Paid Membership ideas

[GaryPanic]

Hard one to judge on this -

The idea of paying for tutorials start to finish sounds interesting - -But
once you done them then someone will copy them and put them up for nothing -..
I don't have a problem try to earn a couple of quid to cover costs and time -
so if you can come up with it - go for it (for what my opinion worth -lol)
Gary

 

[gemma-the-husky]

Jon

A couple of thoughts

I can see a benefit in experienced members paying something for some sort of advertising space, developers area, sort of thing - so that people needing some real paid assistance on projects could find a developer, and get help that way. I think I would pay for that.

but that may cut across what you already do.


With regard to general membership, i guess you could also charge an annual fee for membership. That could go two ways. either

a) drive some users away or
b) encourage those who pay to use it more, and to get more value from it.

I think you would then have to give new people some free time on the site - say wiith no download facilities, so that they can see the value they will get.

Its funny isnt it. Technical books cost a stack. Internet resources are just as useful, if not better, but everyone expects them for free.

It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of free services (BBC/newspapers etc) stop being free in due course. Someone has to pay for professional stuff.

 

[KenHigg]

How do you figure the BBC is free?!?!

 

[PNGBill]

As an "L" Plate Access user I would like to see some "how to do it" and or courses that if they are detailed and lead to increased skill on my part, then I would be happy to pay.
Word Video scares me as internet is expensive here in PNG. Would have a problem if the training file was quite large as we can go bankrupt here downloading music. Movies are a distant dream.
Cost's USD200 per month for 1gb and surplus is charged.
Not long ago 1gb cost USD1,000 !!

Great site and my only database forum.

 

[mrrcomp]

Hi

I am new to this forum. I must admit it looks like lots of great people helping one another.

I guess the idea of Paid Membership is to help defray the costs of keeping the service online? Am I correct?

I was thinking about a 2 component option being a WebStore and a point award for contributors. I am sure several of us have products/ code snippets that could be uploaded to the store.

The Webstore would get lets say 15% of the sale price the remaining going to the coder. Then in addition a discount could be given based on the MVP points of contributors here.


Just an idea...

Regards

Meir

 

[Steve R.]

Its funny isnt it. Technical books cost a stack.

Considering all the technical resources available to produce these books today versus 30 years ago, the prices seem outrageous. Something is out of whack, but I don't know what.

It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of free services (BBC/newspapers etc) stop being free in due course.

The pay model is failing.
Newspapers Need To Learn They're Not In The Newspaper Business
The Economist Warns That Newspapers Putting Up Paywalls May Create Newspaper 'Pirates'
Here is a very insightful observation by Crosbie Fitch.

In the 20th century the cost of producing news was combined with the cost of its distribution/communication, and sold as one.
In the 21st century we pay for communication separately from production.

Someone has to pay for professional stuff.

It becomes a question of how to get paid. If you produce a resource (content) that has zero cost of distribution you need to determine alternative methods of generating income. I will offer-up the proverbial sell tee shirt example.

This website (TechDirt) has numerous articles that delve into the issue of how to derive an income when your product can be distributed for "free". I believe that this forum would benefit from examining how to provide something for "free", but being able to derive an income form ancillary sources.

The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free

 

[ajetrumpet]

Jon,

if you want my honest opinion, I don't think you're going to get jack out of charging people for anything coursework related. Pretty certain you won't have much success in the US, but 3rd world countries, MAYBE.

I am not a pesimist, but don't forget how much free stuff there is out there. For instance, I could go to New Horizons in Cedar Rapids to learn how to operate a database (while at the same time paying them 1000US to do so), OR I could run searches around here to get the answers I need to earn a paycheck. I asked that company once who their customer base was, and the guy said corporate employees who need to keep up to date on software advancements). So there's a great example of someone who is rich enough not to care (the company). Guy also told me that they have very few people come in as indiv's that spend their money on the programs.

Why would someone pay for coursework when there is no benefit to them other than gaining the knowledge, MAYBE? Gonna offer certifications? Honestly, the only people I see doing something like that are either:

A) People who don't understand that they can get it for free elsewhere, or
B) Rich people that browse the web as an online hobby (not too many of these kind out there)

I have no idea what your bandwidth costs are, nor do I know how much per click you get on all of your google ads (I actually block them with software, so I don't even see them!), but it would seem to me that a forum still makes the most money from advertising. Isn't that the consensus among site owners that you know?

By the way, before I started blocking the ads here, I saw some for "ready-made" programmers that you could talk to over in India by the hour, or by the minute, can't remember. Is that really successful? Is that a google ad? If so, then I bet not.


My opinion doesn't count for much around here, but I do know something about getting "something" for nothing. I've done way too much it...

