Is $2 a month really so much to ask members of Park Slope Parents to pony up for their right to participate in that incredibly valuable list serve?
Some members seem to think so.
But what are the options? A fund-raising drive? Advertising? Do members really want to see advertising on that site? To me that sounds far more intrusive than asking for a mere $2 a month. And a fund-raising drive is labor intensive. An auction, an event? Those kind of things take up a lot of volunteer time and don't always make as much money as you think.
Running Park Slope Parents, an incredible resource for local parents, takes volunteers, time and money and maybe it's not so bad to make members contribute only $2 a month or $25 per year. I think more and more, people forget that there are people behind the scenes who deserve to be paid for their blood, sweat and tears. Improvements and maintenance costs money, too.
One member wrote in today to say that on Yahoo, it is illegal to pay to use a yahoo group. But someone else noted how many alternative solutions to the fee have been suggested but most of them will only involve more work on the part
of the "volunteers."
"People seem afraid of change, but realistically, with
a fee I expect we will see many things change for the better, including
updates to the website based on recommendations in the emails so the
information is not so outdated," one member wrote.
It’s not really about a blind concern over change. I think you’re forgetting the true value of the site comes from the content and participation of all the members. Very few sites going from free to subscription manages a conversion rate of higher than 25% or so. That’s 75% fewer eyeballs on the street, commentary, etc..
I get that the volunteers want to make some money and it’s pointless to debate whether or not they ‘deserve’ it, but community sites are poor soil for turning into even a break-even enterprise. Once you start saying they ‘deserve’ this or that, contributors start thinking about monetizing their contributions as well. Why not? They’re putting in their time and effort too. Don’t they ‘deserve’ some compensation as well, even if it’s just a little?
The truth is that people who participate do pay into the site with their contribution of time and information. Tacking on anything but a nominal fee irritates people because it puts a price on their community participation but not the true value of their time. It acts as a big brake, and makes it easier to create social monocultures.
And for this to work, they’ll probably have to disband the yahoo groups or they’ll be competing with themselves. If they do that, another will be happy to try to take its place in the free-access vacuum they’ll create with their departure.
What strikes me about the (reasonable, well-written) explanation put forward by the site organizers is that they plan to offer services and activities that could be – and in some instances are – offered by local non-profits, such as networking and professional support opportunities.
It seems problematic, in this funding climate, for psp to raise funds that will offer parallel services when longstanding non-profits are suffering for funds to continue offering their services. In light of the Center for Urban Education’s closure, isn’t it beneficial to more deeply examine moves to ‘create for our own’ rather than to work with and thereby preserve what already exists?
An interesting idea for an enterprising blogger to take on, Louise.
Sorry, but you’re missing the point. It isn’t about the cost per se. It’s that charging a fee will destroy the list. PSP classifieds are more useful than craigslist because you don’t have to sift through offerings that entail too much travel, but the fee will definitely deter buyers and sellers from using PSP — they’ll just deal with the mild inconvenience of a less localized craigslist. And the discussion board will be diminished because members with older children will likely leave. They are more likely to have wise advice and less likely to be asking for it. Why would they pay to stay on a list in order to give advice?
The demise won’t happen right away, but I am certain it will happen. There will be fewer members, immediately making the list less useful. Since the list will become less useful, fewer people will join, further diminishing the list’s usefulness, and so on.
Are you aware of a similar kind of list that operates as a subscription? Do you belong to any other online group where you pay a fee to be able to share information with other members?
It’s very hard to get people to pay subscription fees for online content. Even the New York Times backed away from charging for some of their online material. I don’t really see why PSP would be an exception to this.