Cougar Allen
Buccaneer (ret.)
- Joined
- Oct 9, 1998
- Messages
- 74,857
I try not to post any opinions on this forum. I keep telling everybody to just post the facts as you see them and leave it to readers to form opinions for themselves (they will anyway) and I try to practice what I preach. This post is no exception; I'm going to try to confine myself to facts in this post too, and if I fail and some sign of an opinion I may have shows ... well, I'm only Remulakan^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H human.
It used to be you could post ads at this website for free. Now you have to pay a fee for the privilege. (You get some other privileges for your fee, too, but nobody had them before so there's less of a tendency for people to feel they have a right to them.)
Now everybody has to decide whether to pay or not. Some will pay and some won't. Some will pay because they'll figure it's worth it for them, some because they want to support Bladeforums (and they'll regard the benefits as like the little things you get for making donations to charities, coffee mugs or whatever -- not worth the money you contribute, just a bonus). Some won't pay because they'll figure it isn't worth it for them or because they'll decide they can't afford it. Maybe some will decide it would be worth the money for them but they'll be so outraged at the effrontery of being asked to pay money for what OUGHTA be free that they'll refuse to pay on principle.
The people who decide not to pay for whatever reason will post ads somewhere else if they want to sell a knife. (There are other websites that charge less or nothing; there's always usenet....)
Maybe the new policy will turn out to be a failure. Maybe so few people will buy memberships the for-sale forums here will be empty.
If that happens it will have little effect on Bladeforums as a whole. The great majority of members have never posted a single knife for sale.
Maybe the new policy will turn out to be a tremendous success. Maybe dealer and gold and premium membership fees will pour in and Spark will end up as rich as Bill Gates and Ross Perot.
If he does he will have done it without committing any crime. Charging a fee for a service you formerly provided for free is not a crime. It's not even a tort.
Maybe it's an outrage, though. That's a matter of opinion.
We all know the facts, don't we? We all decide our opinions for ourselves, based on the facts, without being influenced by anybody else's opinions -- don't we? Well, maybe not all of us....
If you do want to express your opinion, though, in this case you can do that very strongly. I'm seeing a lot of posts from people who already have "dealer" or "gold member" or "premium member" after their names ... that expresses an opinion pretty strongly ... and if some members stop posting here that'll express their opinion pretty strongly, too.
While I'm here I'd like to suggest once again that everybody try to follow the principle of just posting the facts (if you can think of any that haven't been posted already) and leaving it to readers to form their own opinions. Again I'd like to suggest if someone says to you, "I'm gonna get you!" and throws a pie in his own face, you don't have to reply, "I'm gonna get you back for that!" and throw a pie in your face too. We've seen several people throw pies in their own faces in several recent threads on several different topics ... so while I'm here let me remind everybody what you say can only degrade and humiliate you ... and what he says can only degrade and humilate him ... nobody else.
-Cougar Allen :{)
It used to be you could post ads at this website for free. Now you have to pay a fee for the privilege. (You get some other privileges for your fee, too, but nobody had them before so there's less of a tendency for people to feel they have a right to them.)
Now everybody has to decide whether to pay or not. Some will pay and some won't. Some will pay because they'll figure it's worth it for them, some because they want to support Bladeforums (and they'll regard the benefits as like the little things you get for making donations to charities, coffee mugs or whatever -- not worth the money you contribute, just a bonus). Some won't pay because they'll figure it isn't worth it for them or because they'll decide they can't afford it. Maybe some will decide it would be worth the money for them but they'll be so outraged at the effrontery of being asked to pay money for what OUGHTA be free that they'll refuse to pay on principle.
The people who decide not to pay for whatever reason will post ads somewhere else if they want to sell a knife. (There are other websites that charge less or nothing; there's always usenet....)
Maybe the new policy will turn out to be a failure. Maybe so few people will buy memberships the for-sale forums here will be empty.
If that happens it will have little effect on Bladeforums as a whole. The great majority of members have never posted a single knife for sale.
Maybe the new policy will turn out to be a tremendous success. Maybe dealer and gold and premium membership fees will pour in and Spark will end up as rich as Bill Gates and Ross Perot.
If he does he will have done it without committing any crime. Charging a fee for a service you formerly provided for free is not a crime. It's not even a tort.
Maybe it's an outrage, though. That's a matter of opinion.
We all know the facts, don't we? We all decide our opinions for ourselves, based on the facts, without being influenced by anybody else's opinions -- don't we? Well, maybe not all of us....
If you do want to express your opinion, though, in this case you can do that very strongly. I'm seeing a lot of posts from people who already have "dealer" or "gold member" or "premium member" after their names ... that expresses an opinion pretty strongly ... and if some members stop posting here that'll express their opinion pretty strongly, too.
While I'm here I'd like to suggest once again that everybody try to follow the principle of just posting the facts (if you can think of any that haven't been posted already) and leaving it to readers to form their own opinions. Again I'd like to suggest if someone says to you, "I'm gonna get you!" and throws a pie in his own face, you don't have to reply, "I'm gonna get you back for that!" and throw a pie in your face too. We've seen several people throw pies in their own faces in several recent threads on several different topics ... so while I'm here let me remind everybody what you say can only degrade and humiliate you ... and what he says can only degrade and humilate him ... nobody else.
-Cougar Allen :{)
