:lol: Touche!

:rolleyes: Point out where I told you how to spend your money? I'm not telling anyone anything. I'm just trying to understand how(outside of a few members who met him) giving to Geoff is any different than the company now in charge. The site is the same either way. :shrug: So far no one has been able to explain it other than the simplistic "support mom & pop over wal-mart" stance. And again, they could have just shut the place down. I'm sure if that was in the cards people would be hitting that paypal button pretty quick.

Exactly.

As of now the features don't match the price, at all, but as most are saying after so many great years (regardless of who runs the place), what's a few bucks for some goofy features?

Outside of the members who developed some sort of relationship with Geoff over the years, I don't think anyone is saying this. :shrug:

Who cares, this whole "arguing" bit is stupid. :lol:

Let's just all go eat some crackers and relax. I'll go first.

:lol: Sounds good. :up:

I was serious about this question. Mods...any answers?

You DO realize though that it is Christmas season and that $10 is probably spent elsewhere like on a gift for someone?

What I "DO" realize is that it's just $10 freakin' dollars. If you or anyone spends the $10 on a premium membership, & then doesn't have another $10 to spend on a gift, that is just sad. Again, the deep contemplation people here are putting into a insignificant amount of money just utterly amazes me.

Also, who on earth buys people $10 presents?

Why are people being so judgemental? If IB wants to add premium features let them, if people want to pay let them, they aren't taking away anything. If some one doesn't want to pay, it shouldn't matter to anyone else.

Can't we all just get along? (until us premium members talk behind all your backs in our forum, anyway) :)

Damn, I leave for a couple days and come back to the DVDTalk Civil War?! Merry Christmas to all...

Well consider me sad then. We are in a recession ya know.

And there are plenty of DVDs to be found for less than $10.

I've gotten small gifts for people that cost $10 or less. Just little trinkets.

Most of the gifts I buy people are $10-$15. :) (and I've noticed kids tend to enjoy those cheaper presents more anyway)

Yes, but you have people posting that they can't afford $10 for premium, yet they have over a thousand DVDs. It's really just a dorkier version of the prime mortgage fiasco in here.

As for the $10 gifts, that was sarcasm.

I would have hated for you all to have been on IGN went they went practically Insider only for the entire community, forcing you to pay $20 to keep accessing the same stuff you were before with virtually no benefits.

Yeah, well what I find "absolutely hilarious" is someone playing Lego Batman giving advice about focusing on "other priorities." Mkay?

We'll spend an extra $15-$30 for a limited edition version of a DVD just because it has some plastic figures, lobby cards and a number.... no one bats an eye.

All hell breaks loose if one spends $10 on a forum that pointed me in the direction to buy said limited edition DVD.

Maybe some find more value in those than spending money on a forum? (I don't know, I'll sign up once I see features I'd use).

I think I would prefer this (above).

If DVDTalk were a pay site for $10/year, and the explanation from IB was, "We are not making the ad revenue we needed to keep this going. We're asking for a small membership fee," I would jump on. As it is, I am just kind of against the idea of dividing the forum along "premium"/non-premium lines, and having secret/"premium" threads on the forum.

Amazon prime is a premium privilege, but it doesn't make the non-prime members feel like something is going on behind their backs.

As for the above arguments regarding the premium membership fee, I don't feel that I have any standing to say whether $10 is a little or a lot for another person, or to help them prioritize their purchases.

As for the value, $10 seems astronomically high for the actual benefit conferred. If I were to join, it would not be for avatars, or for a countdown feature (???), or to support IB (or Geoff/Geoff's memory). It would be because I am scared that the deal portion of the site will gradually move to the premium pages, and by not buying for $10 with a coupon now, I'll be forced to shovel over $20 by the time that change occurs.

Again, as per mods' posts above, I do not think this concern is unjustified. Price mistakes are a great example of deals that may not spread to the main site in an effort to keep them from FW, SD, etc. So, this concern, if realized, does mean that IB took away something that the all members used to enjoy for free. So: :thmbsdwn: I'm bummed this is where DVDT is headed.

Was the moose hurt? :)

Pro-B

I think the possibility of hiding good deals is greatly exaggerated, let alone being able to keep them confined to a specific forum and DVDTalk itself.

I'd pony up $10 if the cash went towards hiring a professional writer who'd copyedit the occasional mishap in the better newsletters and reviews and who'd take drastic steps in dealing with the amateurish ones.

That's stuff that was never guaranteed in the first place so it could never be taken away. And there's nothing stopping someone in the premium forum from posting for everyone else. And there's nothing stopping someone on the free parts from discovering it first. You have a better chance of finding a deal than we do making it exclusive, because there are more free members.

It's unjustified because people could just privately PM eachother about a deal before and still can, so I find it silly to complain about something that is not a feature in the slightest. Unless you want PMs taken away.

Guaranteed? Who said anything about guarantees? What site makes guarantees?

You live in the real world and come to appreciate and/or expect certain things from certain sites. That's why you go there (or don't). I'm not sure what to make of your post.

Anyway, I don't mean to be inciting. I was just posting my thoughts on what's been going on.

Edit: ^ I'm not sure I understand your point about PM's either. Which premium member do I PM in order to find out about deals or sales that I don't know exist?

You seem to think the premium membership will take away deals that would otherwise be posted on the free forums and you think that makes complaining about it justified. Sounds like you expected something to happen, which sounds like a guarantee to me.

I'm saying that that they aren't taking anything away, and that a deal doesn't have to be posted, someone could just PM another member on the forum, with or without a premium membership. So that deal you expect someone to post could never be posted anyway.

In other words, for clarities sake, you can't take away something that isn't guaranteed.

Originally Posted by brianluvdvd
So if I join up for the premium membership, as a longtime member, can I please change my user name?

"brianluvdvd" is so 1999.

I too would love a response to this question, been a member since 2000 and would consider signing up with a user name change.

Huh? I haven't given advice to anyone. I just said what I would do, if I was one of the people who can't afford $10. But I'm not, $10 as I've stated is rather insignficant, that's why I signed up. And what does Lego Batman have to do with anything? Yeah I play it, but I'm not the one complaining about how much money $10 is & how hard the economy is. I'm not the one posting that I have to wait for a paycheck to come in just do I can sign up for a premium membership. I make plenty of money to support the economy & enjoy my pastimes & gladly do so (especially the Blu-Ray industry lately), so I think my priorities have been just fine so far.