Will you all be paying for Mumsnet Premium?

[WorraLiberty]

I'm not sure yet but I'll probably pay for a month and then see what other features they bring in.

Thread by Justine incase you haven't seen it

YABU = No

YANBU = Yes, I might give it a try

I won't be paying. There are hospices on the brink of closure due to the fall in donations and income. I'd prioritise charitable donations at this point, sorry.

Reducing office costs seems the most logical step for an online company.

@PleaseStopCrying *Also, I would be very reluctant to hand over bank details given the whole debacle of the intern who betrayed everybody's trust and essentially got off scott free.

I have to say im suprised to see so many unquestionably handing over such details given the past breeches*

They're using a Sagepay service which encrypts the card details

Oh goodness, there's so many on here that have a superiority complex as it is.
Give them the 'power' of being a fully paid up member and it won't even be worth posting anymore.

Not only that but £4.99 a month for an edit button (which people have asked for for years!) and no ads is hideously expensive when, as PP say, we provide the content.
I count on one hand how many times I've used the website.
It seems really underhand.

Their money is made from advertising. If the advertising dries up then there won't be much money coming in to pay for everything else. It's that simple. Im sure they wouldn't be asking unless they felt it necessary. People have a choice to then go ahead and pay or not.

@drunkyhumptydumpty It's not, it's £4.99

@HavenDilemma £5 a month and you will get less ads. That alone is erroneous less ads could mean one less.
Adblock is free for users, there are paid versions. I have no ads.

Then there’s the constant issues with search engines and this place. Google wouldn’t work for about 6 weeks last year. Hq blamed it on a change google made. But every other forum didn’t have these issues.

And those wondering about if they work out how to block adblockers. There are several work arounds and very easy to find.

I will not pay for a platform that ignores bullying and unkindness to people like Meghan, Harry , Victoria Beckham, Katie Price, Diane Abbott, Theresa May etc

Charging people to subscribe to a service which is made up of their own content is outrageous.

For this point alone I would not pay.

I found this interesting on the other thread

thegcatsmother asked

What happens when the need for financial support from members stops? When the pandemic has hopefully died down and advertisers are back to their normal spend, will the 'Premium' service be suspended? I would subscribe on that basis.

Justine said..

No the idea is to keep it, as said, we're hoping to roll out features and offers that will mean that folks will actively want to subscribe to Premium irrespective of the economic climate and Mumsnet's financial health because they'll see the value in it.

So just good timing to roll out paid for site then..

They're using a Sagepay service which encrypts the card details

Yes but somewhere there will still be a list which links bank accounts with user names. Given past breaches Unsurprisingly many are reluctant to have this link.

Additionally Mumsnet themselves have said that the charge will be shown as 'mumsnet' on bank statements. Perfect ammo blokes to use against those poor women looking for advice on leaving abusing relationships.

Nah. Don’t get me wrong, if people are working here and this is their job then fair enough, we all want to put foot on our table.
But to be honest it is mostly a pass time for me and I could do with less screen time so probably doing me a favour.
There will be other free sites anyway

@HavenDilemma sorry what was that in reply to? It's hard to see now the filter button has mysteriously been removed.

Happy to pay.

Will pay monthly. MN has been a huge source of info, humour and company to me. £4.99 is cheap at the price

This has been a really interesting read in reminding me of a few things.

First, how MN failed to invest in some serious security and allowed themselves to be vulnerable to hackers. It was a fucking pain in the arse, I had to create new email accounts, change all my passwords and had an onslaught of unsolicited communications for ages thereafter.

And while anyone can make a mistake, it was their attitude that pissed me off big time; MNHQ were joking about it and treating it as if they’d ooops been naughty schoolgirls rather than having a major security breach.

As for the monthly costs for moderating the forum- that’s crazy money particularly given the inconsistencies in his threads and posters are treated.

Smacks to me of MNHQ wanting it every which ways. They seem to be a bunch of privileged yummy mummies who got lucky with finding a formula which captured the zeitgeist and made them a ton of dosh. Things aren’t quite so rosy now and they want us to jump to their tune and start paying

Finally - as many others have said I find probably 95% of the time it’s a massive time waster particularly now I’m working from home! The occasional useful piece of information or advice crops up but it’s mainly just a way of avoiding work.

@PleaseStopCrying Stripe is a very long-standing payment processing company which I believe are/were part of VISA

They're using a Sagepay service which encrypts the card details

According to the thread from MNHQ they're using Stripe, which is a similar service. Stripe holds the card details, which are encrypted and all the merchant sees is the last four digits of the card number.

I think it's worth it and have signed up. What makes MN different from the troll infested cesspools like Reddit and Twitter is that it's moderated, and quite responsively. That's worth a lot and costs money to provide.

Can you imagine PAYING for the privilege of being called a Tory cunt, or for someone to say they hope you get coronavirus?

Er, no thanks.

They'll always be people willing to be suckered into paying...I'm not one of them.

How much has she got in the bank? I sure a payment holiday isn't going to hit her as hard as the majority of the country.

And 350k pm on staff is just fucking ridiculous. But let's all cry for them in these tough times and get our purses out.

Jesus fucking christ.

I bet no breakdown of where that 350j is going has been or will be provided. I bet most of it is dividends.

It won't last. Asking people to pay for forums made of their own content (threads) and nothing else but adverts (and it's only less ads not all removed) is the first step in a slippery slope to disappearing. The fact is a lot of ads I see are scams anyway (and no not from my search history!) combined with a huge amount of covid-19 threads which can get borderline abusive towards posters - and I suspect that is why MN have seen such a large loss in revenue, people don't need that right now.

If they think they have a lot of complaints now that'll shoot up the moment people pay. Users will want a lot more than a few less ads and edit button.

Not that anyone is wondering or gives a shit but no I won't pay.

No. I waste too much time here and when I've weaned myself off it I always swear I won't log in again.

I think as long as you can still read the forum (even if you cannot reply) it will suffice for a lot of people. If they went further and wanted to charge for being able to access it at all that might be different, but then some bright spark would set up an alternative, free.

Reddit is not troll infested. The forums I am in are heavily moderated and have much less trolls than here. Try disobeying even a minor rules on the reddit history forum and you get a week ban. No piss trolls.

Not a hope. MN is what I do for me because it's free, it's the only thing I do for me as I spend any other 'spare' money on my DCs. I won't take from them to have something for myself.

Definitely fewer ads, not ad-free www.mumsnet.com/service/premium?utm_source=thread They say "access to our site but with the added bonus of fewer ads. Premium members won’t see any banner ads"

And I hope @CheriLittlebottom won't mind me quoting them from another thread about this, I thought they summed it up nicely:

Pay £50 a year to be told I have to call a person with a penis "her"? That a man's feelings about being a woman are more important than a) reality and b) my feelings about what it is to be a woman, despite my actually being a woman?

No fucking chance.

Nope.

That’s a ridiculous price for a site with very limited functionality, and poor moderation.