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... :rolleyes:

[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 :cry:

[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. :headbang:

-------------------------------------
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? :confused:

[Pneumagger]

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

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

[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. :D

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.
:cheers:

[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 :cheers:



http://imgs.pbnation.com/miscb/asm/asm_1.gif

[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.

[REDRT]

I'd pay dearly for a completely new AGD electro marker, but not to just hang out here.

[kruger]

I also would be willing to just donate to the cause. As already stated, if you have a cover charge for the site, then, there would be no more casual users just floating by. I say no to the fee, and yes to donations. You might be suprised at the amount of money that gets donated. What do you have to loose, try the donation thing first. If it doesnt work out, then you can consider other options.

[warpfeedmod]

If it is an issue as far as cost for whoever is footing the bill now, I'd gladly absorb the cost out of my own pocket to take over the site if it means keeping AO running, as would plenty of my firends to keep it the way it is.

If it was pay for B/S/T, I'd take my stuff to pbnation sadly to say. If it was pay for everything, I'd never come back sadly to say. If it was pay for avatars/signatures, I wouldn't do that as I've gotten along this far without it.

Tom, shoot me a PM or email, I know someone in the hosting business that could cut you a deal. I know they've got several large sites and they don't have bandwidth limits, but I'm sure he'd want some numbers of what this site generates.

[REDRT]

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



More like their only advertisement. :rolleyes: Many of us have been loyal AGD supporters for a long time already. We support them by buying from them and getting the next generation of maggers into mags and helping maggers maintaion and mod their markers. I mean AO is advertisement for the company. We are the fan based sales/tech staff and AO is our wage of sorts . Take what little we get from you away and make us pay! :cuss: I'll drop my support period. Tell me more about that 07 borg.

[behemoth]

I would have.

would have.

Its just not the same AO. And i'm only here because it aint costin' me anything...

[BuyMyMag]

I don't browse these forums too often, but I do come here expecting a more mature discussion then those found on PBNation. I would pay a one time fee (Maybe $10), but I would opt out of paying monthly, yearly, etc.

[Lohman446]

What are our options? Understand I'm just brainstorming here and throwing out answers.

Turn off AO.

Make AO subsription based

Make AO supporting member.. supported

Knock out the unused or underused forums?

Remove the BST forum? I mean, are there not other places for this for our members?

[AGD]

Well the problem is we own our own server at Delaware.net and it hosts all our sites. Its not so easy to just dump AO off to another provider becasue I still have the expense of the server etc. As you all point out, and I certainly understand, paying money and forums don't mix.

It costs about 5-600 a month for the whole package and we get about 150 from Google. That means we would need about 450x12 months=5400.00 to cover everything. Roughly thats 540 subscribers for 10 bucks a year. If you watch the "who's online" numbers you will see that a huge majority of people are not members but "guests" and in effect lurkers.

So I am wrestling with this and might just sell the forum off to someone who can fund it and keep it free.

Thanks,

AGD

[StygShore]

Sell it off to private individual ( read as super computer geek with 6 servers in his basement for "fun" )

there are so many free forums out there and places that allow unlimited bandwidtch, your costs seem relatively high for what this forum consists of.

I still vote for online raffle monthly for gear to pay the bills until you find a buyer.


Styg


i see this as the last stand for AGD, they can't afford the forums - the self admitted tech support and advertisement force for the company... does everyone see the writing on the wall? And where is that Howard French dude at anyhow? I haven't seen any marketing!!!!

[paintballfiend]

All this makes me sad that I wasn't around for the glory days of AO and the mag. It can't end, it just can't. :cry:

Anyway... I would pay for a one-time fee or give a donation when I can, but not pay a monthly/yearly fee.

[Lohman446]

Tom... without you, without AGD AO looses what it was to some of us. I can have ultra AO instead. How many people will walk away if it changes hands?

[Pneumagger]

honestly, if it changes hands to a another mag lover...I think that it may stay the same.

[trevorjk]

mandatory subscription... im gone. to many other free sites out there.

optional supporting member option? say 10$+ gets you the option, and you get an avatar or your sig back. id most definetly do it.

im sure you could also put a paypal donat icon some where that people can see, i know everyone once in a while i have a few bucks that just sits in my paypal account. as measily as that sounds, everybit helps

[st6212]

If all else fails, migrate AO to Australia and we'll host it on our servers here. :cool:

[Temo Vryce]

I remeber the days when AO was smaller and more personal. I was never arround before AGD purchased AO but I know that it was an improvement for the site. If it comes down to selling the site to someone else I do hope that you open it up to those that post here first as we are least likely to see any major changes that way.

Why not open up a PayPal account to take donations and see how much you can raise for a little while. Anything that you can raise will help to offset server bills and will help to postpone the selling off the site. Just add a disclaimer that this simply a test and the site may end up still changing hands. It couldn't hurt to atleast try could it? Additional funds that amassed could be used to purchase prizes for contests like the MoTM or the 67th poster in a special thread.

[punkncat]

Just out of curiousity you are talking only about the forums and not the store, correct?

[rkjunior303]

Not to be a sourpuss, but AGD can't afford $5-600/month to something that I would say at least indirectly generates that in sales for the company? That doesn't make me feel to 'secure' about things - and don't get me wrong, I love you guys.

[phizz]

I think a low annual fee would be a good idea, and if its not too high I can't see you loosing many of the active members, but new members looking to buy items may reconsider and buy from elsewhere like the nation etc. As for use of bandwidth might it not be possible to delete posts that are more then say 3-6 months old... I don't know much about computers but wouldn't that help?

[shartley]

No. All the reasons have been posted by others.

