I thought about this, this has to be the largest Magic forum on the net, soon passing on 11,000 members, and that seems almost like a miracle.

But then again, how many members would the Café have if it cost $5 to sign up?

How would $5 affect the "quality" of the members, if you know what I mean?

If the ultimatum came up, would you be willing to pay $5 to continue your access here?
Jack.

That's a great question. I guess I would, for the information you can get out of the forum. And all of the great people out there willing to give input to help you. It's well worth the money. It’s not easy to find information when you need it. Now that I know what I can get out of the forum.

Don't go give Steve any ideas!

My guess is that membership would drop to under 1000 or so, perhaps only a couple hundred.

Not only that, but new members would practically stop. Why join the Café when there are hundreds of free boards out there?

You just don't know how great it is until you are here for a while.


How about this:

You have to pay $5 dollars a year to post things? Reading is free but posting is 5 dollars.

That might improve quality, but at the same time really limit those really helpful posts from people that might not want to shell out 5 dollars for an online service.

I'd probably pay, but that's only because I have a big mouth

I think that Steve should setup a Paypal donate button and we should all donate $5 to it anyway.

This is a great resource and as a web designer I know the costs of maintaining servers is not cheap, especially with the bandwidth that is being created here.

I have donated to the past to 'free' Internet activities that I have enjoyed and certainly would for this too.

I second the paypal donation method: after all, what could it hurt?

E

Funny,

on the other hand, if I see any further reference to 3-fly that is not specifically related to Chris Kenner, I may be a lot less giving to the place.

Quality goes both ways

I think that a person would have to know that this is the best forum out their to want to pay 5 dollars. If I did not know about how good this was I would not waste 5 dollars. Maybe a 15 or 20 post trial.

Had they been charging $5 when I first visited this site, I would have moved on. Now, that I know what this site is made of, $5 is peanuts compared to what I've gotten out of it. But I may never have known this if the site had wanted cash out of me form the start. I would have just gone to the Genii forum or Slightgeek or Cheater's Cheaters or Penguin or...

Interesting post. At first, I was like, "What is this guy thinking? Don't give them any ideas!"

But the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. $5 for a year's subscription to this online forum is a bargain. But at the same time, it would be just enough to keep a good deal of people out. And the ones who are not willing to pay $5 a year for access to this site, are likely not members that would be missed, if you know what I mean. I am not trying to sound like an elitist, but I don't see anything wrong with a more serious/dedicated member base being developed through the use of a low yearly charge.

MacGyver,
I seriously doubt the membership would drop to 1000, and certainly not in the hundreds. I think a majority of the members on this site are willing to give $5 a year to this site in exchange for the incredible information offered.

Even though I very much enjoy the Café, I don't think I would pay the fee.

Well, if the Magic Café makes enough money off of advertising to support the cost of maintaining a site like this, then I guess a charge would not really be necessary. But considering how much most magicians’ dump into magic each year, $5 does seem like peanuts.

To put it another way, the Café has saved me $5 (more like hundreds), just by providing a ton of reviews about products I have considered buying. Obtaining so much information about my potential purchases has saved me a lot more than $5.

But this is all theoretical of course, because as far as I know, nobody from the Café staff has ever proposed this idea.

This is a tough question. I've gotten some value out of the Café and I consider it to be a greater resource than many of the other discussion boards. But, $5 up front would have been enough for me to choose to look somewhere else.

Now, I haven't had full access to everything here, because I haven't accrued enough posts yet (I'm getting pretty close though), but that just reinforces it: for a new visitor, $5 is a pretty big hurdle when you don't know whether this is really worth it.

JesterJ

I think we could see the Café as a worker’s tool.

The amount of information and resources here: comments, reviews, suggestions, is astronomical.

From that point of view, a payment seems fair, I guess.

But don’t feel obligated to charge us! ;-)

If I had to pay $5 to join the Café, I might have done that. But that depends, could I read any post I want before I pay my $5. If so, I probably would have after reading the post's here for a bit.

I would definitely pay $5 to continue my access to the Café and, in fact, already have.

