drh4

Hi Geoff,

I noticed that the thread in bargains was closed, http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=131004 , but no reason was given.

I thought having one thread only here to talk about these deals was a nice compromise. I respectfully ask that you reconsider, as many of us have been getting rebates again of late. Alternatively, you might indicate why you opted to disallow the thread.

Thanks and have a nice weekend, Dave

GeoffK

In all honesty, it's about survival.

Every day another store closes their affiliate program or another store goes under. Posting sites which require you to use thier links takes money directly away from DVD Talk and hurts our ability to pay for our overhead.

Everyone used to 'have your cake and eat it too' with BFL where you could use our links with their stuff, but now they require you to use thier links. Also the real reason we permitted it in the first place was the fact that they were a key place for international DVD Buyers to get their shipping paid for, again no longer the case.

It's extremely difficult to run a .com in this day and age so I hope you'll understand when we close threads which do really inhibit our ability to run DVD Talk.

drh4

Geoff,

Let me start by saying I appreciate your civil, prompt, honest reply. I wish that moderators at other boards I frequent were similarly responsive to members' questions.

Am I wrong, then, in thinking that international members still get their sub-$20 shipping expenses paid for? I didn't see anything on the forms excluding that....

Also, I wonder how much revenue will be gained by disallowing this thread. In the past, I and others have made a special point to use DVDtalk links when, e.g., BFL wasn't a factor (as is now the case with any sub-$100 orders.) Part of the reason I was careful to do this was because I appreciated that you were arguably sacrificing your site's financial interests for the greater good of certain members, which struck me as very gracious.

Of course, you may have good evidence of this revenue loss which I do not have.

Thanks for letting me speak my mind on this! And please, should the site ever reach serious financial jeopardy, give us a warning--I am not alone, I'm sure, in being willing to help you out. I'd even donate a "membership fee," as I've benefited enormously from this site.

Thanks, Dave

PS-now if only DVDtalk could nab CH as a sponser, I'd be clicking through your links constantly.

Blade

It's not just about real revenue loss. There's also the issue of providing free advertising for someone else on Geoff's dime. This becomes less supportable as the e-dollars start getting more and more scarce.

He does have a list of some things you can do to help out DVDTalk, though:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=134145

This is stuck to the top of the Other forum for future reference.

We do appreciate your feedback however. Geoff has always tried to be very attentive to the needs of the members here, but it's still his livelihood. These aren't mutually exclusive things, but sometimes (as with BFL, now) they can be at cross purposes.