I think this is possibly a little high, but not impossible.

Suppose instead that the labour (or labor if you insist) cost is 0.5 of $50,000, i.e. $25,000. Total costs are then $32,000. That would require a take-up rate amongst the regulars of about 90% at $20, or 70% at $25.

If this really is the cost of running the board (and please consider - do you really need even 1/2 of a $50k per annum tech?), then I can see a $25 per annum fee being about right. Personally, I didn’t reckon on such a high cost - I assumed that there would be some way of sharing the labour cost by using a host that services a number of sites. Note that getting the cost down to $15,000 would result in only needing a 80% or so take-up of the regs at $10 each.

But anyway - let’s assume $25. Clearly no newbie in their right mind is going to pay this. There is no reason for them to - they may as well go to a different board. Furthermore, we’re going to lose the one-off GQ/comments posters.

They need to be hooked in. I think that one of the best ideas I’ve heard so far is that of making people pay for an identity. So they can post for free as “guest” but if they want to become part of the community, they have to cough up.

Maybe this could be coupled with 50 free posts under a chosen name. Then maybe make the first year half-price.

Combine this with a more regular appearance from Cecil (how you doing, by the way? Happy? Mrs Adams behaving herself?) and you have the beginnings of a marketable product. It still needs work, but you’ve started to address some of the more serious problems.

pan

178

No, they’re back to charging again. The light went on when they realized you can’t keep a business afloat by giving stuff away for free.

179

Sorry if this has been answered (I don’t have time at work to read the 4 pages of this post), but if they upgrade the SDMB to version 2.whatever of vBulletin - they can do this quite easily. The latest version allows you to set specific settings for each forum.

Also, AFAIK, it would only cost 30 bucks to upgrade.

180

Mike Lenehan of the Reader here, just happened to be in the neighborhood. We don’t have a break-even in mind, and the idea of a profit center makes me howl with laughter. Frankly, we hatched this plan as a way to keep traffic and membership at manageable levels. We found we were spending a lot of money just keeping up with new traffic; at the same time, you all were complaining about deteriorating service. We figured that by charging we could (1) eliminate a lot of half-hearted users and traffic, (2) slow the growth down to a reasonable level, (3) maybe earn back a few bucks of our expenses, and (4) experiment with a new and interesting business model.