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