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[JustineMumsnet]

Hi folks,

First and most importantly, I hope you and yours are safe and well, and that you all stay that way.

After 20 years of unreasonableness, rofls, wtfs, advice and support, and the odd lawsuit, it's fair to say that we are as close as we’ve ever been to existential difficulty.

Like many ad-funded businesses, the COVID-19 crisis has seen us take a big hit to our revenues. The businesses who would normally pay to advertise with us are slashing their marketing budgets, but lots of our outgoings are fixed and we so need to find new ways to keep paying the bills.

We’re doing our darndest to find every single saving we can - lots of our staff have volunteered to reduce their hours, we’ve cancelled all non-essential services, I've taken a pay holiday and we will use every scheme and loan available to us from the government and the bank to help tide us over. But we still need to find alternative revenue streams to ensure we don’t run out of funds in a few months...

To put it frankly, it’s squeaky bum time.

I know this is a very tough time for many of you and some of you are only just keeping the lights on yourselves. We’re sending you our solidarity and we most certainly don’t want anyone to stump up anything they can’t afford, but if you can help, please do subscribe now to our Premium service.

We’ve banged this out as fast as possible in response to the current crisis and it’s definitely not the finished article, but it’s free of banner advertising, so if you’ve ever been vexed by those (or use an ad-blocker) this might be right up your alley. Banner ads also tend to make pages render more slowly and take up bandwidth, so if you’re surrounded by bored kids streaming with their mates, step this way.

We’ve opted for a price point that we hope is doable for most and which covers the potential lost ad revenue for the majority of users. We hope £4.99 per month or £49.99 for a year (less than a pound a week!) feels a reasonable exchange for the value Mumsnet brings you, but in any case you can unsubscribe any time.

Over the next little while we’ll look to add some extra features: things that people have requested regularly like editing, sorting posts by the OP, and reading offline.

Rest assured we remain committed to always providing a free version of the site, as we fundamentally believe that access to the advice and support Mumsnet offers should not depend on your ability to pay.

And if you can’t spare any cash right now… then of course we get it. It would still be very helpful if you removed any ad blockers or clicked on affiliate links around the site when you shop, joined our insight panel or even shared the best Mumsnet threads on your social channels whenever you can - it all helps.

If you have any questions at all feel free to post them here and I'll get back to you. We also have a page of FAQs that might answer your question.

Hold tight everyone.

Love

Justine and the team at MNHQ

[category12]

I don't have a problem with people not getting a refund if they're banned - when you join you agree to abide by the rules of the site, if you break them and get ejected, you've broken your side of the agreement and forfeit your money.

[PleaseStopCrying]

I mean that if Mnhq need x amount to ‘keep the lights on’ and they don’t get it, well what happens next

Like I saod above I presume they keep the money and you have no comeback in getting it back as there is no buyer protection. It would be interesting to see their answer to this though as it's a very good question.

[MarshaBradyo]

Bring I mean that if Mnhq need x amount to ‘keep the lights on’ and they don’t get it, well what happens next

[LittleBearPad]

Well Justine has said if you get banned you don't get your money back. I would also imagine if the site were to close due to lack of funds you also wouldn't recieve a refund. Plus by using stripe I dont think, although I'm happy to be corrected, that the buyer (us) would have any protection should this happen unlike if they had used a site like paypal.

Never been banned in over 10 years - I’ll take my chances .

[SunshineCake]

Thank you both. I'm more confused as stuff I've read seem to be against women and then I'm confused when the transgender things come into too. I know this isn't the thread for it so if anyone wants to answer please feel free to link me a good thread to read. Years ago I did once post as I wasn't understanding something and I gave an example of something I was doing and was told obviously that was okay. I got about three answers .

[NotBadConsidering]

You know when threads from MN end up in the Daily Mail? Someone always comments “they should pay us for the story”. Well, people who have paid the subscription have now paid for their threads and posts to end up in the Daily Mail. Why would anyone do that?

[PleaseStopCrying]

Eh? This makes little sense.

Well Justine has said if you get banned you don't get your money back. I would also imagine if the site were to close due to lack of funds you also wouldn't recieve a refund. Plus by using stripe I dont think, although I'm happy to be corrected, that the buyer (us) would have any protection should this happen unlike if they had used a site like paypal.

[MamaMeeAh]

If you get banned you don’t get your money back. If MN goes under you are highly unlikely to get your money back. I think that’s the point?

