except, as has been re-iterated [i]many[/i] times, ultimately that is not enough to keep the lights on… if you appreciate the value of it, put your hand in your pocket, it’s £20 FFS… as more than a few have said, this is like an online community group, not “just” a mag/forum… acknowledging the usefulness/uniqueness of it but then refusing to contribute is taking the piss…My feeling is that there’s no harm in being a “non-paying, long-term member.”
We live in a world where people drop a grand on a new mobile phone every other year without blinking, but balk at the prospect of paying 69p for an app to put on it.
I was told I was mental for doing that (i do it every 4-5 years, but there we are) by a guy who seemed pretty pleased with his £40 a week booze consumption.
People are weird.
Having visited STW Towers and stared into the belly of the beast, I have a high confidence that he already knows this information.
Well you are a true believer but I don’t think he can know. At best he knows what people click on and that doesn’t tell the whole story.
If/when prices rise perhaps giving a menu of features to subscribe to could help mitigate the price rise for those who may think about stopping their sub. It may also draw more in who don’t mind paying just for the bits they want. Those who only want access to the digital mag could choose just that for one price, just the forum and it’s another price, want the full monty and it’s a higher price but a bargain compared to the cost of individual elements. Pick’n’mix
If the forum was subscription only it would be dead in the water in a week.
… despite many posts asking for a forum-only subscription option?
These two comments aren't necessarily related. I don't think those asking for a forum only subscription option were suggesting that the whole forum becomes subscription only. Just a way of supporting it without paying for a magazine they may not want. With the access to the other member benefits such as no ads etc.
I do think making the whole forum subscription only would kill it. You might attract a reasonable cohort initially from current free members who know what it's about, but then it would slowly wither because how do you attract new members who can't see/try out the product?
I was told I was mental for doing that (i do it every 4-5 years, but there we are) by a guy who seemed pretty pleased with his £40 a week booze consumption.
I can’t recall saying that.
We have been debating the idea of a forum only paid membership that would essentially just knock out the ads but not offer access to any of the other members only parts of the site. It's not an idea without merit and it's not without issues.
Pricing it causes me the most issues.
Hypothetical thoughts.
For the sake of argument let's say that 1000 of the current digital members are not interested in the mag content.
Let's also assume that they all pay £20/year.
I assume the expectation is for a lower price for these 1000 users so I'm going to make the maths simple and say £10/year.
On the day we turn on the option those 1000 people downgrade to the new £10 rate and our future revenue projection from all memberships falls by £10k.
Now we offset those losses by the hope that we attract another 1000 people to become forum only paid members. If we do, then we are back to where we started. If we exceed that 1000 new paid members then we are up. So the business case for this is predicated on whether I think it's likely that we will gain more than 1000 new paid members as a result of the new membership level.
I have to be honest and say that I think the chances of a win there are very low.
There are other options and variables to change of course and these numbers are arbitrary to illustrate the equation. For example we could keep the forum only rate at the current digital membership rate and create a new higher tier for members who want full access. Maybe £25/year for digital members, £20/year for forum only members. But then that's a price increase and I want to explore options that don't increase prices first. So let's not rule that out but it does present its own set of issues.
There are other ways to work the numbers here but each will boil down to a judgement by me on whether I think the risk/benefit ratio is a good one. At the moment and with the current financial state of the nation and its future prospects I'm being deliberately risk averse.
So how about instead of trying to belittle people with your answers, giving us something that may actually help.
Is helping people understand the scale of the site not helpful?
Is perhaps giving people fewer reasons to whine not a net positive?
The same arguments come up time and again and they're largely baseless. STW has an open door policy, if you're sitting there going "why don't they..." or "I don't understand why..." then go talk with them. I did. It was an eye opener.
No need for a £10/year option IMO. If they won't pay £20/year they won't pay £10 either. And £20/year really is bugger-all.
How about a forum posting limit if technically possible (set at a decent level) and to go above that you have to take out a digital sub. May force a few heavy users into coughing up some dough! 🙂
this is a great idea actually 😀 5 posts a day or something. Enough that free-members could ask/answer a question, or post a PSA but it means you’d have to contribute financially toHow about a forum posting limit if technically possible (set at a decent level) and to go above that you have to take out a digital sub
We have been debating the idea of a forum only paid membership that would essentially just knock out the ads but not offer access to any of the other members only parts of the site. It’s not an idea without merit and it’s not without issues.
Business viability aside, the big problem you'd hit here is one of entitlement. Currently the subscription pays for access to the magazine and to published articles, forum-specific benefits like advert removal are bonuses which come with the sub. As soon as you monetise the forum in isolation it becomes a product it its own right and, speaking from bitter experience as a former moderator, paying customers are going to be complaining vociferously the next time adverts bleed through or the load balancer shits itself.
