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Like Kanzen explained, there's no point in dropping the price. The only result to this would be making the site worst!
Let me explain it an eazy way.
If you buy a cheap tire, it wont last as long as if you were buying an High end tire.
That's possibly the worst analogy ever given. The difference here is significant. They have to pay for co-location costs, equipment, bandwidth and staff. As these things scale up, they become more affordable, to no small degree on some of them. Economies of scale are always present, but much more so with web sites. It's why companies discount to draw members in initially.
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I think he was more so saying that the only way to get the prices to drop, is for more people to support the site. Which is true to be honest, more sponsors...over time = price drop.
Don't take this the wrong way, but if you're suggesting that the price would go down if more people signed up, I just can't believe that. I'd believe you if you said that more money would be invested on the site, more features, any enhancement story. But reducing the price of a membership because it's too profitable? That'd be a silly move.
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everyone should just look at the poll numbers in post #1 of this thread. stop whining in the forum if you don't like the price and vote with your pocketbooks. that is the only way there would be any hope of the prices dropping.
There's a sliver of truth here. I understand that you guys had internal discussions. I hope you also took the time to do some basic surveys. Put a survey out there to current sponsors (but really focus on the site visitors who don't pay). Find out what the dollar limit is most are willing to pay.
Then you go back and take a look at your cost per sponsor (in terms of bandwidth/resources) and run that against your graph of supposed sponsor-pricing. It's fairly easy to find the "sweet spot", and from there it's simply a matter of seeing how many of those people lied on the survey
I do hope you guys keep the site going. It's better than it has been since I got here 4 years ago, no doubt. I've been a sponsor for most of that time, but the reality is that every time the price goes up, the likelihood that I keep that up goes down.
Maybe you guys have already run the numbers, and now it's a matter of making it stick.
In terms of ideas that haven't been said, I don't know that regular banner advertising is really a 'profit' business any more. Typically, I see it more as an agitator to encourage registrations. I agree that unlimited trials are folly. Usually, I'm a bit proponent of trial memberships, but WBW puts everything out there for you to see in a form already. I don't honestly think a trial would be beneficial. Maybe an introductory rate with an automatical renewal at regular price is more logical. They always seem a bit shady, kinda gaming for you to forget, but they do work.
Finally, to skip back to another topic. Every time this is brought up, people shout about how there's no site out there for the same value. That is debatable. For a better comparison, I think it must be looked at like this. There are thousands of free web sites out there that will deliver similar content, if not as much, with much more hassle. The question is where the price becomes worth the hassle. I fear as the price climbs to cover costs, WBW may eventually overreach that amount.
Edit: One other thing with these comparisons of $20/month sites with WBW. Typically at that price point the site is generating their own content, which is a whole new cost that WBW doesn't have. No offense, obviously, I'm here for this type of content, but you have to be realistic.
All that said, the site is very nice. And that's why I stay a member. And despite my blather, I don't intend on changing that. Yet.
