• Scam Alert. Members are reminded to NOT send money to buy anything. Don't buy things remote and have it shipped - go get it yourself, pay in person, and take your equipment with you. Scammers have burned people on this forum. Urgency, secrecy, excuses, selling for friend, newish members, FUD, are RED FLAGS. A video conference call is not adequate assurance. Face to face interactions are required. Please report suspicions to the forum admins. Stay Safe - anyone can get scammed.

We're Going to Try Some Banner Ads for Guest (Not Logged In) Users

Janger said:
I was just looking at the forum not logged in again. There’s just a lot of ads. The ad revenue is appealing but the forum now isn’t….
Click to expand...

Agreed. I think @YYCHM is right. It's the popups that would drive me nuts and away.
Janger said:
I pay monthly $5 through pay pal connected to my credit card. It just shows up on my credit card as a line item. Now before people fly off the handle here about companies storing credit card info - I’d rather pay pal have it and then I can pay for stuff without sharing my credit card even more with all kinds of outfits. So for me at least this works. $5 a month to support the forum. Cheap.
Click to expand...

I have the same attitude towards PayPal as you do John. I'd much rather share my credit card info with one outfit than 30. But I do wish PayPal was more concerned about security than they are. I did sign up for authentication though.
 
jcdammeyer said:
I understand $5 per month is cheap until you have 40 different forums each pulling $5/month. I'm currently trying to lower cable TV bill for the same reason. A channel here, a channel there is a bit extra so why not take this package which gives you those plus lots more except I don't watch all but 3 and 3 is more than the package. It's a never ending rabbit hole.
Click to expand...

Man can I ever empathize with that!

But tv is even worse than you relate. I originally signed up for Satelite mostly because they promised a no ads experience. It was worth ever penny at the time. Then the promised no ads started to dissolve. Now there are more ads than programming. If it were up to me, I'd pull the plug. But the wife likes her shows and as long as she is busy watching tv I can play with my machines without fear of getting called out for not doing whatever it is she thinks I SHOULD have been doing.

I now wish I could have free TV with 5 minutes of ads an hour like the old days.
 
I wonder how YouTube’s numbers have faired it seems that your always reaching for the mouse to shut them off. I’ve cut back on my viewing. The subscribe to avoid ads seems like blackmail to me!
 
Tom O said:
I wonder how YouTube’s numbers have faired it seems that your always reaching for the mouse to shut them off. I’ve cut back on my viewing. The subscribe to avoid ads seems like blackmail to me!
Click to expand...
Careful. Blackmail is a pretty strong term and really not accurate. Any of the web service providers have the right to put on as much advertising as they would like. That's pretty obvious the trend when you surf the web nowadays.

And the advertisers have to decide if that massive amount of ads on web sites is actually effective or if it has a detrimental effect. This forum has the right to put advertising on too. Even for the people who pay unless there is an explicit agreement to not do it for people who pay.

The question is at what point do people change their 'habits' and choose something different. Most of the people I know rarely go on facebook anymore. The original idea that it was a meeting place for friends and acquaintances became monetized with directed advertising targeted based on a click. Likely any 'package' of advertising added to a forum like this will also do the same at some level.

My guess is that this will be with us for a while. After all the movie theaters were allowed to do subliminal advertising until the government moved in and stopped it. So those against government interference would likely have used the old 'saw' the movie goers will decide if they want to go to a theater that has subliminal adverts. But it's no longer allowed thank goodness.

At one point TV programming was only allowed to have so many minutes of advertising per hour. I think that's been allowed to lapse or changed to be the average over a 24 hour period. So from 1AM to 5AM reruns with only promos and no advertising covers extra advertising allowed during prime time. Again the anti-government view is if there's too much advertising people will just move somewhere else. In a lot of ways Netflix and Prime, to mention only a couple are that model. Except now you have to pay to view, the bottom of your smart TV has a row of icons of content providers and unless you block specific IP addresses you also get a pile of advertising when you first switch on the TV. Try it without a network connected to see the difference when you power up. And that's the only way to block that. You can't turn it all off on an LG TV.

That's largely the attitude with network advertising in forums etc. The users will chose. Keep the government out. The cost of running this forum starts with the price list here: https://xenforo.com/ The money has to come from somewhere. The senior users will eventually get tired unless they get some value.
 
YYCHM said:
I can afford $60/yr BUT I wouldn't want to achieve that through 12 reoccurring renewals.

What perks/privilege's do the tiers buy you?
Click to expand...

I notice that the basic membership is listed as $100/yr on the Account Upgrades page, but I also see discussion about 12 X $5 = $60, which is it?

I too would like to know what advantages, other than supporting the (worthwhile) site, come from becoming a supporting member. I've seen mention that it gives post editing privileges, are there other perks? It'd be nice to see that spelled out.

Thanks for the forum!

D:cool:
 
ads don’t seem to hurt Youtube at all.

www.businessofapps.com

YouTube Revenue and Usage Statistics (2024)

YouTube was launched in 2005. It was founded by three PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who ran the company from an office above a small restaurant in San Mateo. The first video uploaded to the platform was “Me at the zoo”, featuring Karim. By the years end, YouTube was...
www.businessofapps.com www.businessofapps.com

I suspect users of machinist forums are unlikely to be typical media consumers.
 
