To think most of you don’t know Mumsnet are now requiring acceptance of cookie tracking or payment to use the site?

[OldChairMan]

… as MN have only posted in Site Stuff:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5268190-introducing-pay-or-consent-on-mumsnet?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Many will click on “Read for free” without realising that this is a change in the site’s terms.

“Hello everyone.

We wanted to give you a heads-up about a change in the way we deal with cookie consent. We are introducing a Pay or Consent model, giving you two different options to continue accessing the site:

• Continue for free with cookies and ads: this is the option that most people have enabled already.
• Subscribe to Mumsnet Premium: For those who prefer an ad-free experience with no cookies/tracking for ad purposes - Besides ad-free you’ll also get first access to our product tests plus all revenues from Premium are put towards our campaigning work

Why are we making this change?

The pay or consent model is becoming increasingly common across online platforms as publishers adapt to changes in advertising levels and data privacy regulations. Like many other publishers, we relied on advertising to generate income but changes in tracking regulation and the growing use of ad blockers have made this model less viable.

We know that Mumsnet is an essential space for many - a place to seek advice, find support, and connect with your fellow Mumsnetters. That’s why we’re committed to ensuring that the site remains free at the point of use for anyone who needs it but it’s not fair that those who install ad blockers or rejected cookies are piggy backing on the back of other users who haven’t.

At the same time as introducing this, we’re going to reduce the price of Mumsnet Premium to £2.99 a month because we want to be fair to those who’d rather not accept advertising cookies. This is less than the cost of a flat white a month from most decent coffee shops and we very much hope you think Mumsnet’s worth it! Nb anyone who’s signed up to Mumsnet Premium already at the previous price (£4.99 per month) will have their payments reduced within the next week or so.

We’ll be here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, as always, for supporting Mumsnet.”

This is so disingenuous.

MN has made its reputation on being a supportive community with women at its heart. That’s what it trades on, how it sells itself to advertisers and the image it has carefully cultivated.

So yes, many users feel part of a community or club or whatever - so to have that sense of being valued undermined by the people in charge may well upset some - and there’s nothing wrong with that.

MN have broken the tacit understanding that the forum users are valued members of the community it is selling by suggesting they are freeloaders.

And it’s also worth noting that the user content here also generate significant revenue for the tabloids who MN either sell the content to or enable to upload it.

There is clearly some influence somewhere in terms of what content the tabloids publish, because you never see threads criticising MN or its policies etc appearing in the tabloids, only what they might consider print-worthy, which seems a fairly good indication that someone somewhere alerts them to a good thread for publishing.

How does all this fit with the unpaid overnight mods MN relies on to deal with (amongst other things) CSA images?

Increased regulation is long overdue.

Apologies if it has been mentioned before but couldn't see it. What does 'sell our data' actually mean? And how does it effect us?

No need to make up numbers - it cost MN £2million less to run than it made in the latest published tax year.

I don’t think most people are bothered about the ads - it’s the cookies.

They are already using the site to obtain advertising revenue. Why should they also have the information about how I use the internet?

Isn't the point that tracking cookies help target the advertising?
So either adverts tracked to you, or pay.

Making a profit isn't inherently evil, but the point I was making is that forums are not free and revenue is required to keep them going, as opposed to the post I was originally responding to which stated that requiring money (in some form) for "basic forum functionality" is somehow wrong.

Ads come with cookies these days, that's just an unavoidable fact. One interesting thing, though...I've run some experiments locally, and it seems that services like AdSense actually don't run out of ads to show you if the third-party cookies are cleared on a regular basis (like, every half hour or so), which - for forums - would actually increase the revenue as well as helping with privacy issues. Hell, if the browser simply accepted cookies and cleared them on every request (but not the one that holds the "I've accepted cookies" flag), it would probably be the perfect balance of privacy and revenue gathering for both users and the forum owners.

I agree that they should be paid but again, they're not forced to volunteer. Whoever is doing the moderation should have all of the functions/facilities that they need - and access to a senior person (immediately) should something go wrong.

The ongoing whinging of paid/unpaid is distracting. If they are volunteers, they needn't be, clue is in the name. Not my business. The forced acceptance of cookies is the main thing for me.

But they've said what they've said. I don't disagree with any of your post but what are posters going to do about it other than be disappointed? Even if some backtracking was done I would think it wouldn't be really meant.

I like posting here but it's not a community for me. I'm sorry for the people for whom it is and I don't know what can be done about that?