You can be epicly patronising/belittling Cougar, I don't mind it, seems like part of your charm. However it might be helpful in terms of forum numbers..
post a PSA but it means you’d have to contribute financially to be argumentative enter into a debate. Reckon there’s a few who wouldn’t be able to resist 😂
This would work brilliantly. "we've noticed that you cannot help but get the last word in with TJ on the helmet thread, its time for you to pay up if you want to continue jibing at him"
At risk of suggesting ideas considered and dismissed as dumb, how about a Swap Shop next to Classifieds? This might help create traffic to the site and (this is a bit hazy) could involve 5% of an agreed value between the two parties going to STW. Not all would pay, but most hopefully would.
You can be epicly patronising/belittling Cougar, I don’t mind it, seems like part of your charm. However it might be helpful in terms of forum numbers..
It would be difficult to patronise people who didn't invite it. 😁
I genuinely don't mean to be unpleasant, and I really wouldn't want to make people feel unwelcome. Sorry if that's how it comes across, nuance is difficult in text. What I think is an amusing quip in my head might come across badly.
I do have a very low tolerance for nonsense though, I have a hyperactive "I'm Not Standing For That" gland.
Yes.
This place is full of information, people with skills, advice, genuine knowledge, humour, abilities and the photos are amazing.
Even though I've felt a tad bullied once or twice in the past, this place is helpful and mostly caring.
This would work brilliantly. “we’ve noticed that you cannot help but get the last word
Or possibly have the option to pay to end a thread after posting your "thread ending" argument.
Having visited STW Towers and stared into the belly of the beast
Ewwwwww
Talking about kicking a man when he's down. I'd just call Mark comfortably proportioned.
If they won’t pay £20/year they won’t pay £10 either. And £20/year really is bugger-all.
So true. If you price things too low people just don't pay, it's mad considering what else they would pay for.
How about just detecting those non members who are here a 'lot' and popping up a digital sub ad every 500 posts for example. A nag screen but set so it doesn't appear more than every 2 months or so. It's super easy to think 'yes I'll subscribe but my card isn't next to me' and then just forget. A reminder isn't offensive as long as it isn't too often
I get something pop up on the guardian site that says says something along the lines of 'you have read xxx articles. We hope you find them valuable. Considered contributing. It makes me feel bad....but clearly not quite bad enough yet!!!!
but clearly not quite bad enough yet!!!!
please do. Click funded news is part of the problem these days
@ cougar
A fairly prolific Free Member poster said yesterday that they’d been here for 21 years, wanted to support the site and didn’t know what to do. Lolwut?
Moi? I follow the rules of registering as Free Members. Do you expect something else in return as a Free Members, if so you need to clarify it.
Put it another way, when I donate blood or platelets I do it free. I do not except a return other than to follow the rules like they way they give me like biscuits and tea/coffee after donation.
£ subscription is not a lot but like I said previously I used to buy the mags from WH Smith but I stopped (now I remember why because of my lower back pain) after few years. Now everything I want is in the past especially MTB related.
Yes, it would be a great shame to loose STW forum because of the "diverse" views but ultimately if forum expects something in return from the Free member then it should clarify. I seldom start new thread or topic and only participated in some of the more interesting topics.
I have tried to "contribute" some ideas (one in this thread) to help but it is not easy because STW business model is unique.
As far as I have noticed no one had yet to provide a sustainable ideas to help STW other than suggesting the temporary measure of subscription.
My feeling is that there’s no harm in being a “non-paying, long-term member.” Rather, if they don’t subscribe and boast about blocking advertising then they waive any rights they may have had to piss and moan about things.
I have never complained about the STW website (go check my history - most of the time I go along with it coz it's free!) because it is a private forum and the owner dictates the rules, I just follow.
The question is how do you convert the Free to Subscription etc? On a general note that's a question most business models want to know.
p/s: If you want to know if I will pay for subscription. My honest answer is I don't know. As I said many things I wanted were already in the past.
pp/s: The forum is doing just fine IMO with the current format. Messing with it is risky. What STW needs is to generate income from alternative source and this is the dilemma.
I went full fat. Was reading the company accounts and that was a bit of an eye opener. If my business returned accounts like that i'd be looking for the bankruptcy forms 😆
Been here 13 years, but in truth I joined, but spent 80% of the time on RetroBike, only popping occasionally in here for one thing or another.
But I seem to spend now 80% here, and had a think about time here, the abuse from other members, the lack of certain freedoms that might clash with others on certain subjects, off set by the experience of a collective group. I came to the conclusion that £39/ a year is about the cheapest thing I've a direct debit for. I mean 39 quid ???, thats **** all. Thats like the cost of one pint of beer a month.
