Google and the open web... round #2

[vp999]

I'd be more than happy to become a paying member of this awesome community.

 

[MalsRFun in TN]

I would be glad to pay a reasonable fee to keep from the ad mess I encountered this morning. It wouldn't be different than the many people now charging on Patreon and Substack.

 

[SailDesign]

This stage of things is difficult.

As a beginner in the Bonsai hobby, I came here for two main things. Community and information/teachings/lessons/resources.

I do not feel like I am part of the greater community here. Between my (beginner) skill level, experience, and material I seem to find very little to no interaction. There may be more to it than that, no doubt. That's only to say that I would not pay for the level of community that I find as a beginner. Admittedly, that's what groups and clubs are really for.

Being a fly on the wall of those who are interacting is helpful, but starts to tip into a resource category and not a community interaction. That said, I would absolutely pay for the resources and information. No question.

The main distinction I make is in identifying who the site targets when monetizing. What's the product being sold?

I share this from a point of conversation and dialogue, not one of complaint or otherwise. This site is a bright spot in an otherwise dark sea of internet garbage...

As a relative newcomer here, and back into bonsai after 30 years "off", I hear what you say. But.....

I find the best way to feel part of the community is to interact in the threads that are not specifically about bonsai - the humour thread (with or without arguments) and the "what did you do today" thread are great places to get to know people. Or more importantly, for them to get to know you. As you grow into the hobby, your questions and comments will begin to be more informed and things will take off. It's a slow process anywhere, usually, but it works. It's like moving to a new town and a different pub.

That said, I would be happy to pay a yearly membership - I do on most other fora I frequent.

 

[JeffS73]

Sign me up! I've got back-years to pay as well.

 

[Ruddigger]

I think the point of the pay wall was go block the site from AI scraping.

 

[SFDrake]

I'll pay for a subscription, and i just figured out how to donate to the site. Thanks!

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Ill pay a membership if needed

 

[AGentleman]

Hi there,

This is my experience.

I found this site looking for answers.

I became a member to view full size images.

I would now happily pay to use this site.

If I encountered a pay wall initially, I would never have joined. I would still be relying on YouTube.

I have never paid to remove adds from any site or app.

I hope my experience helps you to make your decision. And I would like to add that I really appreciate and admire the transparency with which you are addressing the situation.

Thank you,
Greg

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I think the point of the pay wall was go block the site from AI scraping.

That and the total elimination of ads. No ads, no worrying about ad serving slowing the site down, and no worrying about how the ads make the site look, and no worrying about the use of ad blockers.

And... to put the future of the site in the hands of the members. Right now we are dependent (to a point) on Google revenues, and Google controls a lot of what goes on with the site. One small annoyance that I have to deal with is when I get content warnings from Google about "adult content" and I have to go look, find out it is a pinus joke, and then ask for a Google content review. It happens more often than you think Many risque jokes get flagged by Google and I have to decide whether to edit them, delete them, or leave them... knowing that too many left on the site will start to flag the site as being adult-only... based solely on Google's definition of what is risque and what isn't.

 

[JoeWilson]

It’s worth mentioning that Google and everyone else have already scraped all of the information on this website. There is no putting the toothpaste back into the tube. If you can lock out Google et al, the best you can do is keep them from continually scraping and updating what’s already in their models. I’m not sure that would make much difference, since there is what, a decade or two worth of information they already have? I can’t say I have a better suggestion, though. Unfortunately, the only thing that will make a real difference regarding AI is better laws that respect copyright. Or actually enforcing our existing laws. But that seems increasingly unlikely.

As to funding, I'll echo what a few others have said. Multiple tiers/membership types with different perks is probably the way to go. There may be some relatively easy things you can do:

• Limit photo viewing to small sizes (I think you're doing this already)
• Only allow photo uploads from paid accounts or limit uploads to small sizes (I think the limit is 4 or 5 mb right now, that could easily be 100 kb or something for free accounts)
• Limit access to certain forums, and run regular events in those forums to encourage participation and cultivate FOMO from users who don't have access. IE: limit contests and make sure there are always interesting contests running, and give some kind of sneak peek of these events in visible spaces to tempt the free accounts to sign up
• Limit access to buying/selling features, and consider working on ways to encourage more people to participate in sales. You could consider selling fees as well if you develop a good enough selling platform. These kinds of features have kept similar forums I've been on for other hobbies afloat.
• Boost the visibility of posts for certain account types. I'm not sure what kind of tools you have available to do this or what it would look like, but it's what Twitter, for example, does to drive subscriptions.
• Limit how much free accounts can type (character limits), how often they can post, if they can edit their posts, if or how they can engage with other posts (likes etc), if they can use emoticons, if they can link to other websites, and so forth.

