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What would happen if BMT switched to 100% pay model
BTW, this isn't about money. It's about time spent dealing with non-Elite members. It is disproportionate to the amount of time spent elsewhere on futures.io (formerly BMT). I needed some convincing on why it was/is/may be necessary.
Supply- How much time do you have to offer putting out fires?
Demand- How much would not being able to sample the value of the forum discourage potentially legit sign ups?
I myself only joined after seeing the potential value after becoming a non elite. I actually found Big Mike's while investigating the legitimency of the Crazy Code Oil Room /ES secret guy. (He turned out to be a freak), While I would like to think that I would have figured that out for myself, Big Mike's was instrumental in showing me the light regarding trading room cons in general. So definatley this forum has a good samaritan aspect.
What made me finally pay up was clicking on threads that sounded beneficial but were only available to elites and the modest lifetime mebership fee. Plus the availabilty of downloadable custom indicators.
The more I think about it the more I like it the way it is or as an alternative perhaps keeping everything the same except only allowing elite to post. There ARE some random troll posts from non members.
Then again, Many of the vendors that you do facilitate here probably get hits from non elites......Hell I don't know. It sounds like it comes down to you finding a way to discourage the trolls and freeing up some of your time. This forum has an organic feel to it which is great. Hard to find that on the interweb these days. Even craigs list sucks now. it used to be good.
As a futher note have you ever thought of starting an indicator pay store where the creators copyrighted their created indicator and payed futures.io (formerly BMT) a cut for facilitating the sale?
What if the store was a seperate entity linked to the forum and non mebers could get a free membership by spending so much in the store and meers recieved a discount?
Perhaps there would be legal issues regarding the sale of indicators that i don't realize but just a thought... The ones who create these indicators seem like they put a lot of time into their craft. Also what if some of the coders could sell auto trading algos, or create custom algos for someone who knows what conditions they want to enter a trade but don't have the time or knowledge to create the code themselves. Guess I'm getting a little off topic........ But it sounds like you want to innovate the forum so my mind wheels started turning.
"Napoleans severest comment on his beaten enemies - that they "saw to many things at once""- Hart
I was going to write something similar to what @tturner86 just wrote, but he beat me to it.
But since the way I was going to put it is a little less polite than he did, I'll go ahead with my post anyway:
The difference is that you are not a lying BS'er who is trying to trick anyone by appealing to their gullibility and yes, their dreams. In that competition, anything you put out simply will not win out.
Sorry, man. The difference is that you've got something of value, and some scruples. You can't excite the frenzy to spend money now now now to get rich.... which, on the whole, is a good thing.
So a pure appeal to value is not in the same ball park as the vendors' stuff, even the honest ones. And people only believe the vendor pitches because they are suckered by hype. If that's not what you are doing, they will be more rational, and need to see something first....
Who would want to deal with that, ugh, hope you do whatever it takes to eliminate such.
Mike, not one in a thousand here would even think of creating what you've done. And fewer still would continue if they had to deal with that level of disrespect, not to mention death threats of all things. You asked FT71 in the AMA the other day, “Why do you do it?” I expected him to ask you the same. Expect we only see the tip of the iceberg of negative stuff you have to deal with. Last week you wrote: “Sometimes I question why I bother.” For some time I've felt I'd not be surprised to see the site closed/gone fishing.
It simply has to be worth your while, value received for value given, and why not cash flow enough to hire help and/or deal with legal costs. I'd think the question of “What's ideal for you?” is the most important one if this is to continue long term.
It might make sense to do that, maybe the same 2 tiers you have now, only "Free" will cost some small amount a year, like $5. maybe that will slow down fake accounts given to spam the system will cost them $5.
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,049 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,388
Thanks Received: 10,207
I've been a professional trader for a long time. As part of my job I feel I need to be prepared and aware of what is going on, new trends, new idea's, market news, market rumors etc etc. As such I have and do lurk at many trading sites looking, learning and watching, always trying to prepare/educate myself. The problem with almost every website in the modern day and age is that you have to wade through mountains of crap to find the few posts/snippets of information worth reading. I hate the keyboard warrior all high and mighty who in real life would never say anything like they do online.
To me the greatest thing about this forum is @Big Mike 's moderation, and the lack of all the crap, childish bickering and generally worthless posts. I regularly spend an hour researching, looking (lurking?) etc at industry site's and at the end think "Oh well that was a complete waste of time". Not so here. While I might not feel like I learned something everytime I rarely feel like any time on futures.io (formerly BMT) was wasted time. (Plus of course I find some of the journals highly entertaining and great late night reading, much better and funnier than Letterman/Leno/Fallon/Conan etc etc).
I am an elite member, and had no problem paying the fee. I did NOT do it so that I could access all that 'elite only content' and 'super indicators' (I'm not a chart/indicator/technician trader) but because I value the site and viewed it as a fair thing to do to support something I respected. From this perspective I personally would have no problem switching to a 100% pay model. Question is would you maintain enough of the other people to make the sight worthwhile visiting and hence paying for on an ongoing basis? That is not something I know the answer to. I will say though that I visited for a long time before signing up.
I understand that maintaining a site like this takes considerable time and effort. For me I suspect a drop in the quality of the moderation would probably directly correlate to a drop in the quality of site and as such make it less desirable. Did you ever consider hiring somebody to help moderate/maintain the site? How would you pay them? Well instead of making the site 100% pay, maybe make the elite fee an annual fee? Say $20/year? Sure everybody who has already paid the fee may feel slighted but if everybody really is as happy to be an elite member as they claim, $20/year should be acceptable.
Free brings in new people....they come for the free content and stay for the value....if you go all paid, I think your new member count will go down exponentially. I never pay for anything until I'm convinced of value....and while I came for the free indicators, I stayed for the value....
My suggestion,
Guest, view only non elite content
Non Elite member, view existing content sans attachments and images, create max of one thread, post in a max of "X" number of other threads, max# of posts per day. If they want to lift the limits on posting, pay a small fee, say $10.00. No indicator downloads as is current.
Elite, current priviledges.
just thinking out loud.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Maybe a stackoverflow type of reputation system where the initial moderation is essentially crowdsourced. People can come for the free, encouraged to be nice, and still see the value of Elite. It seems to keep stackoverflow pretty clean.
