why so few members?

<i>Didn't you say the other day that you were getting a Digital Rebel?</i>

<p>

Well said, Z.

PayPal does not require you to enter bank details just to make a payment by credit card. It no longer even requires you to create a PayPal account. You can just enter your credit card number just like any other kind of "shopping cart" system. You do have to have a credit card which they accept, and they don't accept cards issued in certain countries.

Z, i definitely dont have the money to get a drebel, yes i was offered the camera by a friend who would let me have it in lieu of something else he wanted.

I would think that very few people couldn't afford $25. A roll of color film with prints and developing costs half that. How many rolls a year do most people shoot? Most people who can read this are paying probably ten times the subscription for internet service. I'm sure there are a very few that truly can't afford the $25 but 99.9% of the rest surely can. A subscription cost <i>less than 7c</i>. per day.

According to last October's Site Statistics, there are approximately 7,700 new registrations

(paying or not) every month. That should put the site a bit over 300,000 registered

members right now. With that sort of growth, it seems paramount that both storage and

bandwidth grow in tandem to the increase in traffic. I'd be interested to see the statistics

on paying vs non-paying membership. If the percentage of new paying members keeps up

with non-paying, there should be enough money to finance necessary, indeed inevitable,

upgrades on the same scale as the past. If not, things are going to slip. Maybe that's

what's happening right now. It's a bandwidth issue with site performance now, right? If so,

can photo.net afford it? If not, I've four ideas (the first three don't count):

 

1. Ask for donations from people for a specific cause. I'd be much more likely to toss a few

extra bucks in, if I knew it was going for something specific. Perhaps others would as well.

 

2. Less access for non-members. More might join, more might also leave or become

inactive.

 

3. More money for subscribership. Less might join, but those who chose to stay or join

would hopefully increase the site's budget.

 

4. A mixture of all of the above.

 

My two cent's worth.

<i><blockquote> yes i was offered the camera by a friend who would let me have it in lieu

of something else he wanted. </blockquote> </i><p>

 

Didn't you say the other day that you were interested in getting an A80 and also an EF 70-

200 f4 lens?

Some people will never subscribe, you just have to accept that. It' just like PBS. Some people will watch nothing else, but never subscribe.

 

They'll always have an excuse. They can rationalize their position when asked. "What does one person matter", "I can't afford it (though I can afford a computer and and ISP account and a camera)", "I'll subscribe when they have [add your condition here], maybe a chat room, maybe a Holga forum, maybe 100% uptime". Then there's the oldie but goodie "why should I subscribe when I can get the same stuff for free".

 

The only way to get 100% subscription is to turn off service for non subscribers - something that isn't likley to happen. The only way to increase subscription ratios is to reduce services for non-subscribers, something that may well be likely to happen.

 

I will concede though that a solution of the problems photo.net has with slow access or server unavailablity would probably be a boost to subscriptions. People will put up with 90% uptime if it's free, but resent it not being 99.9% when they're paying, even if they're only paying $0.07/day. That's human nature.

Bob Atkins,

 

You seem to be one of the people that can't accept that people will never subscribe. I've seen you do the "pay up or shut up" that Kenny was talking about several times.

 

The reason some people won't subscribe is because photography is a hobby for them, not a business. This isn't an excuse, it's a reason. If the site design can't support non-subscribers, that's the site's fault. If it was worth it, people would subscribe. Making non-subscribers feel like shit is not a good way to get them to subscribe.

 

I don't make any money with my pictures. Do I really need to kick out $25/yr to use a discussion forum/picture post? If my pictures are causing a problem, let me know and I'll remove them. (This isn't a threat; if it would help any, I will remove them...)

Bob (Linscombe), it costs real money to facilitate any activity on this site, even this thread. You may also discover the vast numbers of non professionals who have subscribed because they see value in supporting the continued site operation. Member contribution/subscription is voluntary, of course, so one shouldn't be made to feel bad if one genuinely feels little value is returned for their participation.

Amazing how these topics turn into a 3am, tear jerking, 'Feed the Children' ad. When the $25 is in my pocket it's insignificant, but in PN's greasy palm it could feed every poor bastard on the planet.

Michael Chang,

 

Yes, I know it costs money. That's the reason behind the final sentence of my previous message.

 

You have to remember, though... at the top of every photo of mine that is displayed on this site is a banner ad, and I am not the person getting paid for that ad. If those ads do not pay for my pictures to be displayed, someone can let me know and I will promptly remove them (the pictures, not the ads :P).

 

I think some non-subscribers DO feel bad, however, when they try to offer a simple suggestion or post a topic about a problem they are having and they get hit with a bunch of replies about how they should be paying, with none of the replies actually addressing the problem. It really turns them off and I can bet that person is a "non-subscriber forever" after that.

Brian Mottershead,

 

There has been no response to the matter raised about overseas members paying by International Money Order in US dollars. Some of us don't have credit cards for various reasons and beliefs, I would pay a subscription promptly via I.M.O., if this option was available, as would many others.

 

If you accept subscription cheques from Americans you have some form of administration to handle this means of payment. An I.M.O. is more secure than a cheque, it is a as good as a cash payment, and there are no more associated banking charges than those of a cheque issued in the U.S.A.

 

Perhaps you could include this I.M.O. payment option in your often mentioned upcoming revamp of the subscriber/nonsubscriber entitlements.

Bob Linscombe wrote:<em>You seem to be one of the people that can't accept that people will never subscribe</em>

<p>

That's odd, I could have <em><b>sworn</b></em> I just said "<em>Some people will never subscribe, you just have to accept that</em>", which, to me at least, would seem to indicate that I accept the fact that some people won't subscribe.

<p>The VAST majority of people here are hobbyists, and I'd bet that the majority of subscribers are hobbyists. There really isn't anything here currently that a professional needs more than a hobbyist does or that offers any really professional services.

