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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clockworkjoe" data-source="post: 1657735" data-attributes="member: 1321">I would like to have a community supporter account on enworld.org but I won't get one with the current pricing scheme. I think the current setup is costing ENworld many potential dollars from people who would like to help this site out but aren't willing to get the one size fits all expensive and time limited account. The only other site I am aware of that charges for a forum account is somethingawful.com. They use a tiered structure, where a person can buy a basic account for $10, a platinum account for an additional $10 (adds search, private messages and a few other things) and buy custom titles and custom emoticons for additional fees. The accounts do NOT expire, although emoticons usually do after 6 months. This structure has worked very well with SA and I think ENworld would vastly benefit from a similar arrangement. I am not going to spend $35 for an account that only last a year and has a lot of extras I don't need. I would pay $5 (1 year) $10 (permanent) for a search and private message function. I would really really really appreciate being able to search the forums. I could also see many people paying separately for functions they desire such as the personal gallery and free RPG. Offering only a single extremely pricey service that expires in a year, I think a lot of people are scared off from buying the account. Why should they help ENworld out when they have to keep paying year after year, when they could buy a nice hardcover book with that money?While it may seem counter-intutitive to some that ENworld may bring in more money by offering better services for lower prices, I think that allowing people to buy only the services they want and at a lower price this site could generate a substantial additonal amount of income. It will generate more interest in the site, drawing in more audience, which it turn feeds the site and so on. Any online community has a certain amount of population cycling, where older members drop out and newer members join in, thus providing a steady source of income. Furthermore, I think people will be likely to stay with ENworld a longer time if they feel they can enjoy this site for years to come. Basically, I want to give ENworld money, but something more reasonable for a poor graduate student. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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