Paid subscription - thoughts n discussion

[pagalguy]

Hello Folks,

This has been a long delayed discussion. I've been thinking of various ways to ensure the forum turns sustainable in the long run. By now most of you have a good idea of how much it costs to run the site, but there are a lot of hidden costs as well. The amount of time the site takes from me, the mods is sometimes not less than a full time job. Anyway, lets get down to ways we can turn into a paid subscription forum. All the information in this post are my thoughts on what we could possibly do to turn sustainable and further discussion is expected to refine the idea and then convert it into a possible entity.

Firstly, the free accounts will be available at all times. I have believed in knowledge sharing and this together with our community feeling has at all points kept pagalguy.com what it truly is. However my thoughts are that we can ensure that some amount of limitations are built into this free delivery of information.


What I've been thinking is something on the below front:

# Free Accounts - Just like our regular accounts , but with major restrictions on PMs , signatures, avatars, etc.

## 1 year Accounts - This level of accounts would have a slightly more liberal restriction on the above features.

### Lifetime Accounts - This level of account would provide you accounts with even lesser restrictions and that too for a lifetime membership. The pricing for these accounts would be extremely affordable for the functionalities we provide.

At the pace at which we are growing, we will be looking at hiring probably in the next one year. Right from sponsored competitions to may be even ad-free environments for the paid account holders.

The idea is to make sure that we provide an environment that is helpful and also self sustaining at the same time. For everyone who has donated to us , all those users will be accomodated in the above plans free of charge depending on their donations. Now the entire concept of paying for additional features may be new to everyone, but the idea is to ensure that YOU can support pagalguy.com and its growth with your donation in the form of a paid account.


Thoughts, gripes, brickbats ....type em in

[Intangible]

Originally Posted by pagalguy

Hello Folks,
<snip>
Firstly, the free accounts will be available at all times. I have believed in knowledge sharing and this together with our community feeling has at all points kept pagalguy.com what it truly is. <snip>

Thanks PG...you are one of the few people who walk the talk on this point and we'll really appreciate it.

Originally Posted by pagalguy

What I've been thinking is something on the below front:

# Free Accounts - Just like our regular accounts , but with major restrictions on PMs , signatures, avatars, etc.

Are the only restrictions that you are planning on placing are wrt PMs , signatures, avatars, i.e. in short mostly features dealing with asthetics or are u planning on restricting access to some kind of info as well (i mean some imp articles, some sections etc)

Originally Posted by pagalguy

## 1 year Accounts - This level of accounts would have a slightly more liberal restriction on the above features.

### Lifetime Accounts - This level of account would provide you accounts with even lesser restrictions and that too for a lifetime membership.
The pricing for these accounts would be extremely affordable for the functionalities we provide.

have you got something concrete in mind on the diff bet one-year and life-time membership in terms of features and fees, or are you collecting ideas for that as well....

Originally Posted by pagalguy

At the pace at which we are growing, we will be looking at hiring probably in the next one year. Right from sponsored competitions to may be even ad-free environments for the paid account holders.

The idea is to make sure that we provide an environment that is helpful and also self sustaining at the same time. For everyone who has donated to us , all those users will be accomodated in the above plans free of charge depending on their donations. Now the entire concept of paying for additional features may be new to everyone, but the idea is to ensure that YOU can support pagalguy.com and its growth with your donation in the form of a paid account.


Thoughts, gripes, brickbats ....type em in

Well, the idea about providing ad-free env and sponsored competitions is really great

I feel, if you price the membership reasonably, it would give a fillip to pagalguy.com. Also, ur concept of having free memberships will ensure that we never have people backing out due to dearth of moolah!

At this point, I would like to reiterate my earlier suggestion, to include a platform to share job openings thru this site. That can be a part of paid membership!

cheers

Intangible

[Praveen]

Hey PG!

Nice Idea! I am always in the game for a "Pay as you use" forum!!

BUT you haven't told us how/what you are going to offer to freebies, 1 year accounts and life member accounts. What are the features do you have in mind?

All said and done this a good move!

regards,
Praveen

[estranged_gnrs]

What about 7 janam ka account? how much it wil be charged?

from the available ones,am in for life-time...

I have always maintained,we pay loads of money for our MBA prep. to coaching centres,application forms and all.
What pagalguy.com gives us for free is more than that.I just have the following concerns:
1>When members start paying,they may act as customers.Things may get rough when someone is banned or a post is deleted.Democracy wil be called for!!!
We have little bit of fascism from Mods right now,which is required to maintain sanity.

2>The community feeling,may be lost.

The senior members,will understand the need of making this forum a paid one.But what about people who will join in future.Will they understand that subscription is very important to run this site and its not for making money?

my 4 aanas,

Rohit

[mik]

Originally Posted by pagalguy

What I've been thinking is something on the below front:

# Free Accounts - Just like our regular accounts , but with major restrictions on PMs , signatures, avatars, etc.


Thoughts, gripes, brickbats ....type em in

@ FREE - I believe any one who needs to POST a message shud pay....mebbe even a small token amount would do....THIS WILL HELP REDUCE SPAM
The site/forum shud be accessible to one and all...but NO MEMBERSIHP=NO POSTS

njoi
mik

[EuPhOrIa]

"There is no lunch for free" wise man said this a centuary before, let's understand it, at least, now. So, we must pay for wat we use. Now, I really don't understand when u, PG, say "restriction on PM, Signature, Avatar".

