[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Pay for ARFcom ??? (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 7/9/2015 8:17:35 AM EDT
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Would you support Ed Sr if he announced that every forum under the GENERAL tab would require team membership to access ? Nothing else would change.
A post in Focus8's union thread got me wondering. |
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I'd be indifferent about it.
I'm pretty sure an ATF agent or 7 probably have platinum memberships or maybe even a life membership. 
Plenty of assholes are paying members. So it is not like stupid posters would be excluded from GD. Also, if that was done, there would be no point to having a team GD and regular GD. ETA after writing that out it seems kinda pointless. |
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Quoted:
I will support whatever the Avilas want, because I am just their virtual JBT
But, they have made it VERY clear in the past that access to the site should be free, so I cannot imagine they'd ever make such a decision. Plus, ARF is like crack. Sure you ride the free train for a while, but a lot of people (no where close to all, but a lot) end up buying a membership and that is consumerism/capitalism at it's finest. They make a lot more in sales to vendors, vendors that PAY to advertise here and memberships just by the access volume of the free portions of ARF. Arf is a business, we're all just cling-on's
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I am on the other side of this (probably the unpopular side). The whole point of the internet is to be free, it's not called the profitnet (tm), the fact that people have figured out how to make a profit is, to me, secondary. I am a free member for this reason, not because I don't want to support the site, I buy tons of stuff from site vendors, from EE, etc, but because the INFORMATION, even the idiots, should be free. If I choose to purchase something, it is a choice I made, but try to FORCE me to buy something, and I will walk away. I am not alone on this. I will read "free" online news, and watch the ads from those outlets, but if a place wants to charge me to read, I will find the info elsewhere (or do without, if at all possible), thus failing to see the ads and other marketing associated with the non-free site.
Making GD member only makes about as much sense as paying members to post content. What would you think if arfcom was suddenly required to pay posters a penny per post? I mean, after all, arfcom is getting all of this "free" content FOR GD from uncompensated contributors...if arfcom wants to charge people to read it, then they should have to PAY the authors for their content, right? I bet Aimless would support this...LOL edit: posting from a phone makes it hard to compose with acceptable grammar, sorry. |
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I'm an idiot. I have a membership.
It wouldn't change anything. There would be a few less first posts containing nothing but  , maybe.
Stupidity and money aren't mutually exclusive. ETA- Hammermill threads are comedy gold. Every now and then somebody does something that's that special kind of stupid. The kind you want to buy a membership for them so they stick around longer. |
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There's already a forum like that... Team forum. And a move like that would probably drive off a good 80-90% of new members and people who have been coming here a while.
I pay my share so I don't care, I don't think it would make very good business sense though. 
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I'm going to assume that this thread is due my comment in that thread.
I was just pointing out an observation of a comment that seemed ironic to me, nothing more, nothing less. But, I've seen enough team members here go out of their way to help non team members in distress that it's one of the more important aspects to contributing a little to the site. Second most important is the subscription. Pay, don't pay....I don't care. |
There's no fucking way I'd pay for this shi... oh, wait. Ah shit
Making Arfcom pay to play would severely diminish the user base and make advertising far less valuable. I know I spent a shit load of money with Arf advertisers before I bought a membership. It would be a foolish business decision but it's their site and they can do as they please. |
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Quoted:
I'd be indifferent about it. I'm pretty sure an ATF agent or 7 probably have platinum memberships or maybe even a life membership.
Plenty of assholes are paying members. So it is not like stupid posters would be excluded from GD. Also, if that was done, there would be no point to having a team GD and regular GD. ETA after writing that out it seems kinda pointless. Of course they do - not their money. 
To the OP's point - there are a lot of good people who don;t have memberships. Occasionally, one distinguishes themselves so as to get a membership awarded. |