Membership fee? Why do all these web sites that start off free think they can start making a lot more money by charging for their services? That's not how you get more members and/or users. In my opinion, that's how you drive them away.

When you start charging for this service (after it's been free for so long), people will be less inclined to freely put their stuff up for sale. When less people start visiting and there's less traffic through the site, the advertisers (who do pay to advertise) don't see this site as worthwhile to show their products, and they pull their ads. Thus less income coming into RCU.

This is exactly how the taxation system works here in the US (and a good number of other countries around the world).

But other than the fee part, the merger does sound like a good idea.

Anyhow, just my opinion.

Russ