What are your thoughts on an ATS membership Fee?

Originally posted by Druid42
A membership fee would weed out a lot of trolls, they could use basic services, but serious members would be able to spot them, and that would filter out a lot of unwanted content.

Not necessarily true. A "serious" member may not opt to pay for a membership, and many "trolls" have ten bucks to spare. I don't think a fee would solve this particular problem.

The Case For A Free Lunch

(Just my personal opinion.)

Aside from the practical issues Bill mentioned, and the realities of trying to fund a site based on the support of a tiny fraction of the member base that would be unlikely to sustain anything like current operations, there are quite a few other reasons why a "pay to play" model wouldn't work for ATS.

Imagine, if you will, going to any other conspiracy-oriented discussion board on the Internet. Imagine you read some of what is posted, want to respond to it and decide to register for that.

In order for people to pay for something, their real identity and financial data need to be known. That means things like name, billing address, phone number and credit card, debit card or bank information for processing personal checks.

Think about it. A conspiracy site. Wants your personal information. So you can give them access to your credit card or bank account. Even third-party services like PayPal are still traceable and still reveal a lot of personal data as a necessity for conducting financial transactions -- that may also be taxable in many jurisdictions around the world.

VAT, anyone?

Oh that would go over just swimmingly. And for everyone who worries sites like ATS are being monitored, what better way to facilitate that than to gather detailed personal and financial data from the membership?

That's just one problem with a paid subscription model -- there are many, many others. As for a donation model, just look at all the personal appeals from Jim Wales on Wikipedia for an idea of how well that works. And that would also require the same personal and financial data as a paid subscription model.

Both would preclude most people from membership, and for as much as I love ATS, I would have never, ever registered as a member if my personal or financial data had been required in any way, shape or form. It would be a deal-breaker for most members, and understandably so.

As annoying as an ad-based funding model is, it doesn't require soliciting and maintaining a database of member identities. Since ads pay based on the number of "impressions" they receive, their proceeds scale with site activity, whether from members or unregistered guests (who make up the overwhelming majority of ATS visitors). The more activity, the more ad revenue, and as long as revenue exceeds costs, ATS keeps running.

Less activity means less ad money, but also less bandwidth consumed, and while site operating costs aren't necessarily directly proportional to site activity, the funding model is still far, far more robust than the alternatives.

Anyway, this proposal comes up periodically, and however well-intentioned it may be, it's just not practical on even the most abstract level, let alone actually implementing something like that.

Again, this is just my personal opinion, not an official one, but when Bill rejects ideas like these, I always breathe a quiet sigh of relief. Not because I'm concerned he would actually do something like that, but because it simply reminds me that for all its many warts, ATS is in good hands.

Or so I believe.

YMMV.





P.S. I realize that my comments are addressing a more broad and generalized question than a "premium membership" suggestion, but similar problems exist when money changes hands on any scale, even for just plain voluntary donations. Donations would, in most cases, be taxable as revenue for a site like ATS, and almost certainly require tax disclosures to multiple countries regardless. The less information ATS has about the identity of anyone and the less information ATS has to give out to any government, the better, in my opinion.

Originally posted by nightstalker78

Originally posted by daryllyn
reply to post by Druid42

 

[color=dodgerblue]
I don't have OCD.

I have CDO.

It's like OCD but it's in alphabetical order, just as it should be (:

On topic: I don't know that people would pay for it.. I know I wouldn't.

edit on 10-11-2011 by daryllyn because: (no reason given)

I would however pay not to have to read crap like this.Classic 'oh look at me,Im posting for attention' post.Yeah I realize I just did the same but it was to prove a point.

[color=dodgerblue]It was a joke?

If you don't like my posts..... then...

DON'T READ THEM.

Pretty simple.

For christ sake! They must make $100's if not $1000's a day in advertising revenue alone anyway. All the biggest sites in the world are free, Facebook, Twitter, Google, MSN....why should ATS be any different!?

Originally posted by ANOK
Are you kidding?

I feel like I should be paid to post here lol...

Can I get a low income discount?

Excellent answer! 5 'Stars'!

I'd pay a small fee if they would get rid of the "censorship". The other things,....not a priority for me.

second

i can't afford no god damn membership fee.

what a evil man you are op.