People would have objected to this policy regardless of when it had been announced, but so soon after Sunday’s events was only ever going to provoke criticism

Accurately put, @TheNavyMember; the optics are terrible and I honestly believe a lot of the slating's coming from those who thought they were valued and didn't quite appreciate it's just a business where the "care" will depend almost entirely on the bottom line

I’d go a bit further than that. It’s one thing to realise you are not valued, which would have been the effect of simply announcing that anyone who used the site without ads was no longer allowed to do so. But the extra sticking in of the knife via the accusations of “piggybacking” and “unfairness” seems childish and unprofessional and (for me certainly) came out of the blue with no previous suggestion that the MNHQ have long been viewing a large proportion of its users as piss-takers.

I would contrast this, for example, to the Guardian, to which I do subscribe voluntarily, or Wikipedia. Every now and again you’ll see a reasoned appeal asking those who use the site for free to start paying. Facts laid out, polite request made.

Or the other approach is to put in place a full paywall and software that stops ad-blocker users from accessing the site. Again, fair enough. A simple statement that these are the conditions of use.

But to allow access in one way and then lay into people who use the site like that, what on earth is the point of getting people’s backs up?

I did wonder last night if it was perhaps an attempt to capture the MN zeitgeist- the site is now so famous for people laying into each other harshly on AIBU, maybe MNHQ thought that was the way to go to appeal to the sort of contributors they want?

Consider it from a slightly different perspective.

Of the total number of active members on the site, a very small percentage will be the high-maintenance ones who cost the most, both in terms of site reputation and through action which must be taken (either through demands or causing the issues in the first place). The crossover between those people and the ones who bitterly complain about this sort of thing is, usually, quite significant.

If they get the hump and leave because of this, it's actually a net win for the forum in general.

If they don't, then nothing's really changed.

If this kind of action results in a few tens of people subscribing, also net win.

If a few other people leave after considering their options...it will barely make a difference to the overall membership.

On balance, the effects of mildly aggressive/insulting communications like this are relatively positive on average.

I've done it myself on occasion, and this is exactly how it's always worked out.

Yes, but they get paid by the company advertising with them. Why should they ALSO get my data, to make their platform more valuable to advertiser?

Sorry, I’m afraid your explanation there was a bit difficult for me to follow, can I check I have understood you correctly.?

In a nutshell, you’re saying that being rude to a large number of users is a calculated risk taken in order to divest yourself of “problem” users, who may or may not be a subset of the larger group you’ve chosen to insult?

And loss of goodwill with the non-problem users is just collateral damage. Most won’t leave and you won’t notice the ones who do?

That was to @ntmdino. To whom I would reiterate- I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with the change in policy. Only the way it was communicated. Whereas you appear to refer to people who “complain bitterly about this sort of thing” meaning those complaining about the policy change.

Presumably though advertisers pay more for targeted ads? It is better to eg advertise penguin bollards to those who have showed an interest than to all and sundry?

In a nutshell, yes.

The vast majority of members of a forum tend not to give a damn about the management; they're more concerned with the way they use the forum and the people they interact with. Loss of goodwill is, in the grand scheme of things, irrelevant - especially if they're not paying members, because there are many more of those. If any of them leave, it'll be little more than a rounding error relative to normal member churn anyway.

When you're talking about a couple of thousand active users on a site, a few people leaving is minor but noteworthy. When you're talking about a few million, the truth - however unpalatable it is to the individual - is that none of them really matter and there will be more along shortly to replace them.

OK, but can you explain again exactly what the intended effect was of the insulting communication? Why do you think it was worth them saying it?

#1 - Nudge some people into subscribing
#2 - Get rid of the high-maintenance habitual complainers

But it has neither of those effects.

Insulting people won’t make them subscribe. Whereas some who might have subscribed if asked nicely will now choose not to.

And the habitual complainers have been complaining for years without leaving, this isn’t going to get rid of them. (Forcing them to subscribe might, but the new policy is doing that anyway, no need for insult).

My experience, and the experience of all the forum owners I regularly speak to, is that it actually has both of those effects.

It's a well-known tactic, and it never has a lasting negative effect.

Being liked is not a requirement, or sometimes even desirable, in a forum manager.

Of course, the really funny part is that it usually drives significant traffic, which itself increases revenue on a site with ads.

Can you give an example of a similar communication which has had this successful effect?

I won't, because the only examples I have to hand are ones which would be outing as to who I am, and I don't particularly want anyone to make the link between my account on this site and my site.

I’m really struggling to understand the psychology of an insult being a nudge. It sounds dangerously like domestic abuser logic to me.

Great. Forgive me then if I continue to be more convinced by the approach taken by reputable sites such as the Guardian then.