Unfortunately, from the information provided concerning the working model of the enterprise in this thread, and the history of BPL, I think this site will be members only in the very near future, for all content. How long it can survive like that on the internet, I hesitate to guess.
As a small, exclusive 'community' I can see membership increasing in cost for those who joined up for life, for diminishing return, unless major changes take place and some vision is shown. Despite the best intentions of all concerned, the rather amateur (and I mean this is in the original complimentery definition rather than the modern derrogatory definition) approach has led to fund raising through 'life' membership, diminished content, and more exclusivity. It isn't working.
I have been here for a few years and seen the decline, and it does make me sad, but I congratulate those involved for creating something that was great for a while, but has lost its way, for me.
The internet is not a French café. There is no real estate, the costs and techical aspects of running a site have been discussed elsewhere, but the business model seems to be being made up as it goes along with all the best intentions in the world, and is doomed to fail without proper management and investment and a clear plan. There are internet sites that are free, function well and provide a service and a living for all concerned, and. Most importantly attract new visitors who stay, but this is a full time job, not something everybody does after work for nothing.
Nothing I have read or seen offered on the site in the last few years motivates me to join as a paying memeber, and I feel I have something to contribute, rather than donate charity to a floundering concern in the hope it might survive.
The truth is hard to see from within.
Fred

I'd make them clicky but oh right.. you can't.

Since when? There are numerous threads detailing how to put links in a post.

LOL

I love BPL and will continue to support it with my membership. There are some great people involved and I have a lot of respect for Ryan. However, marketing and customer service don't seem to me one of BPL's strengths or focuses. This has some upsides and some downsides.

Jake - As near as I can tell the only items you have ever posted for sale on BPL are bike parts. I'm lost on why you are so intensively argumentative when you clearly don't have any vested interest in the site as a seller.

It isn't the gear forum i really care about. It is the fact that there are much better ways and they are doing it wrong.

there are plenty of people in this thread and the original one that have a more vested interest in selling gear.

I have liked skimming the normal forum topics but the site interface is extremely tiring and it is not worth dealing with anymore. Trying to track topics that have their titles changed every post, no "quote" function, limited clickable links, etc is just ridiculous with the forum software that is out there.

i'm done though, when the owner won't step into a discussion after it has been done in 2 threads for over 13 pages then it is no longer worth talking about. It is clear that things are not up for discussion and having a circular debate is boring.

I will most likely leave as Richard Scruggs and David Ure would like me to do. so adios.

Edited by JakeDatc on 12/16/2011 14:51:24 MST.

is likely a busy guy with a real world job ...

or he may be having fun outdoors IMO ...

expecting him to answer directly to a thread less than a day old is not reasonable ...

this type of "demands" just goes to show why some people just wont be happy with anything ...

Yawn.

"I will most likely leave as Richard Scruggs and David Ure would like me to do. so adios."

Ouch. You make me sound like a bully. What I said was, and I quote,"I think the moral of the story is....sell your gear on Mtn Project."

Your response implies that you indeed only want to use BPL to sell gear and have little interest in discussing lightweight backpacking. Shame, really.

There's lots of wisdom in Fred's two postings.

And re: make them clicky. Too funny. Where is that buried thread in one of the endless forums that I can't find with the broken search function about how to manually insert HTML code around my URL to make it clickable?

Edited by DaveT on 12/16/2011 15:26:02 MST.

I've only been a member for a little while so I can't comment on BPL's trajectory, but so far it's been the best $25 I've spent all year, and it's not even close.

The business model is simple.

This is the best site for backpacking information on the internet, and the staff wants you to pay 2 dollars a month to help keep it going. It doesn't get any more straight forward than that.

I'm fine with the Gear Swap decision. Keep up the good work!

Edited by WebsterJ on 12/16/2011 16:04:40 MST.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=13314&skip_to_post=97772#97772

Maybe the question should be:

What would need to change at BPL in terms of content/value offered that would give you a compelling reason to sign up for a membership?

We can talk til we are blue in the face about the merits of what should be free and what should be available to members, but the fact is that maybe there is something lacking on BPL that does not give people a reason to join up and part with their hard earned money?

Charity to BPL is not a good business model.

