Bryan, have you now succumed to the worst form of computing evil second only to Windows XP? Pop under adds on MacOb? AAAAhhhhhhhrrrrgggg!!!! Next, the evil critters will show up on my Handspring Visor!

You could always pay the subscription fee…
-Dan

On 2002-01-17 18:06, Photodan wrote:
You could always pay the subscription fee…
-Dan

Too true. Shutting up now.

On 2002-01-17 18:06, Photodan wrote:
You could always pay the subscription fee…
-Dan

Yes, and kudos to whomever managed to come up with an ad for the advertising-free subscription that is more annoying than any ad I have ever seen.  I was going to subscribe just to get that to go away, but then I started having seizures…

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: pagefault on 2002-01-17 18:18 ]</font>

We’ve been doing pop-unders for a long time, actually.

Thanks doe the sense of humor on our content ad too, pagefault. 

Sorry-
any site who uses pop-under ads doesn’t get my views, nor do their advertisers get my business.

Pop-under ads are in the same group as those annoying salesmen who come to your door, and stick their foot in the doorway. Slam it shut I say. Break their foot bones.

I registered to share this opinion, and you can delete this registration right now. Aloha!

Taz, you probably won’t read this, but you can subscribe to TMO and not have to be subjected to any ads.  More information is available here .  Webmasters have to eat too.

Taz!, I am sorry to hear that you won’t bee sticking around, but we do indeed have to pay the bills.  Now that we have an ad-free subscription service, it really offers you the opportunity to put your money where your mouth is, and I hope you consider hanging out. 

In any event, thanks for the feedback. 

On 2002-01-17 18:30, Bryan wrote:
We’ve been doing pop-unders for a long time, actually.

Eh? I’ve never seen them.

And that blinking ad is…. ugh.

On 2002-01-17 18:30, Bryan wrote:
We’ve been doing pop-unders for a long time, actually.

Actually, I’ve yet to see them at work (on a Windoze box in I.E.6 - how’s THAT for a pop-under friendly config?) OR at home in I.E.5.1 or Omniweb.

Maybe Raena and me have developed some pop-under antidote that we’re unaware of…

About the add: it burns my eyes…

I never get the pop-unders in OmniWeb, and don’t recall getting them in IE 5.1 in OS X.  I just resurrected the old trusty Performa 6300 this morning, and the pop-unders occur in IE 4.

Brad

I can deal with popunders on TMO, but having 3 pile up??!?
-Dan

They really pile up now, it seems.  2 or 3 in just a few clicks around TMO.  I do recall occasional pop-unders in the past, but it was never all the time.  Now I get at least one every session.  I understand you have to pay the bills and all, really I do.  But the pop-unders certainly have ramped up now that you introduced the subscription option.

I’ve been lazy and haven’t even looked at what it is, so I just checked out the subscription page now.  In all honesty, I think your pricing is a bit ambitious.  I like the site, I like the forums, I think it’s good.  Is it good enough for $20-25 a year?  I’m not quite convinced of that.  I don’t know how much of a bite the payment service takes out of that; maybe it’s a lot, and that’s why it has to be that much.  I know I wouldn’t blink if it were $10 a year, maybe even $15.  But at $25 ($20 right now, I know) it’s bumping against things that quite honestly I see as tremendously more valuable.  Salon.com Premium for instance only costs $30 a year or $50 for two.  Assuming part of the objective is to keep the transaction amount from being too low, why not a $30 2-year deal?  That might be more palatable to some (in other words, a discount for longer commitment).

I know it must be a tough decision.  The hard part for me is the only thing you’re selling is ad-free.  And while there is a value to that for me, that value doesn’t quite approach $20-25 a year.  It’s more like half that in my mind.

Constructive comments and respectful disagreements welcomed.  (Flames need not apply.)

Well, I believe the $25 ($20 now) is appropriate for the content you get.  There is more news, editorials, and reviews in one week of TMO than in one month of your standard 12-issue-per-year magazine.  I think that paying $25 per year for TMO is well worth it, with the added bonus of no ads.  Like Bryan said, put your money where your mouth is.

That is, however, my humble opinion. 

Brad

Actually, at this point I would be inclined to donate money to keep the site going just for the forums.  But how many annual subscriptions can I be expected to pay?  I can’t nor do I want to get all my Mac news and opinion from one source anymore than I would want to read only one source for general news and opinion.  Another 20 bucks a year shouldn’t mean anything to me, but it does.  Because the content is all available in ad-supported mode, I have to weigh only the cost versus the annoyance of the ads.

It’s tough.  If I had more income, perhaps I wouldn’t be so worried about another $20.  But even so, I still wonder if a lower level of entry wouldn’t make it up and more on volume.  I could be wrong about that.  I don’t know.  This is just my opinion and where I stand.  I’m hanging it out here for you to see.  I fully expect some people will think less of me after they read it.  And that is fine.  I’m trying to figure out where the line with web subscription is.  I know that too much and people will balk at it.  Giving it away is becoming a less and less viable option, though, and continuing to do that could eventually result in the loss of many worthy sites.  Somewhere in between is the answer, and this is what I’m trying to get at.

CrazyOne, Dave and I both appreciate your honest feedback. 

We are working on some things to make the pricing more compelling, but I can’t really say more right now.  Stay tuned, though.    On the surface, a bit more than a half-cent a day seems pretty reasonable for me.  For a daily publication, that’s really a pretty cheap price, but I completely understand your point about “how many sites can I subscribe to?”  Fortunately, we have no intention of making TMO subscription-only. We see our challenge as having to make TMO worthy of your eyeballs and your money.  When we have a thousand gillion subscribers, I guess we will have succeeded, but until then it means that we have to work harder.

[Edited typo.]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bryan on 2002-01-21 18:17 ]</font>