Would You Pay to Subscribe to this Forum?

[AGD]

AO,

As you know, in the past we have discussed ways to make AO pay for itself. We tried the google ads but the return has been minimal to say the least. I am now considering subscription fees but that has been a death blow to other forums. SO how about this? You have to subscribe to post in the BST forums. Since those forums are taking a ton of bandwidth and your making money selling the stuff anyway, it seems a fair compromise.

Your thoughts?

AGD

[rkjunior303]

I think how PBN does it is very good, with more features going out to people that are "supporting members" or "annual" members..

[Lohman446]

I agree with the idea of supporting members. Would I support at a $35 a year fee? Yes Now you may need sigs or avatars to get others to do this, but I would for, well AO.

Would I pay a subscription? Maybe not... as you have noted that does tend to be the death blow to many forums

The problem becomes do you want to give attitudal posters (myself included) the power to say "I pay to do this".... there may not be a choice in the matter I guess

[Corbet]

I'd be willing to pay a flat fee. I know my favorite forum, SA, has a $10 flat fee forum and it works out great. There's no way I'd pay a monthly fee just to post. Hell, the only reason I still come here is great posters and the dealers forums.

Having a fee will lower the number of users by 50% or more. This place will become a ghost town. Plus it would almost show that AGD/Automags are dead in the water, I mean, when was the last time a new product has been released?

[Shirow]

Yeah, I would think a couple of things would work:

Adding features to subscribers (sigs, avatars, whatever)
Limiting access to certain forums (I think it would probably kill the BST forums because sellers would pay but buyers probably wouldn't.)
Maybe give some kind of icon or display text to supporters, people like paying for extra little things..
A free emag? I don't know..

And I agree, I'd pay a yearly fee but I would have a hard time with a monthly subscription.

[Cow hunter]

id pay to keep AO goin, and some features would be cool, but i dont personally care. i agree with lohman that a subscription might be a death blow

and just to the B/S/T's might not be great either, but havin some additional features for supporting members might be the way to go.

we could also copy pbn and have a sorta "AO store" (i know theres airgun.com, but maybe a link on the toolbar or sumthin)

[AutomagRT1483]

I'll pay, but Im getting my sig back.

[geekwarrior]

no.....probably not

[Lohman446]

Is it possible to charge, say $1 (or whatever) to createa thread in the BST forums?

[shorty24]

As much as I love this forum...no. I mean, c'mon I'm a college kid; I can't afford jack. It would be a sad day for me.

[geekwarrior]

how about an AO fundraiser game? or maybe an AO bakesale?

[Temo Vryce]

I"m a memeber of an Online Community called "The Amazon Basin". Once or twice a year they start a fund raiser. The idea is that those that can afford to donate money to help pay for the Basin's operating costs. The donations aren't maditory. Many people like myself donate what they can to a paypal account. Somepeople donate a couple of bucks others donate more. Open up something like this first and see how much you can generate this way before forcing people to pay a subscription fee. AO is a wonderful place and I fear that adding a subscription will kill it.

[shorty24]

how about an AO fundraiser game? or maybe an AO bakesale?

lol, yes! Great ideas...

[shorty24]

AO lawn service, anyone?

[quasimorte]

I wouldn't have a problem with like a yearly fee but i would probably one pay it for a year unless i see new products from AGD as most of the info is available else where.
having a fee for B/S/T would make everybody move to PM's or other forums to do their deals. i'm thingking the best thing for this would be something like a monthly raffle or some such . I know this sounds cheesy but look at how much attention the MOTM threads get. Have like a different thing each month and the winners get to buy in on a really big raffle like twice a year or something. you might even get some of the dealers to offer up some of there stuff every once in a while. the trick to this is keeping it fresh and interesting, i don't want like 50 AGD t-shirts, though some might . start thinking along charity fundraiser lines before you hit fees as this will get people slowly accustomed to the idea.

anyway thats my idea

[Chronobreak]

can ipay for more pm room?

i guess the flashy things arent enough to sustain AO by themselves.

whynot an anyonmous donation at the lest?
We could see how that goes? few bucks here, few bucks there, few cents there it adds up. and would undoubtedly help, and no asm or elitest member feelings.

pbn is also thinking of adding a buyer verification to help curb fraud, and charge a minor fee for that service, thats also something to consider i guess.


sry, and when you say subscribe do you mean pay for pbtalk, or the entire forum? or just be registered?

if you mean pay to visit the forum then , yes but only a small fee $5-$10, no offence i love the community and all but i cant really justify more than $10 to come and caht with other p-ballers, when other just as good forums are free.

i also wonder what brought this back up? tom getting tired of fotting the bill

[punkncat]

I have enjoyed AO quite a bit. I have really enjoyed trading here over the past few years. The brotherhood of old was a wonderful thing to be a part of, even though I came in late......

I have to be honest though. If I had to pay to be a member, and this forum continues its atrophy and decay I would not. I'd hate to lose my feedback and long time standing, but its not worth paying for (on its current track).

[Pneumagger]

1) I think that a small yearly supporter thing would be nice and as an arward for the support, say avatars, sigs, search priveliges, one time unban, etc. Avatars and Signatures would pretty much be a requirement to attract someone to a Pay forum IMO. Although I could live without 'em Even though I would support AO.

2) Also, I think it wouldn't be a horrible Idea to have a BST fee for the thread starter, that way people could browse the BST and post inquiries and such.
However, this may be marginally effective at best, as users would put small BST links in their signature, or wait till they have a huge lot to sell in ther BST.

