15 bucks aint all bad for all the priceless info here.

i'm not one thats easily parted with my money,but in this case the checks in the mail.:)

You get all of Garden Web too! Preventing disasters in the garden as well!
;-)

Lee AKA Fireraven9
How happy he, who free from care
The rage of courts, and noise of towns;
Contented breaths his native air,
In his own grounds. - Pope

I think, at $15 a year, this place is a REAL bargain. Look at all the info you can tap into. There is no other place on the web that has this many forums. Yep, I think it's a steal at $15 a year. Thanks Spike!

I ususlly only answer questions. I won't be paying for that privledge. I stopped going to the computer forum when it went pay. I will stop coming here in Feb. There are other free forums I will continue to visit.

I agree with joed, the reason everyone receives such good information here is because it is free and open for anyone to post. If it is pay only, then questions will be answered only by those few who have a paid subscription. That greatly limits the free exchange of information.

An option might be to require payment to post a question, but answering questions could be free. That would allow people with good information the opportunity to continue to help other people. Just an idea.

If they charge to get into this forum, far fewer people will visit, and the amount of people posting & answering questions will drop dramatically, thus reducing the value of being a subscriber.

spending $15.00 for a year of good information and fellowship seems like a bargain to me, but I would hate to see anyone left out because they could not pay. If this is really important to someone here who can't pay please let me know. I wouldnt mind helping.

Philosophical objections of course are what makes these forums interesting. (and if Spike is getting rich it doesnt bother me as long as I get good service)

I spent more than 15 dollars on a fantastic landscaping book 2 years ago and it has been a wonderful guide but unfortunately, as vast as that info was, it was also limited. The book didn't update itself daily with new info and it had no info on any other subject. i already paid for my membership. As cheap as I consider myself to be, this was something I didn't mind paying even when it was voluntary.
Melissa

How about $60 annually and advertising(in good taste and of value). Is there any such thing ?? About 90% of internet advertising is obnoxious and useless. Annoying flashing ads should be banned altogether.
$ 180 annually is too much for a man to pay for info he can find in the local library.

How many other places on the internet have you visited lately without those annoying pop-under ads?

This place is the only place I've found with an absence of annoying advertising and emails (the ads here are very discreet). Plus, it is very user-friendly, the format easy to read. The people who post here are priceless. When you consider the average magazine subscription seems to be in the $20-$50 range, I think this place is a bargain. :^)

I like THS because they don't sell your addy so you get lots of spam. That is very important to me. I paid! $15 is a bargain!
Kathy G in MI

I have more than saved $15 since becoming a member, with all the tips, tricks and hints. I also enjoy it because there are no annoying ads. Thanks, Spike!

Good post, Blueridgeroses, and I must agree, I too hate those flashing pop-ups.

I do not know how much the proposed subscription is to be, hope that it is less than, say, $48 annually. I fear that we will lose some really good people otherwise.

What proposed subscription? Haven't heard of that. The only thing I know of is the flat $15 price that covers access to all for-pay THS forums.

I haven't heard of a proposed subscription refered to by Earthworm. I was refering to average magazine subscription costs and comparing them to the small cost of this place.

I just got an email today that my GW membership is due for $15. So, as far as I know, it's still only $15 to subscribe to all the forums here.

The "proposed subscription" is the Garden Web's request for money for all of the forums, right now it is $15, annually, I guess, for some of them.

I would rather put up with some non-flashing "in good taste" advertising that is beneficial for the members of this community.

For "some of them"? This is the second time I have heard something like this. The bottom line is, it's $15 period. For access to any and all THS forums for a year.

Last year, Spike said that his advertising, which is there, but unobtrusive, wasn't bringing in much support money at all, because no one was visiting them or purchasing from them.

My opinion still stands that it has been the best return on investment I ever got for $15. Good company, good advice, lots of money saved, and my home has never been so organized.

If the ads aren't bringing in revenue, it could well be because more and more people (including myself) are utilizing ad-blocking programs such as Webwasher (which itself is free). Most of the newer versions of firewalls have ad-blocking features included in them, as well. So no one really has to see those pop-up ads anymore - which is good for the site user but bad for the advertisers.

I agree that sadly, the overall volume of those who now post to the site will probably drop somewhat, once more and more of it becomes "pay to use". I remember when I first went to Classmates.com, it was free and there were lots of postings from people in my graduating class. When they started charging $30/yr for a "post-able" membership, only a few people remained as posters (I'm not one of them; $30/yr for what Classmates offers is ridiculous) and the forum basically became a chat-and-brag site between those people. Nothing was posted that couldn't just as easily have been done in emails.

This site is a lot more useful than Classmates, but I would be happier if the annual fee were to be $10 instead of $15.