Also, why keep lot of options like, free, one year, two years and lifetime?? I am of the opinion that we should keep it simplye partly free and partly paid. Paid would give you everything that we are getting now. Free would let u sail thro' whole forum (read: best of the forum - to advertise PG.com) and can use only one or two threads (they will choose any 1 or 2 threads, and not all, from Chit-Chat section) for free.

You may come up with funda of Lifetime Membership but then it should have anything to do with usage restriction...rather you can include those peepz into Co-ordinators, Mods, Event Managers kind of category. Plan out some abstract mode of premium for such ppl.

Few ideas are really brilliant:

I seccond the thought of sponsored events. I was juss discussing with other PGites (on PM) about the same...like Cricket tournaments, Quiz show, Culture event, or say Annual PG meet!! We can raise gud fund out of this by participation fees and advertisements.

We can take advertising from
1. Classes like IMS, PT, CL etc.
2. Magazines like BT, IT, Frontline, BW etc.
3. Newspapers like TOI, ET, Hindu, Business Standard, Business Line etc.
4. Publishers of the books targeted at MBA aspirants
5. Top 50 B-schools both Domestic n Overseas

estranged_gnrs

The senior members,will understand the need of making this forum a paid one.But what about people who will join in future.Will they understand that subscription is very important to run this site and its not for making money?

I agree with you buddy and see it as the potential threat to soaring numbers of PGites. Probably what we can do is, we can offer all new comers offer of 7 day's free surfing at PG, Then they can decide on whether they want to be a member or not.

I know you biggies mods must be having better plans for this beloeved site...this was my 2 paisa anyways,

cheers,

[moonraker]

PG.com is PRICELESS. But even priceless things have to have a price tag !!
How abt going for a poll on this issue.

Needless to say, a lot depends on the subscription charges. e.g. a 100 bucks (for a yearly membership ) would be quite affordable but something like 500 would cause (at least me ) to think.

CIAO
Moonraker

[meghasharma]

let then poll run for a week.
& let current users decide Paid or Unpaid

[MavericK]

Originally Posted by mik

@ FREE - I believe any one who needs to POST a message shud pay....mebbe even a small token amount would do....THIS WILL HELP REDUCE SPAM
The site/forum shud be accessible to one and all...but NO MEMBERSIHP=NO POSTS

I wouldn't agree to this point. For being on the forum for more than 2 years, I have seen how and to what extent people "contribute". They come post/check scores, read others GD/PI threads, once in a blue moon post theirs, and hooosh! off they go to the portals of the "You shall always be busy" atmosphere.

Making this site partly-paid is a decent option for the no. of contributors we see on the other thread is enough to sustain this forum, but for how long ? Does one really expect such dedicated and "I-care-for-the-forum" ppl every year and that too in such huge numbers in order to sustain it, if not completely, then partly ?? I dont think so. In a land where ppl go to the extent of drinking phenyl if provided free, making this site even partly-paid is not such a good option, for it might turn out into a case of if not PG, then TIME. There's no dearth of Community forums in India you see. After all one of our beloved members, deejay too has a forum, dedicated to YEMBEEYAY!

More later...

[coolrahine]

Originally Posted by MavericK

I wouldn't agree to this point. For being on the forum for more than 2 years, I have seen how and to what extent people "contribute". They come post/check scores, read others GD/PI threads, once in a blue moon post theirs, and hooosh! off they go to the portals of the "You shall always be busy" atmosphere.

Making this site partly-paid is a decent option for the no. of contributors we see on the other thread is enough to sustain this forum, but for how long ? Does one really expect such dedicated and "I-care-for-the-forum" ppl every year and that too in such huge numbers in order to sustain it, if not completely, then partly ?? I dont think so. In a land where ppl go to the extent of drinking phenyl if provided free, making this site even partly-paid is not such a good option, for it might turn out into a case of if not PG, then TIME. There's no dearth of Community forums in India you see. After all one of our beloved members, deejay too has a forum, dedicated to YEMBEEYAY!

More later...

yup i feel that in india people drink even phenyl if they are provided that without cost but then this forum isnt comprising of such kinda people ............ i mean yes sum are always there to help out people... give data.... provide info...... and sum are there who try to increase the posts by the minutes but then there shud be sum other method to stop that ............... paid memenership is not the solution and well we feel that this forum is for guys who need info for their career as for now they can ask without any hesitation but then after this site becums paid it will ad as a detterent .................. so now students will have to bear with membership cost over and above the application cost for mba.............. also informations wud becum less and very minimal as very few people wud indulge in getting a paid membership and the freedom to get registered here anytime and freedom to post queries wud be negated by the payment factor cuming in ................. and the populariti that this site has generated wud becum less ............ coz les members .......... and less interaction........... well this is onli a suggestion and i hope yu take it in the right spirit man

cheers

rahine