[wimag]

nope, not a chance

[mobsterboy]

Tom,
When Zupe became AGD president, it just didnt feel right. AO wasn't the same, and it just seemed like AO was just going downhill. Now that has been proven correct. I dont mean to be blunt about this, but after hearing this(this being AO no longer being owned by TK), Im done with mags. I didnt care about mags half as much as I did the AO community. I know its not personal for you, its just business. Well its personal for me. Guess I'll keep moving on. It was a good run, AO, I guess we all knew it would never last

[SlartyBartFast]

It costs about 5-600 a month for the whole package and we get about 150 from Google. That means we would need about 450x12 months=5400.00 to cover everything.

Okay, I'm going to be undiplomatic.

AGD sucks! They're really cheap, stingy, idiots. Or, the company is so tiny and profits so low, they're going to hell in a handbasket pretty soon anyway.

5-600 a month? I know TK has been covering the costs of AO and not AGD. But if the current administration can't see AO for the promotions possibility it is, then they're incredibly short-sighted IMO.

But, if they have decided that the AGD forum on PBN is sufficient as a web presence for them, who are we to argue?

Then again, how often does the current president (what's his name again?) of AGD appear on AO? I think that speaks volumes...

[warpfeedmod]

Well the problem is we own our own server at Delaware.net and it hosts all our sites. Its not so easy to just dump AO off to another provider becasue I still have the expense of the server etc. As you all point out, and I certainly understand, paying money and forums don't mix.

It costs about 5-600 a month for the whole package and we get about 150 from Google. That means we would need about 450x12 months=5400.00 to cover everything. Roughly thats 540 subscribers for 10 bucks a year. If you watch the "who's online" numbers you will see that a huge majority of people are not members but "guests" and in effect lurkers.

So I am wrestling with this and might just sell the forum off to someone who can fund it and keep it free.

Thanks,

AGD


Tom, shoot me a PM, I'm pretty sure my guy could offer you something cheaper, usually a discount for a full year up front, it would just be a matter of taking the stuff off the server it's on now, move it to his servers (he's got some co-locations in Illinois here as well as across the country) and transfer the DNS so the name points to the new server. Would be down for a day if that while the DNS populates and changes across the 'net but that wouldn't be a big deal. Like I said bandwidth and space aren't an issue usually, I really doubt this forum is as high traffic as some of the sites he hosts.

[Chaos_Theory!]

Do it like PBN and make a supporting memeber tag. If you make it mandatory to pay to use the site, especially the BST youll lose a lot of users imo. I for one come here a lot to check out the BST and wouldnt bother if i had to pay.

[Rudz]

ummm, agd cant get numbers for shatnerball, agd cant pay for ao...i love agd, but this doesnt look good at all...

[Pneumagger]

Tom,

Please don't send us to the PBNz.
Everytime a small PB company goes under, Smart Parts kills a puppy. :cry:
http://static.flickr.com/37/117926496_1b65483bb1_m.jpg

[Chaos_Theory!]

Why does everyoen resort to bashing SP? lol

Even if its a joke they arent bad company.

[Rudz]

Why does everyoen resort to bashing SP? lol

Even if its a joke they arent bad company.


Thay are evil nazis..now go back to pbn...ion lover.....

[Arstron]

I have never paid to use somones forum, it is somthing I simply would not do. I would support AO though. Isnt the agd website on the same server as this forum as well if this forum went down would that mean an end to the agd site as well? On average, how many post or bandwith is used?

[luke]

To be honest, because I run an AGD based business I would have to.

Just to hang out and shoot the breeze, no.

5 years ago, maybe.

[WARPED1]

No, I would not pay for this, or any, forum.

[Chaos_Theory!]

Sorry my ion is just as good as anythign else out there and i dont dwell on stupid **** like the anti SP bandwagon.

[Strider]

I like the idea of a Paypal donate button. I've used it on several other comics/services on the net.

Yearly access fee? Nnnn, not so sure. Depends on the price really.

Restricting access to the BST forums will kill them.
Restricting access at all will likley kill AO.

Restricing access to something irrelivant like signatures/avatars, that could work. :) (I'd like my sig back too! :p )

[Arstron]

To be honest, because I run an AGD based business I would have to.

Just to hang out and shoot the breeze, no.

5 years ago, maybe.

Wow, I didnt even think about what kind of hit the agd dealers would take with this forum not being here. I am sure quiet a bit of all the dealers business comes from AO one way or another, directly or by referals.



If paying is limited to just the b/s/t access, you could post a thread and recieve PM's from people wanting to buy products and take care of all your business threw PMs. That might not be to bad.

[RRfireblade]

I probably would pay a nominal fee as an annual subscriber kinda thing....... IF we get sigs and pic hosting back .

:D

[650HP]

Donation is a lot better. Put up a graph showing how close we are for each month. Host a fundraiser game once a year.

[WARPED1]

Thay are evil nazis..now go back to pbn...ion lover.....
Godwin's Law (also Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies) is a mainstay of Internet culture, an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states:
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." The custom has evolved that the first party to utter "Hitler" or "Nazi" has lost the discussion, and the thread terminates

[gibby]

Like someone said before, if it were 5 years ago, I might have paid. But now? No...Probably not.

Not that I don't support AGD and Tom anymore, it's just not my main lifestyle anymore like it used to be a few years ago.

Tom, I know you love AO and its members, but if the forum isn't profitable to you, it's not worth keeping. I think a lot of people like the idea of "donating" but when it comes down to it, you'd be lucky to get enough to cover the expenses and in the end, you're still spending your own money to keep this site open. :(

[AGD]

Alright, this has gotten out of hand. I am closing the thread. I just had a discussion with Dave and AO is going to stay like it is for some time.

Thanks

AGD