 

[Fifty2One]

You would probably be able to generate some business with a section to market some premade databases. Some of the brilliant minds who contribute here could have some of their work promoted with an overview and sell license copies with a royalty return to the site. A lot of people who visit seem to want all of the work presented to them so this would be a venue for them to have their wishes and compensate both the site and those persons who invest a lot of time in supporting and answering peoples needs.
Even though a lot of people feel that 'reputation' on a forum is somehow an ego based system, there is a lot of skill and trust in certain persons on a forum. This trust is built over time by responding to needs and many people would be willing to purchase a licensed copy of an application from a trusted author on this forum.

Directly charging for having a link in a signature would also be viable source of revenue. If this feature could be toggled to individual accounts, putting a cash value to the feature would solve a number of issues. It would stop people complaining about others having commercial links in their signatures and would also stem the troubles of spamwers having links in their signatures.

 

[Adam Caramon]

My suggestion: Eliminate the current reputation system. Put in a donation system. Every dollar you donate gives you x# reputation point to distribute. Display a user's reputation points (as collected by those who have donated that have awarded them to the person). Put in some kind of link where you click and it shows who gave the points, and a comment as to why. Also, make a nice and easy view that displays the number of reputation points by category (Access, VBA, SQL, etc).

All in all, this makes it where reputation actually means something, and gives users another reason to donate.

The superusers here who spend a lot of their time helping with advanced problems may also offer their own professional services, so this helps them be identified as "experts" in whatever fields they're collecting points in.


The only thing I'd really be willing to pay for is priority and in-depth help/education on subjects I'm not as well-learned as I should be. As an example, if I have a problem in VBA, and I see someone on here is an expert in VBA, I ask them for help. They provide me with some great help, then I'd be willing to donate to the site to get points to give them to show my appreciation.

 

[ColinEssex]

How do you figure the BBC is free?!?!

The BBC is not free. We all pay an annual licence fee, the money of which goes to the BBC.

Col

 

[Steve R.]

The superusers here who spend a lot of their time helping with advanced problems may also offer their own professional services, so this helps them be identified as "experts" in whatever fields they're collecting points in.

(emphasis added)

Need to tread very carefully with that suggestion. Potentially opens the form to "consultants" who are simply selling their services rather than freely contributing.

 

[oumahexi]

You want me to pay you to provide a third party help on access?

You're only looking at this from your point of view Ken. And I agree, maybe there should be some sort of amnesty once people pass the distinguished mark or something. But for those who join the forum to learn, and most really do use it as a learning tool, it is the few who continually contribute to answering questions, I think a small fee would be worth while. I'd be willing to pay a small annual fee, depending on what the fee is, because I feel that I can always rely on someone here to help me out with my problems. You may not always have the exact solution but you generally point me in the direction of where it can be found.

Jon does a marvellous job with the forum and I think it is only fair that we should recognise this. (Oh God, there goes my mean Scotsman - er, person, cover...)

 

[boblarson]

How about charging for every post to the Watercooler?

Could make a lot of money and make the forum self-sustaining.

 

[oumahexi]

Ouch.

 

[SteveF]

I'm wondering if you should be looking at this in a slightly different way?

Having been registered here for a while now, I could possibly be persuaded to pay a membership fee but, I'm fairly sure that if I had needed to pay a fee to join in the first place I would have passed.

As has been said before, the internet has come to be seen as a free resource. Nobody really expects to pay to join forums and get answers to questions.

Also, the real resource here is the knowledge of the members who have the patience and smarts to constantly answer dumb questions from schmucks like me. presumably, you give the clever guys free access and charge us dummies to get our questions answered. But if us dummies walk on by because it's a pay site then who are the clever guys going to help? Each other?

It seems to me ( not that I'm an expert ) that the best way to monetise a site like this is through the google ads and the like. The rest of the site doesn't seem like such a great resource, google ads masquerading as content mostly, so maybe some of the great content on the forum ( sample DBs and code snippets ) could be used elsewhere on the site?

The success of this site is the forum, maybe trying to squeeze money out of it is a mistake?

 

[mdemarte]

This has been the MOST helpful Access site. However, I work for government, have to make my case for other expenses - not sure if they would go for a membership fee for this site. Might have to pay for it out of my own pocket.

If you do go that route, then I favor the suggestion that their be a reduction in fees for those who answer the questions. Maybe not count the Watercooler threads in that calculation.

I liked better the suggestion of hosting developed software, for which the site gets a fee from the initial sale. That's a win all the way around.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Djblois]

I would love access courses that may help someone get from beginner to advanced. I currently am beyond a beginner but no where near an expert yet.

 

[evilradish]

I'm new to these forums and to access as well. I personally would not have joined if there was a fee because I did not know if the forum was any good. If you are going to introduce a fee I would suggest some sort of initial trial to give people a taste of whats here.

As for other ways of making money. Maybe have a consultancy section for end to end complete products? (not sure how successful this would be)

Or a code store of some sort?
where contribusters can make a bit of chunk change too?

Or even with more advertising?

plug a few adds between posts?

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