[R0wantrees]

FWR: Feminism/ Women's rights chat board:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

The directors could take an 80% pay package cut for the foreseeable (and still be earning much more than the average person) - that would generate a decent amount short-term.

[Bringringbring12]

@MarshaBradyo

I’d do monthly payment though unless you’re ok with losing £50.

Can you clarify? As doesn’t make sense. If you’re talking about security then you either trust or don’t!

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

One thing that's come out of this thread is curiosity about what makes so many people hate Netmums so much! May finally get off my arse and investigate.

[YangShanPo]

Sunshine it's Feminism and Women's rights

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

Feminism/women's rights, Sunshine. Sorry for the acronym, I know they're annoying, I think people just get tired of typing the whole thing out.

[LittleBearPad]

I’d do monthly payment though unless you’re ok with losing £50.

Eh? This makes little sense.

The other option when I started using MN was Netmums shudder. I’ve given my £50 to MN Towers.

[TodaysNameChange]

Seems to be there have been a plethora of pretty decent suggestions here that could have been looked at before the begging bowl went out.

Speaks volumes.

[SunshineCake]

Honestly I have Google's but can't find what the heck FWR stands for. Please would someone tell me, thank you in advance.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

If FWR was subscription only and the ridiculous moderation rules were relaxed, I'd subscribe.

I wouldn't because, again, I don't know who the 5 employees with Stripe access are, what their political sympathies are, and whether or not they can be trusted to behave professionally. Clearly someone/s trusted Emma to behave professionally, and she did not, and that's before we get to the issue of why she had access to sensitive data in the first place. I have no idea whether or not the people who made both decisions (take on Emma thinking she was trustworthy, give interns access to sensitive data) are still at MNHQ and still in positions where their decisions could have dangerous consequences for some users. And the response to questions about all of this has been to minimize and deflect, both when the Emma situation first happened and now. Which is not very reassuring.

When users are saying "I'd like to give you my money but don't feel safe doing so" alleviating those concerns, fixing the issues that caused them, and making it clear that those issues have been fixed really ought to be a priority. MN has a very loyal userbase, but also an intelligent one that's likely to take security concerns seriously.

[MamaMeeAh]

It’s all a bit Philip Green .... sell a yacht

Quite

It’s a bit like Facebook asking you to pay to join when you know they flog your data for ads. Would you pay a fiver a month to do that?

[PleaseStopCrying]

MN has kept me entertained and sane during some difficult times for over 10 years.

Once again this is not thanks to MN it's thanks to the posters. If we had been on another forum we would probably have been equally entertained and supported. It's not exclusive to just this forum.

You don’t have to subscribe. It’s completely optional.

It might be completely optional but the pressure to help is clearly getting to some people. You only need to look at how many have felt the need to appologise because they cannot afford to help. The fact MNHQ have put people into a situation in the first place where they feel any guilt over not being able to do their bit is pretty shameful.

[Bouncingbomb]

Well clearly their crystal ball was broken in 2016.

We all know that pre tax profits are minimised - this business should not need a subscribtion to survive at this point..

But it does. Just like a lot of businesses who are inventing new ways to stay afloat at the moment. You don’t have to subscribe - it’s voluntary but if you can and want to, it will help MN’s cash flow through a difficult time

I am giving more to the food bank and helping my self employed friends. Wouldn’t dream of giving money to a business who has creamed off so much.

It’s all a bit Philip Green .... sell a yacht.

[drunkyhumptydumpty]

@YangShanPo The fact is it's not worth £5 per month. It' doesn't even work most of the time. Other forums have even come out and said how piss poor the functioning of the site is and yet they think they are in the monetary leagues of Disney+

[MarshaBradyo]

If people want to pay to post their own content obviously it’s up to them. I still find it crass as do others and a brand is what we think of it after all.

I’d do monthly payment though unless you’re ok with losing £50.

[MamaMeeAh]

I think it’s crass. But if people want to subscribe it’s entirely their choice, of course.

[LittleBearPad]

MNHQ are asking for cash from people, many of whom are on a fraction of what they take in. It’s crass. And to liken mn to a public service doubly so.

I don’t know - MN has kept me entertained and sane during some difficult times for over 10 years. Plus there’s a huge disparity in income levels on this site. You don’t have to subscribe. It’s completely optional.