Mumsnet Premium membership - please support us if you can

[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

No one is making you subscribe. If you don’t want to or if you can’t, fine. There’s no need to be a cunt about it.

I agree with this. Some posters love a good excuse to do a bit of Justine/ Mumsnet bashing. Justine could be coming on to tell everyone that she's giving every member £500 and people would still find a reason to bash her.

No, I'm not trying to be awkward SoupDragon
You might want to look at the bolded bit in the post at 15:08:02 and consider that MN has been "committed" to other things in the past, one of them being security ... and look how that turned out, not least with the hacking scandal and the on-board outcry over its handling

Each to their own of course, but personally I won't risk sharing any more details than I choose

I'm your commodity. You sell what I do and say to generate revenue for you. You want me to speak my mind. You want me to engage in meaningful and intelligent conversation, as well as in laughter and nonsense. On the whole, MN is fantastic, and I do not have any issue with being your commodity. I, too, supported MN in the early days by paying for PMs and buying names in the auction.

You are now, however, asking me to pay for the privilege of self-censorship, of not speaking truth, of lying about reality. I will happily subscribe to MN Premium if you will relax the censorship rules in FWR, and reinstate respected posters who have been banned for honesty.

You will be perfectly aware that the ASA requires advertising content to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Posters on FWR are banned for fulfilling this requirement.

Change the FWR posting rules to respect the requirement for legality, decency, honesty and truthfulness, and I will support you financially.

Why would it matter if NetMums are doing the same?

I'm finding Covid Mumsnset quite difficult so I'm trying to keep off it. I'm paying though cause of everything I've got from the site in the last twelve years: this place has been has an invaluable resource for me when raising my kids.

Otherwise, why mention it?

Oh, I wonder.... the best indicator of future behaviour, is past behaviour. I wouldn’t hold my breath for any of that if I were you.

IDK what we get for £50 a year and I don't care.

Ok

I'm comfortable that Stripe is a secure payment vehicle as we use it at work.

I've got so much from MN over the eight years I've been here that I'm going to sign up and trust Justine when she says the advanced search function will be back soon

@ifeellikeanidiot

I'm finding Covid Mumsnset quite difficult so I'm trying to keep off it. I'm paying though cause of everything I've got from the site in the last twelve years: this place has been has an invaluable resource for me when raising my kids.

Thank you and sorry MN isn't helping right now. Hopefully this will all seem like a bad dream in six months. Stay well xx

I haven’t received a Swears By email for months, and they’re not going to my spam box either.
I’m not convinced paying is worth it tbh, I don’t currently use search, need to read offline or am particularly irked by adverts.
☹️

@JustineMumsnet Given the previous issues with personal data being compromised on MN, what do you plan to do to assure premium subscribers that their bank details will be secure?

Justine, I can afford it and I’d like to support MN but it is FWR that’s going to swing it for me. Will you stop listening to the misogynists on Twitter?

Sorry no we are approx £700 per month down at the moment so every penny counts. Even without that I think it is expensive for what is being offered. I paid the same per year for Disney Plus which has much more entertainment value and caters for the whole family.
If things weren't as tight due to Covid-19 I may consider paying a sub for mumsnet but to be honest I don't think it would be worth more than £2 a month personally. You would probably get many more people paying a couple of pound a month that you would £5. Just my opinion and I would hope that what we currently see without paying would stay and that the content that paying members get would be much more than just the removal of banner ads.

I'm worried that those who pay may use it as a stick to beat others who don't. I've seen how nasty it can get on here sometimes, and I can just imagine someone who pays for Premium thinking it gives them a right to be an arse to others.

I don't like it at all, there are enough people on here who are part of the 'I'm better than you' brigade. Having a two tiered membership will make that worse.

Would a fundraiser drive similar to AO3 work to get over the hump? Let people donate what they are happy to contribute-I would donate to that happily.

People have less money and are more vulnerable than ever right now. People are shut in homes with abusers, relatives and friends are dying and the worlds mental health is taking a massive hit.

Mumsnet is a lifeline for many and I really think you should reconsider making these changes at this time.

I look on it as a donation, as the ads don't bother me
I automatically ignore any ads (it sometimes helps being an Aspie)

@FortunesFave

So the free version WILL be less valuable. Of course it will or people wouldn't pay for the better version.

It will be the middle class site it started out as.

We could have put a paywall up years ago Fortunes - we've chosen not to because as I've always said we don't want to preclude access to those who really can't afford it and that stands as a philosophy and principle.

Justine could be coming on to tell everyone that she's giving every member £500 and people would still find a reason to bash her

Nobody's bashing Justine - at least I hope not, since she doesn't deserve that
What some of us have reservations over is the idea

@JustineMumsnet if I were you, I would offer no extra incentives for members other than ad free. Peoples motivation will be to support you, not any added extras. These extras, especially things like edit function, seem a bit cheap.

If you're looking at reviews, how many of us use PayPal?

uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.paypal.com

PayPal reviews are just as bad as Stripe ones, but that's mainly because people don't write reviews to say they paid for something successfully.

I've used both for my business with no issues and no access to anyone's bank details.

@PennyNotSoWise

I'm worried that those who pay may use it as a stick to beat others who don't. I've seen how nasty it can get on here sometimes, and I can just imagine someone who pays for Premium thinking it gives them a right to be an arse to others.

As said, our moderation will not be any different. If someone's being an arse then they'll get a warning and if they continue doing so, eventually they'll be banned. Premium or no premium membership.

I won't be paying. Much as I'm a committed Mumsnetter and have got a lot out of the community, I have also contributed a lot of content over the years!

Fair enough @Puzzledandpissedoff, Justine could come on and offer everyone £500 and people would come and bash the idea.

Justine you COULD have put up a paywall years ago yes...does that mean that the fact you're doing it now doesn't preclude access to those who can't afford it?

No.

Putting it up now WILL mean that certain people will be denied what you've always said was important for parents....access to information and education on parenting.

I think it's morally wrong to be frank.

If you make product tests exclusive/ or at least priority for premium subscribers I’d be interested in paying.

generating content = helping MN make money.

Perhaps you need to furlough some of your staff - my industry has been decimated by COVID-19.