Subscriptions too dear

HelterSkelter

Hi all,

I reckon the subscriptions are too expensive. I think €5 a month/€50 a year is way too much. You would get a lot more subscribers if you reduced it. I think it should be at least half the current price.

Any opinions on this?

seamus

I think €5 a month is nothing. The cost of a single pint. Pittance.

Cabaal

I don't think the problem is the price, I think the problem is people are lazy and don't want to fork out the money OR they don't have a paypal a/c, credit card in order to pay boards.

Beruthiel

good lord man, €50 will get you nothing these days, not even a night on the town!
of course it's not too dear

Talliesin

I agree the need for a paypal account is an issue, but then so is dealing with other means of payment at the level of one of the admins having to actually do so.

€5 a month isn't much given that it's something you pay if you want to see boards have more money in its coffers for doing things and have the money to spare.

blahblah06

how do u join monthly

CuLT

www.3v.ie

\o/


That's what I used to subscribe. Real credit cards, pah!

seamus

CuLT, that is genius. I'm adding that to the How to subscribe sticky.

As far as I'm concerned, the "I don't have a credit card" argument is now moot.

GoneShootin

There are about 140 subbed members at €50 which totals €7000 per annum if they each pay yearly. Do you really think the numbers would increase significantly enough to generate more income?

While I don't think it's currently too expensive (I see it as more of a "thanks for the great site as opposed to using the email/blogs) I don't see a reason why there can't be a promotion of some kind to see how the take up on subs would change.

Talliesin

CuLT wrote:

www.3v.ie

And 3v are jolly nice people too.

GoneShootin wrote:

(I see it as more of a "thanks for the great site as opposed to using the email/blogs)

That's important. As this site grows and there are more people around who don't remember when subscription started it's increasingly important to point out that you aren't buying any goods or services, you are making a donation.

Ol' timers will remember the admins being in the strange situation of people coming up to them and wanting to give them cash, but of not having mechanisms in place for receiving this cash, keeping track of accounts, and so on.

The money you give to boards is given to boards because you want boards to have that money to use.

The benefits you get in return are purely "thank yous" for that money.

In particular people have occasionally wondered if subscribing would get you preferential treatment as far as bans or even sitebans go. The answer is "NO".

GoneShootin wrote:

I don't see a reason why there can't be a promotion of some kind to see how the take up on subs would change.

Agreed. There is a danger of losing site of just what the subscription is all about when new users read about it (this already has happened a bit with the S&S forum, but we don't need to go into that here, the reason the admins made the decision they did is discussed elsewhere plenty, wait until search is back on and go look for it if you didn't catch it the first time), and a perception of subscription as a fee for goods and services rather than a donation could cause problems down the line, so it needs to be stated all the more clearly these days.

rsynnott

Talliesin wrote:

I agree the need for a paypal account is an issue, but then so is dealing with other means of payment at the level of one of the admins having to actually do so.

Can't you get magical fake credit cards of mystery, these days?

GoneShootin wrote:

There are about 140 subbed members at €50 which totals €7000 per annum if they each pay yearly. Do you really think the numbers would increase significantly enough to generate more income?

Is that all?

Baz_

It's definitely not too expensive, and you would really need to carry out some kind of study to say with certainty that if the subscription fee was lower then you would get more subscribers. I don't think it is very common that that is the case.

For me I signed up without a seconds hesitation, well there was hesitation of about a year until I got the money (to spare that is), but as soon as I had it in my account, I donated it to Boards.ie. Boards.ie has been quite a big part of my online life, and I felt it only fair that I should give something back and now that I have I feel much better .

Just thinking though how about making a donation fee of something smaller, and giving a smaller set of extras for the lesser fee. Say €10 a year for tagline and custom avatar, €20 a year for the above and email, €30 a year for above and access to all subscriber forums, €40 a year for the above + picturepost (or whatever its called), €50 a year for everything. And while on the subject, why not make boards webspace subscriber only?

This massively complicates matters, but it may lead to more revenue being generated, and therefore may be worth the effort, and also like most good gateway drugs paying the €10 may lead onto a much heavier subscription abuse later on .

seamus

GoneShootin

rsynnott wrote:

Is that all?

I would consider it a healthy number of totally voluntary donations given the complete lack of advertising and marketing of the subscriber system anywhere on boards. The only link from the homepage to the info is the simple "subsribe" link. You would miss it if you blinked.

Baz_ wrote:

why not make boards webspace subscriber only?

I likes your thinking!

Mr. Presentable

Suggestion:

Turn off the search (I know it's off already) and history functions for non subscribers, and let them know why each time they try to use it.

The cost of a sub is peanuts, except if you are under 16, as I suspect many are, so perhaps a way of generating a junior sub is required.

Lafortezza

spannerhead wrote:

Suggestion:

Turn off the search (I know it's off already) and history functions for non subscribers, and let them know why each time they try to use it.

I think that's a great idea, only drawback is you'd have people posting the same crap over and over again, with the excuse "I couldn't search for it ".
Unless the banhammer was wielded with ferocity I doubt it'd work.

Talliesin

spannerhead wrote:

Suggestion:

Turn off the search (I know it's off already) and history functions for non subscribers, and let them know why each time they try to use it.