I wouldn't completely close the site off to non-paying members. That's likely to reduce the member count, which will in turn reduce the interactions on the site, hurting the value proposition you would need to represent with a subscription model. In short, fewer people on the site, less utility, less value all around. If you're going to a subscription model, I think you need to grow rather than shrink your potential market, and work on providing a baseline level of value that is easily accessible (free or ad-supported). From there, you can try to upsell people to the higher-tier products.

The biggest thing working against you with a paywall is that people have alternatives for this kind of content. Reddit, Facebook groups, etc. The experience is inferior, but these are all free. So you're gonna lose a certain % (probably a big one) if you put up a paywall. Surely, there will be people (let's call them your core demographic) who will stick around and be happy to pay for the privilege, but how large is that group, and how much would they be willing to pay? That will be difficult to answer, but if you can pull stats on interactions, I would put together a table and figure out how many users are consistently active. Your best chance to sell subs is to people who post every day, or at least multiple times a week. What % is that? I would be cautious with the responses to this thread as well. These are your power users; many are hyper-engaged and will be much more likely to support a pay-to-participate model, but their opinions probably don't tell you much about the appetite for a paid service from your user base as a whole or your average user.

Lastly, consider long-term growth or even just maintenance level revenue; without an easy way for people to join and engage, you'll probably have few new users. So even if you can get a decent % of people to contribute early on, how do you replace that revenue stream as people age out, lose interest, decide what they're getting isn't worth the money, and so forth? Maybe shrinking the user base shrinks the running costs proportionally, and it all works out. But I would be concerned about turning the site into a ghost town. Engagement on sites like this tends to go in cycles, new, excited users join and contribute, but eventually get bored, find other outlets, or move on to other things. So I worry about a plan that isn't proactive in bringing new users in.

In any case, good luck and godspeed.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

It’s worth mentioning that Google and everyone else have already scraped all of the information on this website. There is no putting the toothpaste back into the tube. If you can lock out Google et al, the best you can do is keep them from continually scraping and updating what’s already in their models. I’m not sure that would make much difference, since there is what, a decade or two worth of information they already have? I can’t say I have a better suggestion, though. Unfortunately, the only thing that will make a real difference regarding AI is better laws that respect copyright. Or actually enforcing our existing laws. But that seems increasingly unlikely.

As to funding, I'll echo what a few others have said. Multiple tiers/membership types with different perks is probably the way to go. There may be some relatively easy things you can do:

• Limit photo viewing to small sizes (I think you're doing this already)
• Only allow photo uploads from paid accounts or limit uploads to small sizes (I think the limit is 4 or 5 mb right now, that could easily be 100 kb or something for free accounts)
• Limit access to certain forums, and run regular events in those forums to encourage participation and cultivate FOMO from users who don't have access. IE: limit contests and make sure there are always interesting contests running, and give some kind of sneak peek of these events in visible spaces to tempt the free accounts to sign up
• Limit access to buying/selling features, and consider working on ways to encourage more people to participate in sales. You could consider selling fees as well if you develop a good enough selling platform. These kinds of features have kept similar forums I've been on for other hobbies afloat.
• Boost the visibility of posts for certain account types. I'm not sure what kind of tools you have available to do this or what it would look like, but it's what Twitter, for example, does to drive subscriptions.
• Limit how much free accounts can type (character limits), how often they can post, if they can edit their posts, and if or how they can engage with other posts (likes etc). These are a little risky because they can be annoying enough that users would simply leave the site rather than deal with them, so I would consider them very carefully.

I wouldn't completely close the site off to non-paying members. That's likely to reduce the member count, which will in turn reduce the interactions on the site, hurting the value proposition you would need to represent with a subscription model. In short, fewer people on the site, less utility, less value all around. If you're going to a subscription model, I think you need to grow rather than shrink your potential market, and work on providing a baseline level of value that is easily accessible (free or ad-supported). From there, you can try to upsell people to the higher-tier products.

The biggest thing working against you with a paywall is that people have alternatives for this kind of content. Reddit, Facebook groups, etc. The experience is inferior, but these are all free. So you're gonna lose a certain % (probably a big one) if you put up a paywall. Surely, there will be people (let's call them your core demographic) who will stick around and be happy to pay for the privilege, but how large is that group, and how much would they be willing to pay? That will be difficult to answer, but if you can pull stats on interactions, I would put together a table and figure out how many users are consistently active. Your best chance to sell subs is to people who post every day, or at least multiple times a week. What % is that? I would be cautious with the responses to this thread as well. These are your power users; many are hyper-engaged and will be much more likely to support a pay-to-participate model, but their opinions probably don't tell you much about the appetite for a paid service from your user base as a whole or your average user.