<p>

Some people just won't subscribe. That's fine. Eventually I assume we'll probably have a two tier system and if users are happy with the services available to non-subscribers, they'll be welcome to use them for free. If we can only support a user base of "n" users, it's only fair that subscribers should get the majority of the available resources. In the early days photo.net had fewer users, lots of excess capacity and far fewer features (no gallery for example). In that case everyone could have an equal share and nobody would suffer, subscriber or not. I don't believe that is the situation today.

my apologies for my apparent insensitivity to members located in foreign countries with weak currencies. I had hoped that my comment "I don't mean to be insensitive..." in the original post would avoid that sort of misunderstanding. I fully recognize that there are many people using this site who cannot afford $25 right now, both here in the USA and abroad. I don't think anybody here would want to make them feel unwelcome or uncomfortable.

 

This thread was aimed at people who can afford to pay, use the site extensively, and decide not to pay despite receiving way more than $25 of benefit from it. If they contribute more in other ways, of course that's not a problem. I'm focused purely on the relatively large number of people I think have a "why pay when I can get away with not paying" attitude.

 

I'm on a fly fishing website covering 5 western states. People get a lot less information on it in general than photo.net users. That's my opinion, anyhow. Membership is voluntary. Something like 80% of the users are members. There are virtually no added benefits to membership. And yet people subscribe. I'd guess that the average financial capacity of these fishermen is well below that of the average photo.net user.

 

Just an observation about this community.

We used to accept IMO's and as you point out, they work fine. We stated that only IMO's would be accepted from overseas.

 

However, a lot of people are basically clueless and don't know what an IMO is. By opening the door for IMO's, we received a lot of other payment forms, such as postal checks, certified checks from non-American banks, etc, that are not easy to handle at all, and which cost us money to process, since the fees exceed the amount of the subscription.

 

It results in far less confusion and dissatisfaction with the site just to accept PayPal, US Postal Service money orders, and personal checks drawn on American banks. I'm sorry, it is just too much trouble to educate people on how to send us money from overseas.

I just deleted 8 unacceptable off-topic/personal "ad hominem" comments.

The next one gets the user suspended. You've been warned. You can agree with each other's opinions, you can disagree with each other's opinions, but don't get overly personal about it, don't call each other nasty names and keep followups here on topic.

Point taken Brian. I will take the liberty of reading between the lines and take my chances.

we are all hear to learn. if i need to know about certain lenses, then that doesnt account to me wanting to buy it. happy shooting Z.

Just had a look at your <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/2271560"> last upload </a> and can confirm that, in this instance, 25% of your raters are PN subscribers... An improvement perhaps?!<br>Seriously though, it is unfortunate that there are not more people prepared to fork out US$25.00 in order to support this great web site.<p>Going off topic, I would like to ask why <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007qBW"> this thread </a> hasn't been nuked/moderated...?

<i><blockquote> that doesnt account to me wanting to buy it. </blockquote> </i><p>

 

You said you were interested in buying a new A80. You discussed getting a Digital Rebel.

You discussed buying that zoom. You have a computer and internet access and you visit

this site several times daily. You already own a camera and can afford film and processing.

But you can't afford a $25 membership?<p>

 

Fine.

Let's not make individual attacks and accusations. It helps nobody and it's likely to get you suspended from the forum for a while. This isn't about individuals, so don't pick on one.

 

People will justify "not being able to afford $25" even though in 99% of cases it's a matter of priorities. They want their daily coffee and if they don't pay they won't get it. If they don't pay their $25, they still get photo.net. What "I can't afford $25" actually means 99% of the times is that someone simply has other places they will spend all their money before photo.net, not that they don't have $25. Photo.net simply isn't a priority because even if they don't pay, they still get it. So they'll buy a 50 cent cup of coffee from their vending machine at work every day ($125/year), pay their ISP bill ($120-$600/year), go to the movies 3 times/year ($25 if you're lucky), but they won't contribute 7 cents/day to photo.net because they don't have to.

 

I'm sure that there are 1% of members who truely can't afford $25 for various reasons, and those people are more than welcome to participate without subscription. I'm sure there are people on very small fixed incomes who use public internet access from libraries, or perhaps who live in 3rd world countries where $25 is a month's salary. Those people we certainly do not ask to subscribe.

 

It would be interesting to see how many of those who "can't afford" $25 to subscribe would find it if the site went subscription only.

Peter, you ask why your linked thread wasn't deleted. Probably they will archive it and use it as an example of the kind of thread that will be deleted if anybody asks "what kind of threads should be deleted".

Bob I agree with you. I dont think this or any other posting should have individual bashing, which is definitely not going to help other members. If any of this lets take it offline please.

 

Bob coming to your point yes there are priorities, let me give you an example, in an average in India for example, the monthly salary is around 300--400$ whereas in the US its 10 times 3000$-4000$ on an average (i might be wrong, so take this with a pinch of salt please). Now that, atleast i believe makes a 'BIG' difference.

 

This is not for arguments sake, I just want people to know the actual scenario in a few places and of a few people.

Until it is mandetory to pay, it is in effect a free site. ...;)...J

Ok guys im in, why i didnt sucribe before? well, no excuses i was just using the service for free which is an option. Im also from a low curency country but i wont say 25$ per year is too much money for someone who owns a computer a camera and sometimes spends that money on a wild night :).

I do understand now that pn is a tool for me even if photo is a hobby for me (i do have to pay for most of my hobbies). And i do really apreciate the energy that Brian, Bob and the rest put in their sysadmin moderators roles.

Anyways i cant say anything to those who dont want or cant pay, is an option, no need for excuses. And since it is still an option why to questionize them?

 

best wishes for all of you