/oldgrumpyman

Not going to happen.

I don't see why we need a further divide between the have
and have not's.

Personally I have no more problem with a small fee to access ATS than I do with Public Television doing their annual (albeit annoying) funddrive. Anyone can understand it does take a bit of money to run a website and to keep it running. It is very noble to offer it for free, but, perhaps there are ways for others to contribute without parting with a few bucks.

If a fee became mandatory I would expect to see better filtration of joke posts. I will be the first to admit one of my very guilty pleasures on other sites was to post funny comments when I could think of one to post, but for the most part I have given up on that. At the end of the day I am not as funny as I'd love to think I am and few people-self included- want to spend time reading one-liners that add little, nothing , or LESS to the Original Post. I know for sure the one thing I would NOT want to see is more advertising..at least in any intrusive sort of way.... That really spools the whole experience for me.

I come here for information and to see differing viewpoints from my own. If paying a fee was voluntary, I would volunteer a bit.I do not know as much about ATS as other do, but I really get alot from those other ATSers who put together well-thought-out, well-researched posts or videos. I would like to see ATS become even more credible and I would love to see it evolve into a resource where researchers could come to do work. Many regard ATS as something of a 'fringe' entity but I think this is unfair given the very wide spread of topics covered here.

Back to the fee: DO a survey. Let's see what people would pay and what they would expect to change in exchange for paying a fee. No harm in asking--- just maybe some interesting alternatives may come to light.

I used to own a DJ web site. We provided forums, much like this, as well as free web space for the DJ's and even a live audio stream for DJ's that wanted to broadcast their shows for the world to hear. It was all FREE until I lost my "business partner" and then mu job. I had no way to pay for the hosting so I turned to the community I'd built. Not one person even so much as volunteered to send me a dollar to help. I begged and pleaded but to no avail.

Sorry but you have ti put food on the table before you fund an online community. ATS is great and all but even so it's still run by people and paid for by people that have lives and very real problems like the rest of us. I'd gladly pay a subscription fee. In fact does any one know where I can make a donation? Web hosting isn't always cheap!

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by nerbot
I don't think ATS is short of a penny or two.

siteworthchecker.com...

still waiting for my royalty check

Seems you can't spend those stars here

lol, cheers for the link.

We should TOTALLY throw a party for the big "million".

First of all it's entirely up to The Three Amigo's if they charge or not.
Personally I hope they never do as I suspect we'd lose a few good members - and from a quality viewpoint this site can't afford that to happen at present!

Maybe they should introduce a test, not an IQ or intelligence test, but something that tests a persons ability to enter reasoned and respectful debate whilst not trolling or constantly offering unsubstantiated and unreasoned rhetoric and dogma.

That would sort the wheat from the chaff...and probably signal the end of my own membership!

Oh...and a test on the reasons for the Search function and how to use it - that would stop the seemingly endless number of duplicate threads on the same subject.

If ATS instituted a fee and I decided not to pay it. That would be probably one of the best lifestyle changes that could happen to an increasingly sedentary member.

reply to post by whaaa


I will echo (...echo, echo, echo....) what he said ^ ^ ^ .

"sedentary"

Oh, dear....I gotta get out more.....

Bad Idea..
They start charging a fee would leave.
Id find other sources of information. You westerners may have cash to frivolously throw around.. Not all of us do walked away from that corrupt system long ago ..
On the rare occasions I do get money from working I dont and wont accept or deal with western currencies. Mostly I work on the barter system - no banks, no credit cards.. I owe nobody.

With content being member generated if they started to charge Id expect payment for contributing for all who post .. Just what is it with westerners and damn money all the time anyway ? Theres more to life than just damn money. No wonder society in the west is falling apart at the seems..

reply to post by Druid42


no thanks.

it should remain as it is.

I hardly want to show up here anymore with the site being free...

put a membership fee on it and I will surely withdraw my membership...

not going to happen in my opinion!

If ATS starts charging a fee i would have to drop off the site and that would make me very sad but in this economy i could not afford to pay it ..Im on a very tight income as it is ..So please keep it free ..peace,sugarcookie1