To not ‘pay my way’?

[LeLavandou]

By not paying for Mumsnet Premium and using an ad blocker. Is that ‘not paying my way’ as Justine Roberts suggested on the MN premium thread in Site Stuff?
Does this make me a freeloader, if I still use MN and just block the ads? Given I only use the talk boards where content is produced by users, where does this stand in the MN freeloader stakes?

I won't be paying for premium. A forum i used years ago had ads, and there was an ad-free option. It cost £10. That was it. Granted, it was about 10 years ago, but allowing for inflation, I'd probably have chucked £20 at MN to remove all ads and make the page load quicker, in recognition of the support I've gained over the years.

But £50 a year for nothing, except creating a two-tier membership "you cant say that to me, I'm a Premium member" etc, doesn't sit well.

Plus i don't want my bank account details tied to my email on here, they've shown not to be reliable with data management.

On the other hand, i think Justine was wrong to quote a £350k staff bill thinking it would get sympathy. However, £350k doesn't mean wages, it could also cover MN pension contributions, NI contributions. However, I've had to take a pay cut for the next few months because my company needs to reducd costs as well, plus a lot of staff are already furloughed - if she'd said she'd exhausted all areas of reducing costs and increasing revenue already and still needed help, I think the response may have been a little kinder.

Running a business in the good times is easy, but even a small amount of business acumen would tell you that if you're extravagant and take out to much when things are good you'll have no cushion for when they're not. For such a large cash alternative business to be in trouble 2 weeks into lockdown is shocking. Too much of MN has been about ego.

I've been here on and off for 15 years. It was excellent at it's peak but it's been past that and not developing for a long time now, whilst still (apparently) increasing outgoings.

Cash generative....

It's not 100 staff members for just a forum. It's a brand as well. It does more than just the forum.... Even if that's what most people recognise it for.

Agree that it’s the chat that draws me in and interests me. Even over the years of getting pregnant, having younger then older children the other stuff such as product reviews, information articles or.... I actually don’t know what else there is 😂
But the other stuff like blogs and stuff has not interested me at all.
Am always confused when I go to the main site and it’s not straight to talk. As that IS Mumsnet to me and I suspect many others. So agree that it could all be streamlined

It does more than just the forum

What, though? And why should forum users be the ones to pay for the other stuff?

Advertising allows for a free internet.

At the very least, white list the sites you want to help support. Up until recently I imagine MN was a completely ad funded business.

If youre happy in the long run to have to pay for all content on the internet, then by all means, keep ad blocking.

I'm the COO of a SAAS site. That wage bill is simply staggering for such a mediocre site, whether you include pensions or not.

In fact, at the point I took over, I had a lot of dead wood to cut in a much smaller operation. Still cutting through it in fact.

The fact that Justine thinks that "maybe a fifteen second" edit window would be an adequate feature addition tells me everything I need to know about her decision making. In fact, it reminds me a lot of one of our out of date techies who relies heavily on successes ten years out of date.

Calling the very people who create the main content of your site 'freeloaders' says everything about Justine's attitude towards us as users. I certainly won't be paying. Especially with the inconsistency over which posters are allowed to spout bile and which ones get deleted. It seems to thrive on it's unpleasant reputation at times and MNHQ do nothing about it except pop up with a 'peace and love' message.

It does more than just the forum

I suspect that’s what management think. But to what extent is it actually true? How much traffic does the non forum bits get? How much traffic would they get if the forum didn’t exist?

I never go anywhere near that stuff and find the MN generated content unremarkable. I suspect I’m not alone in that.

well, I have been on mn for 17 years.

I have neevr paid anything.

My computer has an ad blocker, so I guess I don't get ads, but I get plenty down the sidebar.

Those of you wondering about the financials, go onto Companies House and have a poke round there.
You can search by Company or by Name.

And there's information on Reddit and mums chat

Some great ideas on here that would have cost a fortune to bring in a Consultant to point out. If MN look at all the discussion on their site, they have their answers. How many sites of this nature succed with premium charging? I don't know, but none spring to mind. Why should this site break the trend? Not seeing anything in the product that indicates it will. Not being able to edit a post is beyond crazy for a site of this profile and their data protection needs to be sold as safe now, not just brushed under the carpet. These are real issues. Plenty of profit made in years gone by but very little investment in the main aspects underpinning of the business model. Most forum users are pretty promiscuous and will switch before having to pay. The revealing of 350K wages and a reliance on a customer loyalty to pay for a crap product not even developed, was a strategic error, showing poor leadership and decision making. This is a typical business dominated by it's founder that has evolved to need new leadership and will fail if it doesn't. The question is will She see it before it is too late. Don't hold your breath.