Ridiculously cheap, and im on a low income these days, and if I can afford £39 a year, then EVERYONE ELSE here can too.
It took under 5 mins to set it up, from start to finish. Account details, sort code press this, then that and done.
Moi? I follow the rules of registering as Free Members. Do you expect something else in return as a Free Members, if so you need to clarify it.
Possibly? I don't know, I don't really pay as much attention as I should to usernames.
I don't -expect- anything (as you quoted, quite the opposite in fact), and even if I did it'd be irrelevant as I have nothing to do with STW other than being a user. But [you | someone]? earlier sounded perplexed as to what else you could do.🤷♂️
I bristle against Full Members ragging on Free Members, there's no hierarchy of worth here. Equally, I bristle against Free Members boasting about how they take every measure to circumvent any potential revenue from advertising. Both of these membership levels have equal merit but pick one. If you "only use the forum" and "don't want adverts" it's like, what, 5p a day? If you saw a 5p coin on the street would you even bother to stop and pick it up?
Maybe once, not anymore.
You know these dreamcargiveaway things that seem to do so well?
Could you do something like that on the front page/forum sticky with bike kit, or even tech stuff like wireless earphones or whatever (Stw tech angle opens up a wide variety of popular things to offer).
Folk seem willing to chuck away a small amount (me included) just for a thrill of maybe winning - so that could work out? Once you've crunched the numbers, made it easier from a governance perspective by ensuring free postal entries and all that.
Once you've then got a better idea of ROI, maybe work up to bigger items like forks and robot lawnmowers 🤠. Obvz there's a reputational consideration with gambling, so probably keep low cost/max entries.
Unless of course it really is a resource-intensive ballache to get involved in competitions. Dunno. Just throwing some unicorns against a wall to see what sticks.
@bearnecessities that sounds like a good idea, I'd chuck in for the chance of winning some blingy kit.
You know those really easy/ridiculous questions you have to answer to be entered into one of our prize draws? If you aren’t on our newsletter list you should be. Well that’s because that is what differentiates our competitions from a lottery for which you need a licence. By asking a stupid qualifying question it becomes, in law, a game of skill for which a lottery licence is not required. Also, the game of skill must be free to enter to be strictly kosha. Asking for cash to enter a competition is certainly doable but it’s very admin heavy and requires registration, approval and the like.
Getting prizes is the easy part. We have some great prizes going out every week at the moment in exchange for just being on our mailing list, which is free.
That is worth a lot to us. A fat mailing list attracts paying sponsors who want to get their promo in it. So another way you can help for free is sign up and stay signed up.
So another way you can help for free is sign up and stay signed up.
Fair enough, done.
Not sure why folk would feel they need to join if they don't really want too, just using this site gives it traffic, which can increase ad revenue, it also increases discussions and more like minded people and so on, anyway, hopefully more do join, or buy stuff, maybe some changes at ST Towers as well with the mag or whatever to eek out more funds, not like they're not doing it already, but you'd hope that with an industry that's been doing pretty well for the last few years, there'd be more funds to push towards advertising, partnering stories, etc, maybe even more MTB events that could bring in funds with a bit of networking from the industry and so on.
As always though, just enjoy it for what it is, i've seen many websites come and go, STW has been around 20 years for me, so it's got longevity already, who on here remembers the way bike magic went, lets hope it doesn't happen here!
If the problem if forecasting/guaranteeing income, to enable investment and stuff - and it sounds like that - it's got to be a small hike in subscriptions?
I've gone down the voluntary route by asking to add just a small amount to my annual subscription by emailing Zoe as mentioned earlier - subs@singletrackworld.com.
I can't help but think that's the best message to push out - "if you can, please add a voluntary bit to your annual subscription - and thank you to anyone else just sticking with their existing one" etc.
Or kidnap pets. You've got the addresses.
I subscribed for 'Digital only' after the Covid 'plea'. I think I have just subscribed to the mailing list. Easy enough to do and if it helps then it is well worth doing
If you saw a 5p coin on the street would you even bother to stop and pick it up?
No
A small increase on sub costs really wouldn't bother me, a fiver more on the annual sub is nothing in reality but if that x 1000 keeps the place running well then that's fine by me.
This place is full of information, people with skills, advice, genuine knowledge, humour, abilities and the photos are amazing.
Every time I look round my flat it strikes me how much of the stuff in it has been bought after recommendations or influence from here. Just on the table I'm at now there's:
The computer I'm on now.
The headphones next to me.
The mug I'm drinking from.
The tyre pressure gauge by the monitor.
The GPS unit that's by my keyboard.
The USB charging station.