Ok, once again. There are no popups here so it doesn't matter if you have a stopper (I use one myself). You actually have to visit the sponsors the old-fashioned way, which is nice of Spike. The downside is, he doesn't get as much revenue from it. See link:

Here is a link that might be useful: Directory of sponsors

The quality of posts will suffer dramatically once the forum requires payment for the privilege of posting. It will become useless, and filled with a bunch of people asking for help and no one providing any.

I'll post one time here as a non-paying subscriber to garden web and the next time I will have sent in a payment. I was just browsing here this morning and scanned down the posts. I'm fairly new to this web site and it has become a favorite place to visit and read through about twice a day. One quick mention...I was needing to transplant a large house plant about 3 weeks ago. I was at the garden center of the local large super store. I must have had about close to $30.00 or more of soil supplies to do the job I needed to divide and repot each new individual plant. By the time I had it all in the cart, I was so mad at myself for not checking first exactly what all I would need. I left the cart where it was in the garden center. I came home, got on the garden web and posted under house plants. The advice was very quickly answered, from someone's personal experience. I needed a different planting medium from what I had in the cart. Next trip was to a local nursery to get the right mix, at a lower cost in bulk. I needed cactus and succulant mix, not potting soil for sansevieria. Easy answer for those in the know, but could have been a disaster if I had done it my way. I got what I needed for half what I was gonna blow. The $15 I saved can easily be put into membership. For all who have answered my random posts, thankyou. For those who have given others advice, that I have gleaned from, thankyou, too.

The quality of posts will suffer dramatically once the forum requires payment for the privilege of posting. It will become useless, and filled with a bunch of people asking for help and no one providing any.

I don't think it will work quite that way, because no one will be able to post a question without being a subscribing member...

I think that the overall number of posters (either asking questions or giving answers or doing both) will drop somewhat.

TreKaren, sorry, I didn't realize that there were no popups (because I use the ad blocker, I have no way of knowing whether I'm not seeing ads because they're being blocked, or because they're not there ;). But my firewall also blocks ALL ads (banner ads as well as popups, even the GardenWeb sidebar ads no longer appear) - so all I see is the "Chaotic Home" logo, the links, and the forum texts themselves.

I paid, willingly! $15 is a deal for all the great info. But, I think newbees should be given a "honeymoon" period of a few months so they can see the benefits before they're asked to pay. Thanks to all of you who use this site!

buffylou, that is a great idea! Just like trial versions of software, maybe newbies could go through a registration process and get a unique randomly-generated password/code that would give them, say, 30 days of free use of the site - but on the 31st day that password would expire and any further postings would require the subscription.

Don't know how much it would cost THS to have the necessary software do to this, produced, though. :/

It's funny to watch people scream about how horrible it is for Spike to charge $15 a year for access to what, over 100 forums?

Face it, folks. This is NOT the Internet of 3 years ago.

Anyone hear the DotBomb go off?

Advertising revenue, which supported many of the "free" sites, dried up. Lots of sites that had been free went to subscription, or simply went under.

If you think Spike is lining his pockets on $15 per posting member per year, think again.

For most of us $15 for a YEAR is what? Some huge %*(#)&% trial & tribulation? Or the pocket change we stick in the bowl on the dresser at the end of the week?

How many of us have pissed away $15 on one of the lastest crop of bull**** movies and not whined about it?

If you don't want to pay the $15 for 365 days worth of posting ability, that's fine. Come and read the posts. You're still getting those for free.

Try to keep it in perspective.

I paid up a while back, partly out of gratitude for what Spike's offering for free in so many fora, and most importantly, I paid because the quality of posts - both questions and answers - was much better in the pay-to-post areas. Good content is worth money, even if its teh users providing it. Not having any advertisements appear now that I've paid has made reading posts faster as well, if I'd know how much I like their absence, I'd have paid much sooner.

I think Spike is always going to keep some areas free to post in, and others where anyone can read the content but you have to pay to post.

I'm a new user to the forums, and so tight I squeak when I walk! LOL. BUT, I'm willing to pay to post, there is a wealth of valuable info on these forums, a lot of humor (we all need that!) and I enjoy getting the info, "at my fingertips" as it were. I don't think, all things considered, that we will lose that many people, because of a small fee. We all understand the reasons, why we post, why the fee is assessed. Those of you who object to the fee, and refuse to pay it, well...we'll miss you, and I bet you'll miss us! Where's the address to send my money? :)

Glad to have you here, garnet!!!

Well, make good use of that $15 and come and visit some of the other forums. We have a lot of fun on the crafts sites and there is always the Kitchen Table for those who just like to hang around and talk. I've only visited one place on the Garden Web but I know there are loads of things there too.

