Free accounts do have access to the subscription system, although it is limited when compared to paid accounts.





Free accounts cannot subscribe on all boards(General for example),
have fewer results shown on their Subscriptions list, no default to
Disable Automatic Subscriptions, Subscribe without Email Notifications,
or Subscribe with Email Notifications, no ability to Change the
Subscription Option at the time of posting (Do Not Add to Subscribe
List, Without Email Notification, Subscribe With Email Notification).











If the subscribe button isn't present then you are in a community that you do not have access to the subscription system for.



Additionally threads you have created are available under MyTopics





Subscriptions=threads you have subscribed to, via posting or marking as subscribed.


My Topics=threads you have started


My Board
=forums you have marked as such will show up as a custom community for you under MyBoard
Active Topics=Topics most recently  posted in.


Newest Topics=Most recently started threads.
 

It's certain that those sites have a vastly smaller user base, we have 251,987 registered members, 188,720 are active accounts, and therefore require much less in the way of bandwidth and hardware both of which of course cost money.  



Banner ads alone do not fill those needs.



At 8:45pm pacific time:



3561 Users Are Currently Online.


There are 1,113 Team Members, 1,142 Members, and 1,306 Guests



all  eating bandwidth and hardware cycles.