I don't like the idea of turning off such useful functions for non-subs. Really once we start messing with what you can do if you're not a sub we start damaging boards. IMO that would be one stretch too far.

spannerhead wrote:

The cost of a sub is peanuts, except if you are under 16, as I suspect many are, so perhaps a way of generating a junior sub is required.

People for whom a fiver a month is a lot are probably rare here, but not entirely unknown. People for whom a fiver a month, and it has to be every month even when you are having a really bad cashflow month are probably more common.

Baz_

spannerhead wrote:

Suggestion:

Turn off the search (I know it's off already) and history functions for non subscribers, and let them know why each time they try to use it.

The cost of a sub is peanuts, except if you are under 16, as I suspect many are, so perhaps a way of generating a junior sub is required.

I think thats a terrible idea, a site without a search function does not get many return visitors, I would have been out of here long ago if that was the case.

damien

seamus wrote:

Hmmm, there seems to be this pervading attitude that boards.ie will die a death if people don't become subscribers. From the figures we see here boards.ie takes in €7k yearly from subscribers. Boards.ie also takes in €100-€200 a month from the commercial interaction forums and takes in other cash from the banner ads. Hosting for boards.ie is still free I believe?

There seems to be a guilt trip of sorts that the site is getting too big and people are somehow using it too much so they should cough up cash. All these ideas of denying people basic functionality like removing the search option is punishing people who make the site what it is. These are the people that generate the content, generate the threads and bring other people to boards.ie

If boards.ie does die it will not be because of too many people using it, it will not be because people didn't provide enough money to keep it going, it will instead be because the owners allowed it to do so by not making it pay for itself.

WhiteWashMan

50€ isnt too much when you consider the product being sold, and they types of customers. infact, i would say you could probably double it, we would still pay for it.
its a value based sale, not a price based one.

WhiteWashMan

damien.m wrote:

There seems to be a guilt trip of sorts that the site is getting too big and people are somehow using it too much so they should cough up cash.

i cant say i have ever come across that sort of attitude from anyone who is either an admin, or anyone who has been here for any amount of time.

Baz_

damien.m wrote:

Hosting for boards.ie is still free I believe?

I believe quite the opposite, in fact I'm not aware of a time it ever was free...

<edit>Just in case I'm wrong, and therefore just before I get jumped on , I did say I believe there. Although I would like to be sure, if anyone feels like confirming the above.</edit>

damien.m wrote:

There seems to be a guilt trip of sorts that the site is getting too big and people are somehow using it too much so they should cough up cash. All these ideas of denying people basic functionality like removing the search option is punishing people who make the site what it is. These are the people that generate the content, generate the threads and bring other people to boards.ie

If there is, it's certainly not coming from them that count (the admins), and it is certainly not intended to be the case. I would go out on a limb and suggest that it's the very reason the admins don't push too hard the subscription issue.

As regards basic functionality, again the admins didn't suggest this, and I really can't see it ever happening, I agree most sincerely with your other point there.

damien.m wrote:

If boards.ie does die it will not be because of too many people using it, it will not be because people didn't provide enough money to keep it going, it will instead be because the owners allowed it to do so by not making it pay for itself.

Again, you're putting words in the admins mouth's, I don't think boards.ie is even close to developing a death rattle, and with some of the new revenue streams opened up, I don't think it ever will. That is why I believe the admins aren't pushing subscription/donation. I for one would support them if they ever did decide to though.

Just to reiterate though, turning off basic bulletin board functionality would be considered a bad thing. By me at the very least.

Beruthiel

damien.m wrote:

All these ideas of denying people basic functionality like removing the search option is punishing people who make the site what it is

well in fairness damien, I understood that it's only removed for a while till Regi connects up the two new servers.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm finding boards really slow these days, especially round lunchtime and after, this I believe, is one of the reasons for removing the search engine for now.

damien

Beruthiel and others: Apologies if my comment made it look like I was taking a swipe at the admins for removing search. I was not. I understand why that happened. That was a comment on spannerhead's (what an apt name) idea to remove it in order to make people subscribe.

Baz_

damien.m wrote:

That was a comment on spannerhead's (what an apt name)

Teeheehee

seamus

Baz_ wrote:

Just to reiterate though, turning off basic bulletin board functionality would be considered a bad thing. By me at the very least.

100%
There is nothing quicker to make me leave a set of forums than being prompted to signup or pay when I click on things like search or user profiles.

Cloud

We don't want no stingey whiners in our Subscriber areas, so it's probably as well that you don't subscribe.

GoneShootin

damien.m wrote:

Apologies if my comment made it look like I was taking a swipe at the admins for removing search.

That's why the QUOTE button is such a handy gizmo, stops this confusion

boards.ie damien.m

Cake Fiend

I cannot fathom how less than 14c per day to support boards could be considered 'way too much'. Most people would probably not even be bothered picking up 14c off the street.

Beruthiel

damien.m wrote:

That was a comment on spannerhead's (what an apt name) idea to remove it in order to make people subscribe.

oopps
I missed that bright idea

Mr. Presentable

Baz_ wrote:

I think thats a terrible idea, a site without a search function does not get many return visitors, I would have been out of here long ago if that was the case.

You're probably right Baz, although there has been no search for anybody for a while now.........