XXHighEnd

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/470-become-ca-subscriber-today/

It's the 'subscriber only forum discussion' that I take issue with - totally against the spirit of our 'computer audio' hobby.

Mani

I feel the same... I never saw it coming and I don't know what to do about it...  :(

You posted in the wrong forum. haha.

Personally I don't see the sense of it, but I can't see the logic of it either.

Anyway, I just decided to close down this forum. Yep, including the download section of course. Oh, 0.9z-7 is ready very soon now - did I tell you ?

But for an entry fee of 100 in your own currency you can be back. That is, if you pay the subscription of 3 euros per month as well. Small print : this subscription can not be cancelled

Now *that* is working !

Psychologist ?

Maybe ? ;)

I've made my views heard on CA also.


This only works if the forum is any good. And what does that depend on? Us forum posters! And now we have to pay for the privilege? Yep, makes total sense.

Mani.

More seriously - Alain, what do you actually mean by this ?

You are completely correct. But it is all in between the lines of course that I want people like you from countries where it can rain only, exchanged for people from sunny California.
It should work, don't you think ? Well, if it works on CA ...


PS: But if it keeps on raining like this here much longer, then both the UK and Netherlands will have joined.
Under water.

Like Mani, I think that the fact that we can help a forum advance does not relate well with "paying" for it... When I say "I don't know what to do about it", I mean that I am not sure I wish to suscribe... That's it (sorry if my English is not that good)...

So ... you are REALLY thinking about subscribing to help out a forum ? you guys must all be crazy in that area !

But of course this is what I logically got from your post. It is just that I can't imagine that someone thinks like that. Okay, so you do. Well, see ? at you living close to te area concerned, it can work after all. But you are *just* a tad out of direction, and therefore for you it may not work.
But this is where the psychologist comes in. The shrink I mean. And as you know we have one in our midst. He's even from Canada !

:swoon:

You're funny Peter :) Rest assured that if I pay, I will send you an email ;)

Only via PayPal I will accept emails from now on Alain.

Anyway, now you know why people running forums and stuff like this need a normal jobs alongside it. Not that it is something to hunt for ...

Forget the email. Just copy and paste any interesting CA 'elite forum' threads here on Phasure. And do this daily please :)

Mani

Hey, this can't be the intention ! You mean one subscribes and shares here ? well, I didn't see any rules about it.

But before I post a liink overthere to this topic here ... I know it was a joke Mani, but in case my own joking goes too far and isn't understood as intended, that is not something I will encourage. Obviously this is about bringing in some money (but it will fire back IMO) and if people think that works they can try. But as you said, it looks like the beginning of the end and the end I see coming for some longer time now.

What interests me is how someone can think this works. This is not about a person but about communities and general behaviour. So it may work, within that circles. But you and me and most probably the whole of Europe will not even try to understand it. We just can't ...

Actually in the USA we tend to get very concerned about equality, as much as if not more so than in Europe, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I think Chris C simply wanted to find a non-advertising way to make the site pay, since he is not selling products (or at least not a lot of them and not for high cost - hats for now, T-shirts and sweatshirts to come...).  But it can easily be construed, and already has been by several people, as creating a two-tiered class system of forum participants.  I myself had similar misgivings, but decided to subscribe on the basis of being repaid in music discounts.

Now that I have subscribed and have seen the subscriber forum topics, I can tell you this seems to me more innocent than we might have feared.  The subscriber forums are IMO unlikely to have threads on subjects covered in the forums available to everyone.  Taking as an example the only forum Chris C has mentioned, it allows non-dealers to post messages about equipment they want to sell or buy.  This is not a subject of the all-comers forums, and there is I suppose an argument to be made that buyers/sellers will feel a bit safer knowing participants are bona fide at least to the extent of having made a small payment through PayPal.

No matter how innocent the motivation, though, this has certainly struck many people as somehow wrong and against the spirit of such a forum.  So we will see how it turns out for CA.

---

Hi there. I want to place an ad on your site. How many visitors do you have ?

Oh, many. You will be okay on my site !

But what about that subscription stuff then ? those people don't see ads, right ?

