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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

You're right we're keeping native ads - but we are not paid 6 figures for data by anyone and certainly not by Cadburys and Craft so that's just baloney.

Thank's I appreciate the answer

Reading some of these posts, most of them in fact, you would think we have a god given right to have this site.

If they want to charge, then by all means they can, but they should at least have the decency to be honest about the benefits of paying.

At the moment it's just "fewer ads".

Erm... Why do users think they own Mumsnet?! This is a business providing you a service which is free at your end. Now you're being offered a paid option. Take it or leave it. Why are people questioning Justine over profits and staff levels etc it's her business she can do what she wants. This is not a public service. Wtf

We don't have anything to do with payments - it's all handled by a third party (Stripe) so I really doubt MN will appear on any bank statements but I'll definitely check and come back to you.

It's hard to dismiss the impression it's amateur hour at MNHQ, if the answer to that question wasn't to hand, if not already posted as a reassurance ...

@comingintomyown
Reading some of these posts, most of them in fact, you would think we have a god given right to have this site. If I was Justine I would be thinking fuck it it’s going to a paid site end of story.

In the end, this is just another website / forum and there are plenty of other ones out there, where you dont have to pay

In this day and age to be offered something... that is such a mine of information and entertainment is amazing.

I appreciate they provide a platform for this, but MNHQ don't provide the majority of that information and entertainment, it's the users who do that.

Meh, I’m in. Less than a £ a week represents good value for me.

I’m assuming last year’s profit has had to go towards this year’s running costs, wage bills etc as the money from advertisers is just not there at present. Or in insufficient amounts.

So, what would I prefer? Pay £5 a month or lose MN? I’m happy to pay and think it’s a fabulous idea that those who can’t pay won’t have to.

@ChandlerIsTheBestFriend

It's the display (image based ads) that are going. They tend to be the banner across the top and a rectangle at the side of the page or at the bottom on mobile. They are generally the ones that take bandwidth to download. The text based native ads - usually promoting offers or Mumsnet's own content are still visible on Premium.

Thank you very much- very clear response.

No, no changes to advertising plans on Free version - at the moment btw there is already a 2-tiered approach - you'll see more ads if you're logged out than logged in.

Any changes at all to the free version? Aside from ads.

Yes lots - we've got tonnes of improvements we want to make but we need to re-platform first so it will take a few months (things like bookmarking). Also advanced search needs to be fixed pronto...

Why are people questioning Justine over profits and staff levels etc it's her business she can do what she wants. This is not a public service.

Because I think people have the right to know why they're pleading poverty, even though up until two months ago they could afford to spend 350k on wages alone.

Of course she can do what she wants, just as we can ask whatever questions we want.

Why do you say that FWR users need to ‘pay their way’ ? You could easily police language on the breastfeeding and blw threads on the grounds that it’s better for your advertisers if people use their products rather than BF or use home made food. But you’d never say that because that would be unethical. Whereas it’s fine to use your advertisers’ craven position on women telling the truth as a stick to beat FWR users? Not cool

This is an excellent point.

I am open to the idea of paying because I really appreciate how unique it is to have a place where females dominate.

But I echo PP concerns around personal details and what would happen if MN was compelled to hand them over by people wishing to sue, or even the police pursuing alleged "hate incidents".

The reason the "predominantly female" and anonymous aspects of MN are so important is precisely because of the inequality and harassment we face elsewhere. I would want to know exactly how MN planned to protect its users.

Hmmm, something to think about then. Thanks Justine for answering.

So, what would I prefer? Pay £5 a month or lose MN?

Is that really the choice though?

@JustineMumsnet is this this case? Do you need a certain number of posters to pay (you mentioned 10% earlier?) or you’ll have to shut down?

Yes lots - we've got tonnes of improvements we want to make but we need to re-platform first so it will take a few months (things like bookmarking). Also advanced search needs to be fixed pronto.

