New Membership Exclusivity

[Johnson]

i don't get the whole club membership idea, to me it seems like they're gonna end up losing more $ than they will make from alienating members that do pay or do not pay! i have done a lot of selling on other forums and for me it comes down to what will the site owners do for buyers when they have major issues w a seller on their site? will they have your back? especially if they are paying a membership fee to be on that site and i don't really see azb's neutral policy on here changing any time soon

there was a local bar here in town that had some good pool tourneys years ago and 1 of the regular's house burnt down so they raffled off a harley to help them out, well the person the raffle was held for ended up winning it, do u think that shenanigans were involved or just bad luck that they let them enter and they ended up winning their own raffle? now on 1 hand u feel good for them but on the other u wonder if u just got cheated out of $20?

contests are great but when 90% of the people aren't winning any of them they are gonna start to feel alienated after a few months, me personally i don't even like to enter free contests online, when u use them to promote something it just seems to leave a small % happy and a majority of every1 else w a bad taste in their mouth!

 

[Bavafongoul]

I was not, and am not. suggesting, nor implying any change in policy for AZ.
I do not see how the Forum could lose more money than it makes since bronze & silver members are free and there isn't any ancillary income derived from free memberships.

 

[Johnson]

I was not, and am not. suggesting, nor implying any change in policy for AZ.
I do not see how the Forum could lose more money than it makes since bronze & silver members are free and there isn't any ancillary income derived from free memberships.

so u don't think azbilliards makes any $ from ad hits from free users? u have a member that posted in this thread that he has spent a lot of $ on advertisements also, every member here provides ad hits and are potential advertisers also

 

[or1pkt]

I am really curious what the operations of AZ costs. I would like to see the legitimate break even analysis and if there is a true need or a push for more gold memberships or just donations in general.

 

[Diogenes]

Just one Silver member's viewpoint

I had a feeling that this thread was going to get ugly in a hurry when I first saw it.

Yes... I'm Silver. For ages I was just a (once every few months) lurker here, even though I've been shooting stick longer than a lot of you have been on this earth... but I don't frequent social media sites. I don't even use Fakebook because (unlike ABZ) it has absolutely nothing worthwhile to offer me. I have a very worthy table of my own and given a choice between surfing this site as opposed to racking and cracking... well you figure it out.

So, would I contribute to AZB financially? Yes, but not at a monthly or yearly fee. You can break it down all you want to on a daily basis of < 0.10 per day, but if I count the number of days that I spend on here that I have spent more than a few minutes then you can throw that < 0.10 per day out the window and it doesn't look anywhere near as affordable as you are making it sound.

So as a "Silver" member.... what would get me to financially contribute to AZB? The first thing that comes to my mind is the AZB patch. Not only would I pay (a fair price) for such an advertisement to the site... but I would openly display it whenever I shoot away from home... and would likely buy 2 or 3.
1st... it identifies and connects me with other AZB'rs that may be out there.
2nd... it causes people who don't know to ask "What is AZB?", to which I would gladly answer them by promoting AZB more than favorably.
Put yourself out there where people have to see you. That's real public promotion people!

In the end it is always going to be the advertising dollars that pay the bills (and beyond) and advertisers want to know that most players know about and visit AZB. You'd be surprised at how many veteran players I've mention AZB to that have asked me "What is AZB"?
Do you think that the I-phone got so popular just by "word of mouth"? They stuck it out there all over the place... IN YOUR FACE advertising. Same with Marlboro cigarettes back in the day and everything else that has become bigger than life in a short period of time.
The best example that I can give of my own would probably be NewEgg. I have t-shirts and caps that were given to me for free every time that I would buy something, back when they first started out. No one knew who they were then but everyone asked me about them when I would wear their merchandise. Now every electronics geek on the planet has heard of them.

I don't care about flashing my "Gold" badge in peoples faces. I'll shoot for 16 hours or more straight, without a single thought about AZB. But put a patch on my shirt, or even just wearing an AZB t-shirt and you're there the entire time.

Just my point of view on the Gold membership. If I spent more time here I would buy into it. But I don't. It took me about 10 years hanging around here to even become a member at all.