Yea, well, of course we must subtract the few that subscribe. But that will be harmless to you, I'm sure.

All right. But then you assume those subscriptions won't work out ?

---

I always like possible scenarios and this is one of them. What's next in the scenario is up to us to make up. So, I pay for an annual subscription, have the benefits of that as well but in the mean time I'm alone in there. I can post whatever I want regarding the subjects, but nobody is going to read it. I am trying to sell my gear to a too small audience.
That sort of thing.

Suppose that I would say that everybody subscribing to "our" (!) forum for 50 per year, for the second year (!) can obtain the NOS1 with 30% discount. Man, that's more than a 1000 discount. "I better spend that 50 just in case !" (which can end up to be a 100). I could have a million in no-time this way.

See ? this will work. Great idea. But it must be a trick (towards you) because otherwise *I* wouldn't think it is a good idea. I will have your million, and suppose I sell 200 DACs because of it. Or do we really think that all the 20000 subscribers I was implying buy that DAC ? of course not.

It's a "construction" and maybe I don't like constructions.
Still it could work.
Any subscribers ?

Mmmm... Me ?  :grazy:

The difference with the model you describe is that on CA it's not Chris C's stuff that's discounted for subscribers.

However, as you said in a previous note, it must be presumed to cut into advertisers' views and thus the site's revenue from them, unless there will not be many subscriptions or the site is drawing lots of new viewers.

Hi Jud - btw, love to see you around here, always and ever saying useful things which makes at least me ofthen think further.

Let me say first that I don't mean it negative from any angle other than "I don't see how it works" (can work). So, my own idea will work (I think, but opinions may differ) just because it is my own product indeed. But what if I go to Chris with this same idea, have you paid that 50 more to Chris which will be mine, and the further conditions are the same. I see no difference for the net workout on my side, but I suppose this makes you think now. It would be a strange operation, or at least it can't fit the other (provoced) ideas overthere. Still it will work (again, in my view) and actually everybody benefits. At least the subscriber thinks like this, and it is his/her own decision to go ahead with it. Still it is a construction, and still it will bring me that million, although I should now multiply it with some "more forum visitors factor". Is it a risk for me because I may sell so many DAC against a too low price (way under cost price) ? no. Because I always first have that million (times x now). It can't go otherwise, and/but therefore that second year.

Those manufacturers (Naim and such) won't be doing this for free. It would even be so that they see that nobody who joins this will be seeing their ads anymore. Okay, big deal because they are supposed to buy the products now anyway. But why and how at this 20% discount. So, what's next ?

Because I can make up my little stories right on the spot (just did it again), I can't help myself wanting to see what's behind things. There has to be something because nobody is doing anything for free. Not in the real world, and that seems to be a real world to me.

Why am I typing about this ? I don't know. I'm intrigued.

Regards,
Peter

So one possible explanation is that we are smarter than Chris C and everyone at Naim.  Let's dismiss that at the outset (for my own part at least, I can provide you all manner of evidence that Chris C and lots of people at Naim must certainly be much smarter than me :).

So how can this work?  It must be something different between you and Naim.  One possibility is that the 20% represents the share of the cost per unit taken up by Naim's marketing budget, which they have in a big way and you do not.  This is not only the cost of ads themselves, but of the employees involved in marketing, their salaries and benefits, taxes paid on account of them, etc. 

These subscribers are a group of people who will pay $50 just to belong to a sub-group of an audio forum, so they obviously have disposable income and are highly interested in audio.  And no other manufacturers (competitors) will reach them, except for other manufacturers willing to discount.  So near-exclusive marketing access to this group, and without having to pay for ads or have more employees in the advertising department.  Maybe that is worth on average 20% of the cost of a Naim unit?

As you said, just making up my little stories right on the spot....

It all depends what they are selling.  Now Peter's idea of $1000 off his NOS DAC; well I'd love for you all to chip in and help me pay for it.  Subscribe to Peter's forum now!  Paypal money to this email addy severed@gmail.com

{We'll just do this direct and cut out the middle man.)

Haha. Your idea is even better.
Btw, if that's your real email address, you will at least receive an additional pile of spam. But when you're in for some viagra anyway, why not !