Paid Membership Choice - No Ads

Since so many have a direct problem with the ads, why not offer a seperate style with no ads and allow users to pay a yearly/monthly fee to become a contributor and use the non ad version of the site?

This way its a win/win.

Just an idea.

 

me like it!

problem with ideas like this is when you get big enough you want to worry about transist costs, i wouldn't mind paying £10 per annum to goto the old style forums. (with that one banner ad)

 

what problems are people having?

 

They are complaining that they are taking up too much space, etc.
Check this thread:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=89243


Also, vb3 has a built in thing for contributions for members. So it wouldn't need much work, just on the site side. However, I have no idea how the site side is done so it may be alot of work for that aspect. But really, since the forums are where the people surf the most you could do this for the forum only?

 

i only care about it in the forums, i don't mind having adverts on the articals + columns etc.

 

I know some forums that have banner ads and stuff only on the forum index pages. All the threads are free of them from down the sides at least.

That'd be nice.

 

Why bother? I can just download the noad plugin for FF and be rid of them

 

But then you have a big blank space.

Don't get me wrong, I personally do not care about the ads. I am suggesting this for those that do have a problem with them.

 

Here is why it unfortunately isnt :

1) to equal the loss from the banner sales membership fees would be extortionate, and also makes it harder for us to sell banners on lower figures. If you're familiar with SomethingAwful who charge for their forum membership, $10 each from around 30,000 members and they still make a loss every month.

2) people who REALLY dont want ads are going to install an adblocker, not pay no ads

3) other sites who do this now wish they hadn't, as they have to continually provide the service whilst making a loss - no going back.

4) sharing of accounts

5) extra code bulk to site and forums, meaning more cpu usage, etc

Won't happen I'm afraid

 

Fair enough.

 

Thanks for understanding - we wouldnt be doing this stuff if we didnt have to, honest to god.

 

Yep - rightly or wrongly, that's just the way it is. At some point in the future, when the industry sorts out micropayments, it might be possible to do stuff ad-free: people pay $0.001 per page they read, and hopefully websites will break even.

But RTT is pretty spot on in his analysis

 

Hi,

I don't mind the ads on the website; (articles; columns).
But I dislike them alot in the forums.

Since they take up quite alot of space on the right. Wich costs alot of width over the full page. Space that isn't used when scrolling down.

The horizontal layout is supposivly giving more width.. but the banners are taking up on that space.

But I understand you need some "income" to keep everything going. So I wouldn't mind paying for a membership if that resulted in not having the ads on the forum.. and maybe some other extra's.

L

 

It's not supposedly - with the original layout, there's even less width in the middle.

 

if ads are so much of a prob use fire fox and an ad blocker... but click them from time to time so they make a bit of muney

 

More than likely all but google are by impression, cpm style, so just looking at them probably makes them money (just guessing here)

 

Look what happened here the other day when they introdcued a fee

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au

 

what did happen there ?!

 

note: fecking HUGE amount of ads on right. its bloody ridiculous on 1024x768
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/category.asp?SCID=14

and popups + ads on frontpage. its insane. I used to go there, now i don't, and TONNES of members are moving to overclockers.com.au because its not annoying you the whole time "buy this buy that, click here !!!!"

if you hit "enter forums" the forums go full screen, but its still insane that the rest of the site is about 80% ads.

everytime you change threads/forum you arae greeted with a billion ads and have to click the enter forums button again

 

www.slashdot.org

was on the front page earlier.

CaptainThunderbolt writes "Imagine this: you read an interesting story on Slashdot and you have a comment to make, so you login only to be greeted with a message saying you will need to pay a fee in order to make your comment. Seems ridiculous, doesn't it? Why on earth would you pay just to make a comment? Well, that is exactly how thousands of Aussies feel right now. AtomicMPC is an Australian PC Magazine with a fiercely loyal readership and an equally loyal online community. Yesterday it was announced that access to the most popular sections of the forum will soon attract a $20/year fee unless you are a magazine subscriber or a high-ranking forum member. The reaction to this announcement triggered the most vicious backlash I have ever witnessed as the website feedback forum went beserk. Users baulked at the idea of having to pay to access a community which the feel they are responsible for creating and I must say I understand how they feel. Is this a trend I should worry about? Will I one day have to pay a membership fee to access other popular forums?"