People make such a big deal over 2 bucks and 50 cents a month. I wonder how they "afford" to pay their bills for other services.
Get a subscription
I'm on ADSL and I don't find the site intollerable (coming from 56.6 dail up)
Cheers,
Aquaman
Cheers,
Aquaman
Anand is losing money by keeping the forums open. He can't make money on a free thing. And, to offset the bills for this wonderful community, he's instituted a better service and imposed a very reasonable price.
nik
GT1999
Diamond Member
- Oct 10, 1999
- 5,261
- 1
- 71
They might make a little bit, but it's not exactly cheap with the amount of raw traffic this site gets. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't making money. There's a lot of subscribers but a lot more people who don't subscribe (and SHOULD! You lazy bums!) 
30k - 50k people is a bit of an exaggeration. The point is that these forums use an incredible amount of badwidth from a relatively small amount of users (it's more likely to be 1,200 people viewing around 200,000+ page views per day) so asking people to chip in to cover the expense is more than reasonable.
I am getting really tired of the "Just subscribe" people. If you can't offer any substantive response, stop WASTING bandwidth with idiotic responses. People don't have a problem paying for the forums, but Anandtech needs to offer more than simply crippling the performance of the free forums. Making something 20 times worse than it used to be in order to get people to subscribe simply pisses them off, it doesn't make them always want to subscribe.
I can use the "Its a business" argument against the same crowd. It IS a business, then Anand needs to start offering a service people are willing to pay for. Clearly there are a lot of people who don't find $2.50 a good deal for a forum to chat with other computer geeks on. Anand needs to make his free service good enough so that people won't just get pissed and leave, and he needs to make his pay service more attractive. Remember, most new people to this forum don't have 20,000 posts and countless hours tied up in this forums, they aren't OBLIGATED in any way to pay for it, and why should they when they can go get the same content at different forums? For free.
I think we all need to get past the feeling we all had years ago that Anand is just a nice guy, and he is doing this all out of the goodness of his heart. While I still think Anand is a nice guy, this forum and his webpage are now about making money. There is nothing happening here because he likes us loyal people who have been around forever. Anand needs to offer a SERVICE that people are willing to pay for.. Think of it this way.. Anand offered a free service to people for many years, one that people grew to enjoy. Then he decided that he no longer could afford to offer it for free, at least not completely free. So he offers a pay service. Obviously he thought the number of people subscribing were not enough, so instead of trying to entice people to subscribe by offering more content and features, he decides its a better idea to try to cripple the free service and essentially force people to subscribe. While I think that will work in the short term, I think in the long term he is pissing off existing users, and driving away potential new users. Personally I think that is a stupid business model, but thats just me.
As was mentioned earlier in this thread, I think its probably true that all these people trumpeting "ITS A BUSINESS! ANAND NEEDS TO MAKE MONEY TOO!", as also the same ones stealing thousands of dollars of MP3's, and Microsoft software because they feel, apparently, that the RIAA and Microsoft make TOO much money apparently. And don't start telling me that you all pay for all your software and music, because you are lying.. Because Anand isn't seem as the big corporate enemy, its not OK to expect something for free from him.. but once you become a multi-billion dollar company its OK to steal from them. Not that even that is a perfect example but using Anandtech for free is not STEALING.. its just ironic that all these people accusing others of being cheap are stealing THOUSANDS of $$$'s in software and music.
I know this is hard to believe but people don't spend their entire lives at Anandtech, sometimes they only stop in every couple days.. This may be unbelievable for people who post 20+ times a day, but its true. Yeah $2.50 a month is not much, but is it WORTH it for the use some people get out of the forums? Probably not. Anand needs to make the membership more attractive to get people to switch, and do it by adding features, not by taking away features from existing free users.
<Steps off soapbox>
<Puts on flamesuit>
I can use the "Its a business" argument against the same crowd. It IS a business, then Anand needs to start offering a service people are willing to pay for. Clearly there are a lot of people who don't find $2.50 a good deal for a forum to chat with other computer geeks on. Anand needs to make his free service good enough so that people won't just get pissed and leave, and he needs to make his pay service more attractive. Remember, most new people to this forum don't have 20,000 posts and countless hours tied up in this forums, they aren't OBLIGATED in any way to pay for it, and why should they when they can go get the same content at different forums? For free.