Above me is a Trail Maps framed poster of the trails at Coed Y Brenin that I got for Christmas after it was mentioned on here. Even the Cranked mags stacked underneath are due to a post on here! I'll ignore the Lego and RC cars on the shelves, there's a lot of money spent there and all down to here.
I subscribed for ‘Digital only’ after the Covid ‘plea’.
Same here, even though I was unemployed at the time. The £20 was a bargain considering mow much time I spend on here. I didn't go for the print sub as I don't really enjoy the whole mag, picking the good bits digitally works fine for me.
Every time I look round my flat it strikes me how much of the stuff in it has been bought after recommendations or influence from here
Pretty much anything I'm looking for info on I'll do a 'site:singletrackworld.com/forum' type search. I've been here long enough to recognise a lot of the names so it's a bit like asking your pals what they think of something. I've got a good idea how to bias the results depending on who is writing. Online reviews are getting harder to trust so this place is good for that
And on buying merch, any chance of some more of the New West Short Sleeve Riding Shirt please? They were great
Need to convert the 1.4 million individuals imto cash.
The target audience is there in enough numbers.
The product (, forums) are good enough that i suspect people would pay to veiw.
Asking the few thousand who subscribe for £2 more simply isn't enough.
How about just detecting those non members who are here a ‘lot’ and popping up a digital sub ad every 500 posts for example.
We freeloaders have to sit through a 12 second screen blocking "we get it - ads can be very annoying, please subscribe" pop up after every cookie clearance and randomly thereafter at present. 🙂
I enjoy using the site, however if it were subscription only I would no longer use it. I buy a newpaper now and then but don't subscribe to any. I listen to music but don't subscribe to any streaming sites. I watch films now and then but don't subscribe to Netflix, I have a sat box but only watch non-subscription channels etc..
My contributions are part of the business model, if they're not judged constructive I get cut out. While I'm still allowed to post I'll assume I'm still contributing positively to the business.
As a freeloader I don't/haven't made a lot of noise about intrusive advertising on the site, other than to politely point it out when it's been impossible to use the site on my phone due to the ads. I quite like the idea that the site creates enough traffic to attract enough advertising revenue to pay the bills. Unfortunately that would no longer appear to be the case.
I hope that STW finds a model that works that pays the bills and in which I can still participate.
pop up after every cookie clearance
Don't do that, then?
You can hardly blame any website for forgetting your preferences after you've explicitly said "delete my preference settings."
I'm really not bothered by the pop up Cougar, the ad also pops up at random, I'm not bothered by that either, I accept it as part of the business model, I only raised it because it was mentioned as a tease (my quote) that subscribers wouldn't understand because they don't get the pop up.
I use a lot of free services, and as we all know, if it's free we are the product. lachaineméteo, an irritating newspaper that's very popular here, the BBC (the broadcasting one), France Bleu, onvista.de, Youtube, sketchup - just citing the tabs I currrently have open. They al have models that work, some insist on you accepting cookies, some don't, some run very visible advertising, others don't. They all have models I can live with, if I can't live with the model I don't use it, ther have been periods when I've given up on STW, at present I'm quite happy to live with level of ads and pop ups to tyhe point that on my phone at least there's nothing to stop STW throwing at me anything they please.
I am very much in the same boat as Edukator. I subscribe to almost nothing. I was under the impression that the ads I see make for my contribution.
Is more revenue obtained from subscriptions or ads?
On the occasions when subscribing has arisen previously, the pinch of nastiness aimed at Free members, has dissuaded me from subscribing.
I would be sad to see the forum lost. Time to subscribe I guess.
If they won’t pay £20/year they won’t pay £10 either. And £20/year really is bugger-all.
So true. If you price things too low people just don’t pay, it’s mad considering what else they would pay for.
That's odd. IIRC I didn't become a paying member until there was a discount that did exactly that. No doubt Mark will know the exact impact that sale had on membership numbers.
It is the only paid subscription i have for anything.
This is a marvellous place and is the only forum that I come to. It has given such a range of richness through advice, support, humour and tenderness that if all other means of support to sustain it fail it should be taken under the wing of the National Trust.
Where else would we get Bullheart, naming an obscure pub in Oxfordshire, TJ's journey, sourcing left handed crank taps, the kindness of strangers all to the stench of the Picolax thread?
Would I miss it? Yes in so many ways which have been reversed above.
Would I pay for it? Yes and do (the digital package as I've generally given up on print media)
Would I pay more? Yes but understand the tipping point issues.
This is the only subscription I pay for.
YES!
I find it an invaluable source of information, help, advice, support and overall friendly.
The magazine is ace, and I without it the UK MTB scene would be a sad place.
If we're putting out ideas for income, what about starting to charge small tolls on some of your roads around the country?
That could bring in quite a bit I'd have thought.