A while ago, Steve PM'd all members saying that the cost was getting too much and asked for any donations that we felt like sending. I sent more than $5, I can tell you that. Didn't even think twice.

Okay, someone tell Steve to setup a Paypal donate button and lets send him some cash.

5 dollars is nothing compared to the info you get here. It is worth it.

I agree with pretty much what has been said above. If it had have been $5 to join when I first found the site, I may have moved on somewhere else. But, with the information that I've found here over the past six months, I'd be happy to pay $5 or more.

The Magic Café is a wonderful resource for magicians, and a small fee would be a good way to keep out the people who spend all their time asking, "How did David Blaine...?".

Kevin Smith (film director - 'Dogma', 'Chasing Amy', 'Jersey Girl') has a forum on his website that charges two dollars to sign up. It's not a profit thing. All the money is sent to charity (I can't remember which one, sorry). Even two dollars is a suitable way to keep the idiots out. If they realize they have to pay to slag off a movie/director, or in our case, ask how a trick is done, chances are they won't bother.

Let's just say if they made it five dollars for a membership, I'd buy two. Hehehehe.

-- Topher

Man, then I seriously doubt you know much about Internet commerce and business.


There are only 1007 members that have a post count over 100.

That means that 9,979 of the 10k members haven't posted over 100 messages to the board.

Now, lets say that everyone over 100 posts stays and no on under 100 post stays (a generous statement).

Then there would be about 1007 members still on this board posting, which is well within my estimate of about 1000 to a couple hundred.


Now you can be sure that some of these people with 100+ posts won't stay, and that drops it even more.

Let's be generous and say 80% of people over 100 posts will stay, that's still only about 800 people.


The Internet has been plagued a long time from free services and business quoting a hundred thousands "customer's" and say how successful they are, and so they propose to make it a pay service. Then all their membership disappears on them, and they go broke because most of their money was from advertising, and they don't make as much anymore on that because actual viewers goes down dramatically.


I am not saying that this would happen to the Magic Café, because it has a strong loyal user base.

Even if 800 people paid the 5 dollars that would be 4000 dollars, plus the fact that bandwidth would go down considerably.

I don't think this is the right path to take, but I still stand by my initial statement that it would drop into the hundreds, maybe 1000.



I do however think that a Paypal or credit card donation would be good, perhaps a yearly PM around X-mas time asking for donations.


Also, here is another important point:

IF YOU ARE GOING TO BUY FROM ANY MAGIC Café ADVERTISERS, VISIT THEM FROM THE LINKS HERE ON THE PAGE AND SAY THAT YOU CAME HERE FROM THE Café!!!!

I know that Penguin has something like a 10% kickback to any advertiser that sent customers to them, and I'm sure that other dealers have something similar.

A GREAT way to help out the Café would just be to make sure that advertisers and magicians all know that you heard about them on the Café, even if they aren't advertising here.

Just tell them that you never would have heard about them if it wasn't for the Café, and you will help out the Café with not only advertising but any sort of "affiliate" programs too.

I hope Steve could weigh in on this

I am dead serious, I'd pay 50 dollars a month to access this site if I needed to.

Hmmm... something is rubbing me wrong, here. Many of you have mentioned "keeping out" a certain element. But why should we do that? And who are we to want to do that? Sure, there's a troglodyte or two that stumbles in here once in a while, but the staff either boots them or we manage to weed them out through other means.

And is this fair to those that just had a serious need for help but aren't really the forum types? I have personally made some very good friends via the internet (e-mails, IM's, etc.) that I met through this forum that don't visit here that often, and probably never would have visited if it was going to cost them. I would hate to have to miss out on meeting more people like them over $5.

And if someone really wants to be a knucklehead, do you really think $5 would stop them? Sure, it would stop most, but there are some really persistant dorks out there.

I think this line of thought could lead to some dangerously elitist attitudes. One of the things I love about this forum is that all are welcome. You may have to earn some props (i.e. 50 posts to get into the banquet room) but charging a few clams just to keep out the schmoes is pretty darn snooty.

I have no problem with the donation idea. But a mandatory fee just doesn't sit well with me.