Brilliant! Thank you. Look forward to that.

We don't have access to any payment information - it's all handled by Stripe.

But, if a litigious boarding school, parenting guru or TRA wanted to sue a user, could you (MNHQ) be made to request their detaills from Stripe? Or could their lawyers go to Stripe directly?

Many of us have a throwaway email address specifically for MN after the doxxing incidents or after Hayden's demands that you hand over a user's information. So we would need to be 100% certain that our details couldn't be retrieved, either directly or indirectly, from Stripe, whether by legal means or otherwise.

@JustineMumsnet

[quote Buscake] For many women in difficult circumstances mumsnet is a lifeline. If you live with domestic abuse/financial abuse, having “mumsnet” appear on your bank statement would surely put you in a more vulnerable situation? This proposal marginalises those who need support, and risks making the vulnerable more vulnerable.

We don't have anything to do with payments - it's all handled by a third party (Stripe) so I really doubt MN will appear on any bank statements but I'll definitely check and come back to you.[/quote]

Ok so I've checked and whilst Stripe handles the payment, Mumsnet will appear on the bank statement - or there are issues with chargebacks as people don't remember what they've paid for. Thank you for raising this as it's clearly important and we'll include it in our FAQs. Please be assured there will always be a free version of Mumsnet available for you to access support.

we've got tonnes of improvements we want to make but we need to re-platform first so it will take a few months

Is the re-platforming the reason why you have brought this premium version in now - so you can pay for the replatforming?

Erm... Why do users think they own Mumsnet?! This is a business providing you a service which is free at your end. Now you're being offered a paid option. Take it or leave it.

Ok let’s deal with that.

Mumsnets service is the platform - the physical computing background and the software sitting on it which enable us all to talk together.

The talk, communication is provided by us. The content that makes the website worth visiting is us. The profiling info sold on is us literally.

This fundamental problem with the economics of how electronic data should work has never been solved except as hotch potch jury rigging. Justine is now proposing a very significant change to that rigging, a change in practice and theory.

We have the right to ask questions. In fact as usual we have the duty to ask questions about our economic and social order. Half this site is based on asking questions. I recognise many of the names on this thread as being the ones who will ask the interesting questions, time and again. The ones who make this site. It strikes me that it’s going to be a typical boring style and beauty site I’d we all pick up and go.

What do you mean that FWR posters need to pay their way? How utterly offensive! FWR posters generate huge amounts of traffic and huge publicity. For every grumpy TRA and misogynist complaining about uppity women on MN, how many new members join? How many newspaper articles, online and RL, are published mentioning MumsNet?

“ Many of us have a throwaway email address specifically for MN after the doxxing incidents or after Hayden's demands that you hand over a user's information.“

This.

But I echo PP concerns around personal details and what would happen if MN was compelled to hand them over by people wishing to sue, or even the police pursuing alleged "hate incidents".

That's already happened, to a lesser extent. At least one thread I was on a while back was shut down after legal action was threatened. MNHQ contacted everyone on the thread and said that for the thread to stay up, they'd have to pass on contact details for every poster on the thread. It was someone well known to be very litigious ...

Quite so Irial so people can make their choice and were MN to become a fully payable site they can decide if they want to subscribe or not.
Currently it is an option so people can still be on this site without paying a penny so those posters huffing and puffing about edit buttons and all the rest of it don’t subscribe. Furthermore reading the litany of complaints posters have why on earth don’t they just go elsewhere anyway ?

There you go, financially abused women. Have a shitty ad-ridden cliquey second hand version of the site.

On fact it would be the stuff of Edward Bernays wet dreams and if you don’t know who that is then your perspective is not really very interesting to me at this time.

You’ve seriously mis managed your current income stream, why would anyone give you more to piss away?

Furthermore reading the litany of complaints posters have why on earth don’t they just go elsewhere anyway ?

A lot of the people who once made this site quite entertaining have already buggered off.