Yes, I support BPL and am happy to give my money for MLIFE or even to continue paying yearly....but for BPL to survive long term and to offer people a gathering place to share ideas and learn, there has to be a way to bring in money to pay the bills and to provide the people running this site a financial reason to want to continue to invest time and money into the sight.

I think that it would be difficult to say that it would be unreasonable for Ryan Jordan to expect to earn a living for his family, himself, and his staff/volunteer in return for their efforts to keep this sight going.

There is nothing wrong with making money and having a website with that goal in mind.

Like any business....if BPL can not offer something of value where people will pay for a membership or find alternative funding by adversing, then it will die and we will all be poorer for it.

Again....question is....what does BPL need to offer that would cause the non members to part with their hard earned money to buy a membership?

-Tony

deleted cuz some of my comments were wrong..lol.

Edited by jshann on 12/16/2011 20:34:37 MST.

"Tony, nothing."

But that still doesn't answer Tony's question, John. What would it take for you to pony up $24.95 to support BPL?

"The BPL forums are offered to users free of charge."

Users. That sums it up

Hosting costs - yep, you can start a site and forum for maybe $100 a year IF you have a small amount of traffic.

My own personal site runs me $20/yr for the domain (.me) + $100/yr for hosting but I have a small following. My current hosting package would not allow for 15+ million page views a month and the provider would cancel my account or force me to move to a dedicated server. Those start @ $175/mo and still wouldn't provide enough bandwith to support a site like this. I'm not sure what the additional bandwith would run me.

I have avoided weighing in on this but could no longer resist. I was a member until about a year ago but frankly the membership got me nothing other than the ability to place an early order on my BPL cuben tarp. I thought that the articles would be worth the money but I found that them of marginal value.

I suspect BPL, much like Netflix is between a rock and hard place. Lifetime memberships provided one-time money, especially when it first started, but will ultimately if successful cut into annual revenues. Pull more forum elements into the member area and you take the chance of gaining new folks into community but risk a much smaller total community.

What would it take to have me rejoin? One, increase the value. That may be one of two ways. The most obvious would be more articles etc. Second would be to make access to all the forums restricted to members. I enjoy the forum community and this is one of the few internet communities that I visit so I may choose to join in order to not lose it. But would the community stay the same if it went all paid?

I actually thnk a better answer may be found in paid advertising on site or other revenue generating means. Finally, BPL is very fortunate to be receiving priceless consumer feedback on their product/business. Hopefully a happy, long term sustainable solution will be found.

I agree with Greg. In fact I wouldn't have a membership except some kind soul 'gifted' it to me. A very kind gesture and I will try and make full use of it but I really don't think I will. :/

As for Richard Scruggs and David Ure, both of you told Jake to 'either get a membership like us or go way' in so many words. Neither of you have contributed as much great content to this site as many of the non-members you want gone. If that's not acting like an elitist bully hiding behind a MLIFE tag then I don't know what is.

Because of their actions regarding this topic I have lost all respect for both Richard Scruggs and David Ure.

Chad Miller - you interpret things like my 9 year old.

Quote me where I told Jake to go 'either get a membership or way.' The rule is that if you want to sell gear on these forums you must be a member. Either you and the OP have reading comprehension issues or you are being purposefully obtuse. I vote for the latter.

Since you are not going to use the membership that was kindly given to you, maybe you want to see if you can transfer it to the OP to sell some gear.

"If that's not acting like an elitist bully hiding behind a MLIFE tag then I don't know what is." Wow. I sense abandonment issues.

I've learned countless bits of useful -- even necessary -- information from guys like David Ure, and made big purchases based on their input into the threads here. The experience and wisdom offered by the other members on BPL is the gold standard. While I get a lot of great info from the non-members who post here as well, I can't help but respect those who add a bit of money to the cause via membership just because the cause is a good one, and not because they are counting the cents and demanding where the nebulous, self-centered "value" is coming from.

Ken wrote:
"Users. That sums it up."

Ken, Do you know what purpose advertisements serve on a website, or how ad revenue is directly related to site traffic? The mere fact that users are visiting a web page and loading the advertisements can earn the admin money. Why do you think Facebook (a free website) is considering a $10 billion IPO?

Not to imply that BPL has the kind of traffic to earn back 100% of operating costs through ad revenue, or that people want to see lots of ads here, but I keep hearing this statement that BPL depends on subscriptions to stay online and I don't think that's true.