Park Slope Parents to Start Charging for Membership
The popular list serve Park Slope Parents (which is up to 13,000 members) announced yesterday that it plans to start charging $25 a year per household. Not surprisingly, a debate is raging on the list. We’re curious to know what you think of that. Please take this super-quick survey we put together here to weigh…
The popular list serve Park Slope Parents (which is up to 13,000 members) announced yesterday that it plans to start charging $25 a year per household. Not surprisingly, a debate is raging on the list. We’re curious to know what you think of that. Please take this super-quick survey we put together here to weigh in.
Eh. I’ve used it, found it helpful if you avoid the arguments, and don’t get the hate that gets showered on PSP. But not useful enough to pay for it, especially considering that it’ll reduce the user base. Good luck to them, though.
“Information may want to be free, but if it’s in a USEFUL format, that costs knowledgeable time and therefore money. If any of us want any kind of reliable information services in the future, we are going to have to get used to paying for it online.”
The thing is, PSP’s information comes from its users. If you reduce the user base, you reduce the value of the information.
If they go “subscription only”, how long will it be before someone takes slick’s advice and sets up a competing site?
I’m not a member of PSP, but I’ve often used the site for reviews and referrals of local vendors. It’s a huge site but searchable and well organized. For comparison, the Bococa egroup, which has no real costs, is unmanageably large. I was receiving 10+ emails a day in which I had no interest before I quit it in self-defense.
Information may want to be free, but if it’s in a USEFUL format, that costs knowledgeable time and therefore money. If any of us want any kind of reliable information services in the future, we are going to have to get used to paying for it online.
On the survey, I voted I would pay $25. (But then I was pu through to a promotional SurveyMonkey site and had to go back to Brownstoner my own little self. A bit rude.)
brownstoner, now is your chance. Start a new park slope listserve and keep it free.
As a free resource it was good, as a paid resource, not so much.
Perhaps they learned that if you try to mug Park Slopers, they won’t identify you to the cops!
Too soon?
Membership fees for a website that is touted as something that offers guidance and community to parents, but is really not much more than a specialized Craigslist?
Hmmmm…
Ah, but northslope, they don’t want to be “commercial.”
However, I agree. I wouldn’t bother to pay for a membership. Then again, I don’t live in Park Slope and probably shouldn’t be a member anyways. (shhh!)
If Wikipedia can get enough volunteers to run that site without charging, I don’t see why PSP can’t. This will just cause many new yahoo groups to form in response.