Quite a response to "Money"
This is one of the good internet sites, one that I can recommend, $15 or no $15.
So, should one pay money to read my rantings - no !!, I think not !
But, then there is Roger Brown, Sam Burdette, Crowsee, the wheelman,on and on and on(but not, I think, on this forum)...
A number of really helpful posters on this forum(and we cannot lose these people) do indeed give it a value.

Remember when people paid extra for cable TV so they could watch commercial-free? Now what's on cable...infomercials on top of commercials, and people pay $40 a month for it..I would hate to see every forum go to pay-only. Sheesh...if you go to many different sites, that could add up to hundreds, especially if everyone in the family goes to different ones.

Advertising can be done so it isn't so intrusive. Who the heck buys anything from annying pop up ads anyway?

I agree that the reason these forums are so popular and helpful IS that people can post here for free. Maybe I'm wrong but I think making people pay to use a site will make the wind whistle thru here as the tumbleweeds blow lazily by. I've seen it happen to other forums that went to pay-only.

I hope you are wrong about this, Fathen.
$15 annually is no too bad, we will cancell our newspaper, Patriot-News, over $200 per year and read the news o'er the internet... CNN ,of course,, will then be for the news
The cream should always rise to the top.
Advertising, in good taste, pleasent and informative - is this impossible ?? I say no !! But we do need a higher caliber of people in advertising.

Earthworm,

Well, I know where YOU live. :-)

Patriot News? Cripes, what a barfy paper that is. It's over $200 a year now? For WHAT?

Have you been in Central Pennsylvania long enough to remember the Harrisburg Evening News?

Essentially the morning Patriot with a front page.

I grew up with the Packorats News.

Where are you? I grew up in Marysville.

That poor little boro in Perry county(serious water and transportation problems.)
I live in the poor little borough of York Haven in somewhat racist York County.
We have access to nine "fire engines/pumpers" but one water truck. If a fire occurs, a rare event of course, a man can count upon the whole row burning ! Living in a $40,000 dump, I do not like to think about it. Do U belong to any other fora, kframe ??

Earthworm,

"That poor little boro in Perry County (serious water and transportation problems."

Huh?

Marysville gets its water from Dauphin County in buried in the Rockville Bridge. No water problems that I know of.

As for transportation issues, 11-15 isn't the greatest, but where it really stinks is farther north around the end of the mountain between Marysville and Duncannon...

I hang out mostly at Cooking, Heating & Cooling, and Plumbing...

The Cooking forum went paying lately, and it is still quite busy.......

$200/yr for the Patriot News! No wonder I only read the Sunday paper. And the weekly Sentinel. I go to WGAL online for the most pressing local news.

This is my 2nd year of paying for these forums and obviously I think they're worth it. I have no problem with the owners of this site getting rich either if that's what happens - it's a great site. This is America. If someone got rich selling a pancake pan, why not a forum owner?

Spike is definitely not getting rich! He is also very helpful in trying to get extra forums for us. This is the best bunch of forums I have ever found on the web and it is definitely worth the money to me not to have all those banners and ads all the time, not to mention all the fellowship and things I learn from some wonderful people. I hang out mostly in cooking and it is still going very strong.

Funny thing. I am good at electrical repair, and DIY appliance and electronics repair, and electrical upgrades. I get a lot of good info out of the forums on here, and I have felt that the way I pay for it is by spending a couple of hours every couple of weeks, going through the forums, and giving good answers to the questions that others have posted. To me, it's an exhange system. If all I can do for free is read, then I will no longer be able to provide a service in exchange.

Why won't I pay $15? I use a LOT of websites for info. This one is better than most, but is not sufficient by itself. What would happen if all of the websites I use charged $15 per year? I do not want to see the trend started. I would definitely not be able to afford to cough up $15 per website that I routinely visit.

I do websites for my employer. There's great info on those websites (it's all about electronic test equipment). The way we make money on those sites is by using them as a way to find customers for our business. I think that's the way of the web. You put great info out there for free, and get income by using the website as a way to attract visitors to your "for pay" business.

Also, to be honest, I don't want to pay $15 for a website where the information changes so frequently. I would want the information categorized, cross-linked and indexed, if I'm to pay for it.

Interesting note on people paying $40 for cable TV and tolerating ads. In the early days, you paid for cable TV only if you lived in an area where you could not receive TV with an antenna. So, the very first subscribers got full ads and paid - because it was the only way to get TV. Honestly, $40 is WAY too much to be paying for TV with or without ads. It just isn't good entertainment. Better to spend the time learning to play an instrument, or doing creative writing or being with friends and family. Around here, our TV gets turned on for a brain-dead session of watching a borrowed romantic comedy about once a month. We don't receive any broadcast TV stations and see no point in paying $30 a month or whatever, to access the least accurate new available or to watch predictable low-grade programming.

Call me a curmudgeon!

WCB