If you or others are paying any site for a membership or if you own a site that charges a membership fee…someone is getting fleeced IMO.
Free is where it should be, content providers are key.
If you know what you are doing you can make money investing as well as share your knowledge with-a-smile at NO_CHARGE
So what you're saying is we need more altruistic, workaholic millionaires because they're the only ones who should run message boards.
In your model, there simply are no message boards. Profitable or otherwise. Or, worse, lots of smalltime operations that can't afford to ever be big and never will be able to. Dozens of small communities all over the place, with no large gathering of people at any of them.
To me, you need a LOT of people to make a site a success if you define success as having a site that attracts so many knowledgeable people that others can find every bit of knowledge they need.
If you've only got the resources to host a few hundred people, the pool of "real talent" will be pretty small. Thousands of people, and that pool is larger, and the whole community benefits.
Last I checked, servers, bandwidth, and live people with the talent to make it work don't grow from trees. Well, admins swing from trees, but that's irrelevant.
FREE only works if the operator is rich, talented, and has way too much time on his hands.
For any other site to survive, it must make money, be it from advertising, subscriptions, or some other stream.
BTW, the "marketnoize" you copied from that header is not part of my quote. Your inclusion makes it look like I endorse MN. I don't specifically endorse any one site.
Since you're quite clear on how *not* to do business in this venue, could you clarify how to do it correctly? Any ideas how a totally free site pays for hardware, bandwidth, and employees? |