3) Have a monthly limit as to how many BST posts one can have. Of course annual supporting members get many more posts

4)Possibly have a contest, whoever donates the most money to AO each year gets to be a Moderator with the announcement being at the end of the year.

-------------------------------------
Mr. Kaye, in all honesty, what sort of annual support would be required from the current active visiting users to keep AO afloat? What does it break down to per person - Are we talking like $5 or $30 per person annually. I also agree, a forum fee would stiffle the growth of this forum and possibly kill it. The usuals would hang around, but some would not see the utility to continue on or join the forums alltogether.

The bad part of this whole situation is the fact that these are corrective measures taken to keep AO afloat. They ultimately make the forum less appealing to new memberships and don't solve the problem, they simply postpone it. What about next year, and the next?

[Pneumagger]

uh oh, this Thread's already eating up too much bandwith!

(everyone type really small! Save space. Recycle. Read in the dark)

[StygShore]

Yearly if its low enough maybe - This forum has maybe 10 active threads a day, and most postings are lucky to go 2 pages.

Most members ( guessing 80% ) would leave and go to PBN or one of the other free forums.

What is the overall cost of running a forum?

I think a raffle or auction each month would probably be the best idea.


Styg

[doc_Zox]

i would pay $125 dollars to subscribe to this forum

if it came with an AGD Six-Pack

[geekwarrior]

i think the idea someone mentioned of just donations would be enough....i mean I have at least $2.14 in my paypal I would be willing to donate right now.....


seriously, that might be the best idea, I'm sure between all of us we could come up with a fair amount


edit: uh oh, my next post is my 1000th....better make it a good one

[11 Bravo]

This is probably AGD's best advertisement. Just think of it as a business expense.

I suggest the paypal donation thing that most of the other forums use.

[SlartyBartFast]

Absolutely not.

If AO is going to charge, the forum needs to offer something that is an added value in comparison to other forums.

I hate to be a doom sayer, but if AO is cash strapped, we have to ask a few painful questions. For example: what does AO provide that no-one else does?

Charging everyone for use is a no-go. It doesn't cost anything to participate in other forums, so AO might keep a few die-hard members, loose a lot of current members, and stop growing. It'll be the death of AO for certain.

Charging for B/S/T MIGHT work. But NOT if in the current form that is simply discussion threads. You can sell your gear for free on other sites in the same manner. AO will just lose the majority of listings to those other forums. But, I said MIGHT work. I'd perhaps discuss my ideas for collaboration with AGD privately. None of the ideas is earth shattering. But the B/S/T would have to become a useful tool, not just a disorganised list.

Collaboration with another established forum might be an option. WARPIG, PBN, or another Forum with an AO moderated group. While I prefer the look and feel of AO (not to mention the mebers), it seems silly duplicating services for free at an unsustainable loss while others are providing the same and getting by (seemingly).

Collaboration might mean AO becoming a part of the other forum, or AO adopting some of the other forums content and promoting the same advertisers for a percentage of the revenue. WARPIG and PBN obviously spend more time marketing the site than anyone on AO does. (Lack of marketing seems a recurring AGD problem, no?)

[eNder159]

i would pay to have Signatures and Avatarsback...as well as being a supporting member

[CrimsonGhost]

Absolutely not.

If AO is going to charge, the forum needs to offer something that is an added value in comparison to other forums.

I hate to be a doom sayer, but if AO is cash strapped, we have to ask a few painful questions. For example: what does AO provide that no-one else does?

Charging everyone for use is a no-go. It doesn't cost anything to participate in other forums, so AO might keep a few die-hard members, loose a lot of current members, and stop growing. It'll be the death of AO for certain.

Charging for B/S/T MIGHT work. But NOT if in the current form that is simply discussion threads. You can sell your gear for free on other sites in the same manner. AO will just lose the majority of listings to those other forums. But, I said MIGHT work. I'd perhaps discuss my ideas for collaboration with AGD privately. None of the ideas is earth shattering. But the B/S/T would have to become a useful tool, not just a disorganised list.

Collaboration with another established forum might be an option. WARPIG, PBN, or another Forum with an AO moderated group. While I prefer the look and feel of AO (not to mention the mebers), it seems silly duplicating services for free at an unsustainable loss while others are providing the same and getting by (seemingly).

Collaboration might mean AO becoming a part of the other forum, or AO adopting some of the other forums content and promoting the same advertisers for a percentage of the revenue. WARPIG and PBN obviously spend more time marketing the site than anyone on AO does. (Lack of marketing seems a recurring AGD problem, no?)

Enough said.

[psychowarden]

I think that a monthly raffle would seem the most logical. I enter benifit raffles all the time...even if I dont like any of the prizes. But I usually donate a few bucks to help out.

[bunny5]

Tom,

I have a couple questions regarding this whole topic.

-How much would it be in the ballpark of having AO pay for itself?

-Would you be willing to allow an outside company pay for a forum of their own? (similar to the angel forum)

-What would happen to signatures?

-Do you like the idea of making members pay?

__________________________________________________ ___________________

I think that Donation is the way to go. Donating doesn't block users posting on your forums and it still allows a way of getting funds to AO.


Or we could charge A-TACH-ONE a bazillion dollars to post on AO. We all know he can afford it

[edweird]

Tk you know my thoughts on this, and the examples I sent you months ago.

Id consider a nominal annual fee to have "supporting member" optional tag with BST access and Avatar/Sig pic use.

the more draw you have for it the lower the cost per supporting member will be.

[back2integrity]

I would donate, I love AO.

I would become an optional supporting member whether you added anything or not, I love AO.

I would leave if any support became mandatory, because AO would soon cease to be the AO I love if that happened.