£50 a year? That’s about 70% of what I pay for Netflix for which I don’t generate content or have to watch any ads.

Where was this figure plucked from?

And totally agree about two tier implications. Bun fight between 2 posters, who shall we delete/ban/have stern words with? Will it be the one who pays?

I haven’t looked at the financials (and neither am I likely to care enough to) but it seems remarkable how little of the revenue was ploughed back into the business to either improve the user experience or save for a rainy day.

Exactly
Buying out equity to maximize share dividend profit to a select few seems to have been a recent strategy. Investment in the functionality seems to be low down.

There will certainly be a two tier society created. It is happening already.
For two months now, a number of us have been reporting issues with being thrown into random threads. We have been patted on the head, assured that the 'techs' are looking into it and nothing changes.
Doubt they have even taken the time to look at it tbh.
To ask the people who actually generate the income that enables Justine to pay such fabulous wages to then pay for the privilege is pure comedy gold.
Someone said on a recent post that there is a collaboration between certain newspapers and MN, which is why the most 'outing' posts are so easily picked up - if this is true, then it just makes the plea of poverty so much worse.
I like Mumsnet. I dont post much, but I do enjoy reading lots of different threads, different points of view, and have learned a lot from some very clever posters.
I feel really uncomfortable being smacked in the face with a big yellow sticker asking for money every time I visit.
Uncomfortable enough to leave? Yes. Probably. I will miss it, but really resnt being made to feel like a freeloader.

i use an adblocker on my phone and my ipad. the idea of clicking on ads to ‘help mumsnet’ shows some naïveté about how your site movements are then tracked and your data harvested, but each to their own.

so far as i can tell, the premium Feature, for just £50 a year, is fewer ads. not NO ads, not additional content, or any change to the user experience. just ‘fewer ads’.

if i walked up and down outside your house for 6 months with a large sign advertising kitchens, then knocked on your door and asked for £50 to go away, i highly doubt i’d make much money. the same principle applies here.

and all the touted millions of unique visitors and page views per month mean absolutely nothing. if even 10% of those then generated revenue from click-through advertising this site wouldn’t be drifting up shit creek towards a roaring waterfall of shit, with nary a paddle to its name.

Honestly I like the forum enough to be on it, but it's the users, not the host, that makes the experience for me.

I had a browse through employees on LinkedIn and the amount of managers or heads of department was staggering for a workforce of 100. I think there is financial mismanagement as the overheads should be low, and could be a lot lower, were it not for the desire to paint a certain image (going by the job titles and things like the office address etc).

I won't be handing over my financial details to a multi millionaire to enable them to keep the lights on, most certainly not one who has shown very little regard for safeguarding personal information previously.

I think anybody who pays for a service you get for free is either a bit dim or trying a bit too hard to be woke. Either way I don't see 10% of registered users being in that bracket.

And as for the spirit of mumsnet, I'm sure I read that Justine used to troll the boards herself to create the illusion of activity back in the day, which I think says it all really.

It's very well known there are journalists on here.

All members can elect to have daily emails about the most popular threads that day/week.

People have been left very distressed at finding information passed on in this way.

Example, the woman whose son died and she couldn't get over it - that was on MN emails for days and ended up being picked up and sold on, complete with his picture and then consequently linked to her Facebook profile and, real name and other details as well. MN was mentioned every time it was discussed by anyone. His picture in papers/on tv for that mother who was already extremely distressed to see and not only that but for everyone to know she wasn't coping. It wasn't a good idea for her to post pictures but, it was abundantly clear she was in very poor mental health as a result of his death but she was thrown to the wolves, her thread should NEVER have been on any email directing people to gawp at her distress. Of course it would be picked up. It took ages before any kind of support was offered to her.

I wouldn't pay for this site, it's very basic. I use an adblock, but I wouldn't click on any of the ads anyway, so I don't see how it's a bad thing.