Lastly, consider long-term growth or even just maintenance level revenue; without an easy way for people to join and engage, you'll probably have few new users. So even if you can get a decent % of people to contribute early on, how do you replace that revenue stream as people age out, lose interest, decide what they're getting isn't worth the money, and so forth? Maybe shrinking the user base shrinks the running costs proportionally, and it all works out. But that sounds like a surefire way to turn the site into a ghost town.

In any case, good luck and godspeed.

Man, these suggestions would make this place nothing like the BNut we know and love. I’d prefer to contribute monetarily as needed to keep it “free” for all, but helpful participation may be the greater contribution. Greg has done a fine job of fostering a positive culture with a light touch for bonsai online.

 

[KateM]

Paid membership is fine.

 

[JoeWilson]

Man, these suggestions would make this place nothing like the BNut we know and love. I’d prefer to contribute monetarily as needed to keep it “free” for all, but helpful participation may be the greater contribution. Greg has done a fine job of fostering a positive culture with a light touch for bonsai online.

Sure, in an ideal world, it would be optional donations (one-time or recurring), and that would cover it. I'm not sure what the costs look like, though. Maybe run it Wiki style and have clear funding goals (progress bar, deadlines, etc) shown somewhere on the site, that might be enough...

My suggestions weren't things I would necessarily like to see, but if a subscription service is on the table to keep the site running, significant perks either need to be developed or features need to be taken away from free accounts to incentivize moving up to a paid account. I'm not sure there's a viable alternative to a tiered, feature-metered system if the goal is to move from ad revenue to a subscription service model.

Another thing to consider is selling access to events and/or people's time, like online courses, mentorships, that sort of thing. There’s a ton of work and generally high cost to develop and maintain these kinds of programs, though.

 

[vesper818]

I belong to Cloudynights, a similarly formatted forum for astronomy. They have areas open for beginnersto read, and selected areas that can be read by registered members only. And a terrific group of moderators (telescope wars comparable in ferocity to soil wars here) .
They have a company sponsor, and some selected advertisers, and donation box available.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

telescope wars comparable in ferocity to soil wars here

Thanks for mentioning this and giving me a smile It is important to note, that no matter what subject, people have their passions

 

[Gabler]

One other thing to consider is that limiting the size of posts and photos will limit the quality of the content that users can generate. Presently, it's a generous limit, and that's reflected in the lengthy posts and quality photos to be found all over this website. In other words, limiting unpaid members will hurt paid members.

 

[Ryceman3]

Completely understand that there are lots of parts to this puzzle, and I don't really know the answer, but I guess a pay wall is going to do a fair bit to resolve some of the issues stemming from the current (somewhat toxic) relationship with Google.
I am sure this won't deter regular/veteran members from chipping in and retaining the status quo ... or maybe an improvement thereof, but as has been alluded to, I was thinking back to my initial interactions on this forum and I'm not convinced that I would have been keen to pay for anything upfront without knowing what was on offer. I think having new people inducted regularly keeps things fresh, adds new perspectives and basically enriches the community - so how to keep the forum membership evolving and growing under a pay wall model?

Embrace other social media to promote the product perhaps? There is a lot of potential reach through apps like Instagram and TikTok. Having a presence on these that somehow showcase the forum could help encourage new membership?

A free "7-day introductory period" to see what this site offers before you are committed to pay? This sort of thing, to me anyway, sends the message that you are confident in the quality and value of what there is available and think that it is worth the "buy" after you "try".

I guess this whole situation is the result of what a world with developing AI can give us, definitely a double-edged sword.
Good luck and all the best reaching a resolution, I'm sure the current members here will support whatever direction you choose to take @Bonsai Nut ... it's quite clear you spend large amounts of time and effort keeping things running. It's much appreciated!!

 

[JeffS73]

For me, the ideal B'Nut site would be open access and supported by its community, which is what was happening with Google ads before, we just weren't aware we were generating revenue.

Of course, we don't know how much you need to raise per annum, but as a long time member, I would contribute via pledge drives etc.

I would also pay to advertise on the site for my small bonsai pot biz. Some kind of equitable fee that supported the site and small bonsai businesses and events would be win win? Most ads I see on the site are irrelevant so I don't click.