Originally posted by Fly4Fun2
Hey Marc -
I think everyone is stuck on $24 per year. If your operating costs are $5K - $10K per month ($60K-$120K/year) and we already have 30,000 members, do you think you could offer it at $10/year and still have the improvements? Even if only half of the members signed up for the $10/year deal, your inflow would be $150K/year. That is well above your upper end estimate with only half the traffic.
Some people will leave. RCOnline used to be the dominate site for RC. It failed because of many of the problems you have described. I know it is still around, but it is no where near the site it once was. I think if you charge $24/year, a lot of people will bail. I personally don't mind paying the fee even at $24, BUT - the value of this site is NOT the photos, the magazine, the galleries, etc. - it is the people. Without a broad base of users, this site is worthless. If you lose the people, everyone will find another site to go to, RCGroups, the old RCOnline, Flightlines, various yahoo lists, etc.
For a nominal fee though, I think a lot will stay. I greatly appreciate the "Consumer Reports" type format. I used to subscribe to four different magazines. Now, I get everything off the internet. RC Reports was the only one even close to giving accurate reviews, but it does not include a lot of my interests.
My vote is a much smaller fee - $10/year max and/or advertising. Actually, I really like the advertising - they are smaller companies who I have not heard a lot about until I see them here.
Keith
I put the $1-$2 as a range and your right...everyone latches on to the high end of that. I put it as a range as the range is realistic. It can be as low as $12 a year or maybe as high as $24. If I had to guess it would probably be $15 as I don't think all 30,000 would sign on...many are very active but some aren't active enough and might use services on a one off basis.
As for users going elsewhere like yahoo (won't happen..their interface stinks and not geared toward rc). All the other forums WILL face the same thing so if everyone jumps ship from one to another the same problems don't go away. It is just a matter of how much time and money somebody is willing to sacrifice to give RC hobbyists a great site. Go look at RC Groups...they now charge many levels of membership and some are expensive for services. Flightlines won't make it because the amount of bandwidth and servers to run this thing along with time to work with moderators, members and advertisers just comes to the edge of almost being feasible.
One must understand that the magazines get $19-$29 of your dollars for 12 issues a year. You don't get to buy or sell anywhere in that equation. On top of that they have the full support and ad dollars of the industry titans spending $10's of thousands on ads in their publications. I feel it is unlikely those entities will ever spend those dollars on web advertising making the formula a tough one.
Again I am taking this poll to get a pulse on the users thoughts. If most would like to see this site advertiser based we will continue to strive in that direction but what happens when a big dollar advertiser threatens to pull out because of bashing posts about them? Do we let them walk or appease them? Appeasing them might not appease the members here. If one has to decide between a member oriented site or advertiser oriented site which would it be? The theme I've heard thundered through RCU since day one is for free speech and no sugar coating. I can tell you from experience that advertisers pull ads when the users here don't talk nice about them. It has happened and I've let them walk which shrinks an already small pool of ad dollars. I let the users talk here and speak the truth to help other modelers and this comes at a cost at times. Ultimately I want the users to benefit from RCU as much as possible as I built it to help everyone who is crazy about this hobby and want to keep these goals "aligned" for years to come so economic strategizing is important.