Introducing Pay or Consent on Mumsnet

[BeckyAMumsnet]

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:

1. Continue for free with cookies and ads: this is the option that most people have enabled already.
2. 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.

I've just had the (ginormous) pop up. I can't add an image(!), but you are required to either Subscribe and therefore pay, or accept all cookies. No other option.

I'll just carry on using an ad blocker. lol

I suspect it will magically work if you pay...

I have to admit I had to double check the date it feels like a bloody April fool gag.

Oh @SoupDragon , you were the reason I joined MN! I was looking for kitchen advice iirc and your post came up on google, you were putting in a new kitchen (so 20-odd years ago now ) and I stayed and laughed and commiserated and cried and learned a lot about parenting and relationships and - kitchens!

I think I'm going too. My kids are in their 20s now but I still like reading and advising and being part of this community - but if I'm just someone to push adverts and trackers onto, I'm out.

And it's not going to stay at £3 a month, is it? It'll be £15 a month before you know it, and young women who can least afford it will have to just put up with bad relationships/unhappy kids/bad schooling and all the rest.

Yep same here there was no alternative and it seems to have been implemented immediately.

I accepted because it felt like they want those who don't accept to be given no choice and to stop them posting asap.

I'm fascinated that you have gone for the "stick" approach
Rather than the carrot approach of making Premium a really good offering.

I tried premium, I wanted it to be worth paying for. The offering was dire. It didn't really include anything "extra"

This thread is hilarious. Turns out the exact same people who've been howling for Mumsnet to pay their volunteer mods are the same people who've been accessing the site for FREE for years. Bravo 👏

exactly - a succinct summary

Or is it perhaps that the recent failings have led to a freefall in adverting revenue, making the site unviable in the short term without a subscription...or at least, not as profitable..?

The reality is that for most people the internet is 'free' We know that the content provided by users is what makes sites like this work. MN is gambling on the fact that there will be enough paying subscribers or users insufficently bothered if their privacy is 'sold' to generate the same richness and breadth of topics, debate and traffic on the site. They need that breadth to make it work, and thats part of what they are then selling to advertisers. Sure, those who don't subscribe, or allow cookies, or use adblockers are not directly monetised, but they are still creating content that is monetised when others wwho do allow cookies/dont use adblockers contribute, post, browse and read. If the number of users drops by a half or more, which is generally what happens when charges are introduced, then there will be less content overall, and less engagement. I wonder if Rachel Reeves is advising them on their business model ;)

I'm all for it.

People think the internet is free...its not!

Advertising pays for your free and open access.

Running websites costs huge amounts of money and regulations are making it harder and harder for websites to make the moneys that pays journalists, support staff, IT people who run these forums, marketers, commercial staff, etc etc).

If you use an ad blocker or reject cookies, you severely reduce the revenue that mumsnet can make.

You can either allow sites to monetise you or pay for access for every site you ever visit.

Your call!

This is a complete failure of marketing and PR.

What the hell has happened at MN?

It almost looks like the reason the child sexual abuse picture debacle was neglected by MNHQ over the last couple of days was because they were focussing on this.

That's interesting phrasing.

Forcing someone to do something they don't want to do (consent to cookies or pay up)......hmm I think there's a word for that.

I won't be paying and I won't consent to cookies so that's my time here done.

Immediately after an appalling security breach, you demand that we give you our digital information or pay to remain on the site?

This is so far from a reasonable way to respond to long term and serious mismanagement of the site, that it's crass and will alienate many of us.

Did no one think to at least pause this while site safety was fully dealt with?

Hello, mass exodus! Goodbye peasants!

It really is droll the contempt so freely expressed for first those unpaid NW moderators - oh, they're in other time zones, with nothing better to do, we let them do it because they enjoy it, we are so bountiful! - after the horror of being left to battle the CSA experience on their own for close to 5 hours - and now naughty us, not coughing up our entire identities for MN to accidentally breach. Again.

Maybe people block it because the ads are so bloody difficult to get past? They are always so glitchy, taking up most of the page and end up freezing half the time so you can't get away from them without closing it completely. Some of the ads are also horrible

I don't mind the adverts. But some of them disrupt the whole page and impact the ability to use the site.
I don't block adverts because I get that they are your source of revenue

But I miss when there were lots more sponsored threads and competitions... I hoped premium might provide that but the only sponsored thread I entered we were all told we would be sent a book and then it never arrived.

Well, no.

They've not paid at the point of use, but they've viewed adverts, produced content and allowed the site to generate millions each year

I think this is really disappointing and also problematic in terms of data protection principles - I don’t think you can get true consent when you introduce a power balance in this way. After this weekend’s CSA debacle this might be the last straw for me as a mumsnet user…

Unbelievable!!

Pity there wasn't a vote added to this one, but doubtless the only thing that'll matter is how many actually continue to use the site

I'd have thought it would have been better to sort out the major problems with inappropriate ads before launching something like this, but above all it's a business and the bottom line naturally comes first no matter how awful the optics

And FWIW some of us only installed an adblocker to protect ourselves from those ongoing problems and honestly hoped to uninstall it once they were fixed - except it now seems clear that's not going to happen

Well you either pay for an online service with money or with giving it your data.

Or by volumes of people responding to well-planned mass advertising and spending their money that way.

Why does ITV seem to manage just fine with profits from adverts that are screened to everybody watching their programmes - obviously tailored to the likely demographic for each programme - without insisting that they need my personal data to be able to make money that way?

So this is implemented already, that was fast!

I just wanted to say, please consider an option to pay annually without a subscription. I never go for things which are ongoing payments and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Yes, I am aware you can unsubscribe but I'm not interested in that and won't do it.

I guess this might be my last message, then (unless a one-off payment option comes in 🙏). Thanks everyone x

Yep. I'd not mind a couple of unobtrusive ones.