Personally, as someone who has enough trouble paying his bills, I would be a little saddened for this place to cost money.
Not to call you out for your financial difficulty, Mikey, but just to say that this, in fact, would be the attitude of any newcomer to the forum. In order to drive a conversion to start more $$ coming into the biz, shutting the forum off from consumers is not the way (in my experience).
I think i've voiced this opinion on this forum before, but just to reiterate, instead of making newcomers pay for what is most certainly the best attractor of new customers, it would be better to have other perks for subscribers (to the mag or the premium forum, whatever the case may be). This could be discounts on PB merchandise, access to the premium section, etc.
Making people pay to see or post in the forum I think would be a mistake in the long term. While some may still sign up, and certainly any lurkers who are that interested would initially convert, the rate of conversions from visits will drop drastically after short time. I'm not saying it still wouldn't be profitable, Just that there may be a more profitable path than a pay to post forum. At the very least, a pay to post, but free to read, with a blocked "premium" section that the average lurker cannot get into would be the most drastic change that would be effective (If the powers that be are insistent on blocking parts of the forum). The more that is free to access for the customer the better.
Trying to help with 7.5 Acres in the Chain of Lakes Illinois - - The fish would stay out of trouble if it could just keep its fool mouth shut. Turns out there is a lot I should be learning from the fish.
