Beyond Beer & Off-Topic Updates

Are you expecting/hoping that this change will foster an uptick in Society memberships?

I could see the change as being added value for becoming a Society member, but don't see how it adds value to existing Society members, unless you meant the former rather than the latter.

I'm unfamiliar with how clicks/visits/posts impact the value of a website to its owner. Assuming all those are important, how does the change enhance the value to the owner?

Not being contentious, just curious (nosey).

 

Well, to all my compatriots on the BBQ and Grilling forum, I regret that I won’t be able to continue to engage in some of the wonderful conversations we have had but I certainly won’t pay at for the privilege of continuing. I am quite sure that I can get equal information and benefit for free from other grilling sites, even if it means another password to get there. I won’t be clicking/ reading the forum here if I can’t engage in the conversation.

 

Bill, you're free to make that decision, but to me the ten bucks is well worth it just to avoid the ads, so take that into consideration too. (Okay, yeah, I'm a Poo-Bah so it's a free membership, but still I'd pay up just to eliminate the ads.)

 

I'm with @BillAfromSoCal . I'm pretty pissy about the paywall that was put up. Above, @Todd Said he hopes this is value-added, but to who? You took something that was free and put it behind a paywall. That's called pay-to-play, not value added. When you already pay for something, value-added is the additional benefit you are given for free; It's something you wouldn't pay for, but you're happy to get it as an extra benefit. In this case, everyone already had that ability! This is the opposite.

It doesn't make any sense to me. It feels like I'm trying to be forced into being a society member. Paying to post in certain areas makes no sense to me, and I have no value in even visiting a forum I can't post in. I'm not here for the information, I'm here for the socializing and relationships that are built. You take that away, and you lose me.

To be perfectly honest, It's bullshit. If no one posted there, it wouldn't be behind a paywall. But people do, so the objective has become, "Let's see how we can extract membership fees".

 

Personally, I gain no satisfaction for numerical accolades that proffer a title of any sort. I like this place simply for the obviously smart, funny, and very nice people. It's like an island in a social media shitstorm. And I daily bemoan being at the advent of the death of print media.