I think we all need to get past the feeling we all had years ago that Anand is just a nice guy, and he is doing this all out of the goodness of his heart. While I still think Anand is a nice guy, this forum and his webpage are now about making money. There is nothing happening here because he likes us loyal people who have been around forever. Anand needs to offer a SERVICE that people are willing to pay for.. Think of it this way.. Anand offered a free service to people for many years, one that people grew to enjoy. Then he decided that he no longer could afford to offer it for free, at least not completely free. So he offers a pay service. Obviously he thought the number of people subscribing were not enough, so instead of trying to entice people to subscribe by offering more content and features, he decides its a better idea to try to cripple the free service and essentially force people to subscribe. While I think that will work in the short term, I think in the long term he is pissing off existing users, and driving away potential new users. Personally I think that is a stupid business model, but thats just me.
As was mentioned earlier in this thread, I think its probably true that all these people trumpeting "ITS A BUSINESS! ANAND NEEDS TO MAKE MONEY TOO!", as also the same ones stealing thousands of dollars of MP3's, and Microsoft software because they feel, apparently, that the RIAA and Microsoft make TOO much money apparently. And don't start telling me that you all pay for all your software and music, because you are lying.. Because Anand isn't seem as the big corporate enemy, its not OK to expect something for free from him.. but once you become a multi-billion dollar company its OK to steal from them. Not that even that is a perfect example but using Anandtech for free is not STEALING.. its just ironic that all these people accusing others of being cheap are stealing THOUSANDS of $$$'s in software and music.
I know this is hard to believe but people don't spend their entire lives at Anandtech, sometimes they only stop in every couple days.. This may be unbelievable for people who post 20+ times a day, but its true. Yeah $2.50 a month is not much, but is it WORTH it for the use some people get out of the forums? Probably not. Anand needs to make the membership more attractive to get people to switch, and do it by adding features, not by taking away features from existing free users.
<Steps off soapbox>
<Puts on flamesuit>
Bull****.. A 20 year old (Or however old Anand is now) cannot afford to lose money for year after year and keep it going. Unless he is getting money from somewhere. People losing money at a business do not stay in business for very long. I will concede that he may not be making as MUCH money as he would if he would simply close the forums, he is NOT losing money.
Just curious, does anyone have a link to any other web sites that severly limit bandwidth unless you pay a fee? I've seen limited features if you don't pay or no access at all, but not severely limited bandwidth for browsing.
Why? Make the sales pitch to a new user coming here for the first time who doesn't give a rats ass about Anand or his site. Whats in it for the new user coming here wondering if this forum is worthwhile? I'm not saying its NOT, but nobody here is making a good argument as to why it IS.
well i subcribed couple months ago, else i won't have a life in anandtech forums. IMHO the speed on the non-sub is extremely slow perhaps you'll give it a word call "lag". I'm positive that they(admins of anandtech forum) did made it slow to get people to subscribe <---How else will you make people pay if it loads up almost as fast as the subcribers server?. Ever since this subscriber thing came into effect, I have notice the quality of each and every forum dropped. Am I the only one who noticed this? I guess the good old days are gone. Maybe its time to move on.
--Scsi
IMHO the speed on the non-sub is extremely slow perhaps you'll give it a word call "lag". I'm positive that they(admins of anandtech forum) did made it slow to get people to subscribe <---How else will you make people pay if it loads up almost as fast as the subcribers server?. Ever since this subscriber thing came into effect, I have notice the quality of each and every forum dropped. Am I the only one who noticed this? I guess the good old days are gone. Maybe its time to move on.--Scsi
pyonir
Lifer
- Dec 18, 2001
- 40,856
- 321
- 126
how about the FS/T forum? or any of the Technical forums, or the Hot deals forum. having the 1000 PM limit just for the FS/T forum is more than worth it for a majority of the members that subscribe and frequent that forum. a lot of people have said they have saved so much money from the HOt deals forum that the $30 to subscribe is well worth it for the access.
Howdy,
For all this talk about making or losing money... has anyone commenting above actually seen the financial statements of Anandtech?
If not, then it's all moot.
-PCM
For all this talk about making or losing money... has anyone commenting above actually seen the financial statements of Anandtech?
If not, then it's all moot.
-PCM
Actually, if memory serves, the bandwidth was crippled a while before the subscription service was introduced.
Please don't speak for everyone like it's fact.
There's the reason I support these forums by subscribing. I like this place and I wish to see it continue to exist.
AreaCode707
Lifer
- Sep 21, 2001
- 18,447
- 133
- 106
No whining unless you're willing to subscribe. I'm planning to at the start of the next school year, since I'll be absent in a few days when I go home for the summer. And who are you that you were a member for a year and don't know you're not supposed to create multiple accounts?
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