Susquatch said:
Pretty sure that's an oversight that will get fixed soon!
Click to expand...

I don't think it was a oversight.

"
- Some of these are on the expensive side of things, don't be alarmed, I simply wanted to increase the upper limits.
--- No one is going to see any reduction in functionality by sticking with the smaller contribution levels
--- Higher tiers won't benefit from new functionality or anything like that, at this time
--- The higher limit is just to ensure folks who want to can contribute more, and otherwise end the hunt for more revenue, a hunt which leads to stuff like experimentation around ads, etc.
"
 
YYCHM said:
I don't think it was a oversight.

"
- Some of these are on the expensive side of things, don't be alarmed, I simply wanted to increase the upper limits.
--- No one is going to see any reduction in functionality by sticking with the smaller contribution levels
--- Higher tiers won't benefit from new functionality or anything like that, at this time
--- The higher limit is just to ensure folks who want to can contribute more, and otherwise end the hunt for more revenue, a hunt which leads to stuff like experimentation around ads, etc.
"
Click to expand...

Ya, that does read like that doesn't it!

The next couple of months will be an interesting time won't they!

I love to say thank you in meaningful ways, but my wife might object to a donation here that is worth more than what she gets for being the biggest part of my life. :rolleyes:

I'm gunna halfta think this one through very carefully.
 
Susquatch said:
Ya, that does read like that doesn't it!

The next couple of months will be an interesting time won't they!

I love to say thank you in meaningful ways, but my wife might object to a donation here that is worth more than what she gets for being the biggest part of my life. :rolleyes:

I'm gunna halfta think this one through very carefully.
Click to expand...

I'm all for supporting the forum, but have to remain within my means. Ya, $5X12=$60 BUT I don't want my CC charged 12 times per year, my wife would be constantly complaining about it. 1X$60/yr she can live with.
 
YYCHM said:
I'm all for supporting the forum, but have to remain within my means. Ya, $5X12=$60 BUT I don't want my CC charged 12 times per year, my wife would be constantly complaining about it. 1X$60/yr she can live with.
Click to expand...

I'm my case I would rewrite that a bit. My wife will no doubt object to the $60 and attempt to exert highly painful pressure on certain portions of my anatomy, but if that only happens once a year, I can survive. If it happens once a month I won't have a chance to recover and my voice will increase at least an octave.

In other words, I don't want to play that game either.
 
I don’t think the cruise director is going to give me much grief if my support of this forum goes from $0.16/day to, heavens, maybe $0.27/day. She just signed us up for a $250 pickleball course. I suspect I’ll get much more enjoyment from the forum than from chasing a wiffle ball across a tennis court.
 
whydontu said:
I don’t think the cruise director is going to give me much grief if my support of this forum goes from $0.16/day to, heavens, maybe $0.27/day. She just signed us up for a $250 pickleball course. I suspect I’ll get much more enjoyment from the forum than from chasing a wiffle ball across a tennis court.
Click to expand...
Driving around all the time listening to the radio, I learn lots of things I don’t necessarily seek out....such as.....nude pickle ball is increasing in popularity in Florida....:D
 
Or how about this. Just read a news blurb that in certain countries BMW charges a monthly subscription to enable the steering wheel and seat heaters. So far not yet in North America but this trend to monthly subscriptions is everywhere. The up side is you don't have to buy an BMWor subscribe to the 100+ other things from people who want your money.
 
YYCHM said:
I can afford $60/yr BUT I wouldn't want to achieve that through 12 reoccurring renewals.

What perks/privilege's do the tiers buy you?
Click to expand...
You definitely don't have to, existing tiers haven't changed at all, I just created additional tiers, but there is no reason to use any but the originals, except to support the forum.


Janger said:
I was just looking at the forum not logged in again. There’s just a lot of ads. The ad revenue is appealing but the forum now isn’t….
Click to expand...
Yeah, I keep turning them down, every few days. They were now at the minimum level, but I get the sense the scale goes: 1%, 95%, 95%, 95%, 95%, 99%, 100%

Tecnico said:
I notice that the basic membership is listed as $100/yr on the Account Upgrades page, but I also see discussion about 12 X $5 = $60, which is it?
Click to expand...
YYCHM said:
Prior to the change you could purchase a $60/yr membership.
Click to expand...
jcdammeyer said:
Seems it's even higher now with only monthly at $5 per month and paying a year in advance costs way more.
Click to expand...
YYCHM said:
I don't think it was a oversight.
Click to expand...
Corrected this now.
I spent an afternoon mucking about with the membership levels and internally debating my game plan there, Sorta just got tired of it and hit the ol' big-red "send-it" button.



Ads have been turned off now, all the back and fourth alone is too stressful. lol
 
Last edited:
Jwest7788 said:
You definitely don't have to, existing tiers haven't changed at all, I just created additional tiers, but there is no reason to use any but the originals, except to support the forum.
Click to expand...

You lost me. I'm not seeing a $60/yr option in the Account Upgrades list?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top