lol, Fazle charging for access to the MAIN FORUM

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by JaJae

I got this from another forum:

Basically I've been seeing the phrase "primary source of income" coming from Fazle and Glenn lately. I think this is an admission that they are making money. I'm sure Fazle's real job may pay him more than he makes off OT, which is probably why he pays Glenn to be his lacky.

I just can't believe they'd be so hard up for cash that they need to charge all of their users. A site with that much traffic flow should be generating more than enough to cover his costs, and if it isn't there are other ways of making it do so than charging his users and running them off. That just seems counter-productive.

The second bolded part of his post seems pretty arrogant.

it is arrogant but if you look at the traffic sites, their views are down since they closed the porn forum. Views down, means membership is down, which means profits are down. They had to figure out a way to keep profits up while not getting into copyright problems

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

it is arrogant but if you look at the traffic sites, their views are down since they closed the porn forum. Views down, means membership is down, which means profits are down. They had to figure out a way to keep profits up while not getting into copyright problems

but they can't because their profits were primarily from selling subscriptions to view copyrighted materials

It's going to be difficult for them to convince a large group of people to pay monthly to talk to eachother when the service is so widely available for free.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

it is arrogant but if you look at the traffic sites, their views are down since they closed the porn forum. Views down, means membership is down, which means profits are down. They had to figure out a way to keep profits up while not getting into copyright problems

I agree that they need to keep their profits up, but there are a lot of ways they could have done so without inconveniencing their users as they did and they could have done it without being complete pricks about it. Also, the shutdown of OTAH was their fault. They didn't control it and I'm sure they got hit with possible litigation which caused it to be shut down immediately. It is their fault their income was turned off because they were knowingly allowing underaged kids to download copyrighted material and did little to nothing about it. And when they got busted on it, as everyone with half a brain knew they eventually would, they lashed out and flamed their users who wanted more of an explanation as to why they have to pay for a forum when all the other big boards out there produce enough income to make their services free for their users.

I don't now if this is true, but I've heard Fazle isn't even hosting OT out of a data center which is why his bandwith costs are so high. Secondly he could initiate something like Google's AdSense onto the forum for a while to help balance things out. This way he isn't charging users and still receiving income.

And, if he's going to be charging every user to use the main forum he has turned OT into a business. There is no way around that. When you run a business you don't treat your customers they way OT has been without expecting backlash.

Beyond all the shit glenn and the other smods have been doing, they're also deleting post/threads that dissent. They have two threads going, but even in those threads they've deleted some posts and banned users for speaking their mind, some times after being told off by the smods after they had been cordial. The reality is there are other options out there. Sure this move is going to kick off the lurkers, but it's also going to kick off a lot of their mature user base who won't put up with this crap from some middle-aged jackass who has nothing better to do with his time than sit around and act like a 15 year old on a power trip.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by JaJae

I agree that they need to keep their profits up, but there are a lot of ways they could have done so without inconveniencing their users as they did and they could have done it without being complete pricks about it. Also, the shutdown of OTAH was their fault. They didn't control it and I'm sure they got hit with possible litigation which caused it to be shut down immediately. It is their fault their income was turned off because they were knowingly allowing underaged kids to download copyrighted material and did little to nothing about it. And when they got busted on it, as everyone with half a brain knew they eventually would, they lashed out and flamed their users who wanted more of an explanation as to why they have to pay for a forum when all the other big boards out there produce enough income to make their services free for their users.

I don't now if this is true, but I've heard Fazle isn't even hosting OT out of a data center which is why his bandwith costs are so high. Secondly he could initiate something like Google's AdSense onto the forum for a while to help balance things out. This way he isn't charging users and still receiving income.

And, if he's going to be charging every user to use the main forum he has turned OT into a business. There is no way around that. When you run a business you don't treat your customers they way OT has been without expecting backlash.

Beyond all the shit glenn and the other smods have been doing, they're also deleting post/threads that dissent. They have two threads going, but even in those threads they've deleted some posts and banned users for speaking their mind, some times after being told off by the smods after they had been cordial. The reality is there are other options out there. Sure this move is going to kick off the lurkers, but it's also going to kick off a lot of their mature user base who won't put up with this crap from some middle-aged jackass who has nothing better to do with his time than sit around and act like a 15 year old on a power trip.

I am not going to pay to simply communicate with strangers on the Internet.

[A_C_E]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

I am not going to pay to simply communicate with strangers on the Internet.

Same. I have better things to do with my time and money.

Not to mention my productivity is way up since I banned myself six weeks ago.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

I am not going to pay to simply communicate with strangers on the Internet.

Not when you can abuse complete strangers for free!

[JaJae]

Cost of basic subscription already went up... "but it's not about the money." I think he lowered the orb price, I assume this is to entice people to pay for the orb rather than the cheaper sub and increase is average sub income.