TechSpot readers, would you pay $3-5 for a subscription, remove all ads, and...

I've used the ads before and ended up purchasing something. There're not intrusive so I see no reason to stop them. If the folks who want to pay for no ad could get what they want and the rest "free" users see them, that would be great.
 
I might not necessarily put down money for a subscription, but I have been known to donate money from time to time to my favorite web comics, websites, etc...

I'm also one of those crazy people that might stream a movie or music, and decide I liked it enough to buy it myself for future repeated enjoyment.

Overall I would be happy paying $3 a month which is hardly anything when put into perspective. Bringing in my own lunch for one day would pay for a few months membership lol.
Ha ha I too use the "How many lunches is this worth" perspective when considering many long term costs.
 
It took me 20 minutes to stop laughing and post this response. Let me sum up my feelings thusly; you don't provide anything that I can't get elsewhere for free so why would I pay to get it here?
 
It took me 20 minutes to stop laughing and post this response. Let me sum up my feelings thusly; you don't provide anything that I can't get elsewhere for free so why would I pay to get it here?
You wouldn't be paying for what you are already getting. You would be paying for extra. How many more times does this need to be mentioned, before it is understood?
 
As said above: the content TechSpot offers is also available elsewhere, and the other things you offer are –quite frankly– ridiculous: they might work on a marketing BBS, but they're almost insulting for a nerdy crowd.

However, I don't mind paying a bit to keep a site alive. I know you spend time on it, and servers don't pay themselves, but you've got to realize your site is not essential for this type of content. So I think $3/yr for removing ads is already on the high side. Since there's no other option, I'll vote for that one.
 
For me this looks like a desperate move to make some cash. I agree with 1 of the top comments that just put a sign up with "donate now" + add LITECOIN and BITCOIN there.

There are lot of people who are willing to donate in Cryptocurrency. Exchanging them to cash is easy as well or you could just wait till there worth a lot more exchange them then.
 
There are lot of people who are willing to donate in Cryptocurrency. Exchanging them to cash is easy aswell or you could just wait till there worth alot more exchange them then.
You know that it's hard to exchange crypto for real currency, right? And with bitcoins you can't pay the rent.
 
I'd chime in with the donation. I won't get a subscription, and neither will I pay a one time sum of tens of dollars, but I won't mind donating something small. If it has some reasoning behind it (works towards a specific goal), that would be better. Make it in bitcoin, that would be even better.
 
I don't use adblockers of any kind, know it means revenue for the site and once and a while something interesting shows up as the advertisers track your interests anyway and often offer stuff you might take a look at. What they are asking is really, really small, less than a fancy coffee. Donate button is good idea too. Plus if I knew the site really needed it that would help. I register at sites I like even if I don't comment because AFAIK that let's the site pitch to advertisers they have so many registered users so it is a small thing to help a site you like
 
If it's a one time fee then I'm in, otherwise AdBlock Plus works wonders for sites like this and NEOWIN, they now load several times faster with ABP installed :)
 
As I enjoy visiting your site, I don't mind paying $3-5 for additional benefits. However, I think you should create an Ad-free Techspot app for premium users and expanded software download section. If not a Techspot app, at least Tapatalk enabled forums for easier navigation.
 
No I wouldn't consider it worth paying considering the reviews outside of benchmarking aren't exactly in depth. For example, comparing the review here of Dell's UP3214Q to Anandtech's ASUS PQ321Q review, it's pretty apparent which is an in depth objective review and the other is "it looks good to me". I would only pay for something I can't get elsewhere and the whole shallow subjective review thing is done on nearly every tech site out there.

Techspot's GPU and game performance reviews are pretty great though, but they're not frequent enough that I'd care to pay monthly for them.
 
I appreciate the work that you guys put into this website. So yes, I'd be comfortable to hand you 3 dollars a month to help you guys run things. Been learning from you for years after all :)
 
I would only pay for something I can't get elsewhere and the whole shallow subjective review thing is done on nearly every tech site out there.
I do believe @princeton has a point. The "Copy & Paste Summarizing" articles may not be the best way to entice a member to pay a buck. It might would be different if the publisher gave a little personal insight of his own to the article in question. Another thing that I have noticed, with the exception of two or three, most publishers don't stick around to comment afterward. The drop and run articles don't favor the publishers at all. I often thank them by clicking like, but would feel better about paying a site if they stuck around for a chat afterwards.

Long story short: I'm not sure the community as a whole will be willing to pay, if personnel doesn't strive to be a part of the community. It would be about like going to see a comedian and then listening to a record once you got there. Would you then feel as if you got your moneys worth? Possibly if you had a few laughs, but not what you were expecting for your money.

In my opinion, the publishers should be the ones that build a community. Not some strange lunatic member such as myself. I enjoy the fact that Steven Walton, Tim Schiesser, and a few others will hang around after publishing a review. If I paid anything, it would be because of their hard work and willingness to associate with the rest of us.
 
I would like to see an itemized list (with costs) of how subscription fees will be spent before I make up my mind. I believe someone mentioned the word "value". What does Techspot plan to do to make subscription fees necessary.
 
I voted No.

I don't use adblock, but currently none of the features are interesting to me. Also, I like to think that my advice on the forums here generates traffic (and hence revenue) and new members, which offsets my media consumption. Additionally, even $3/mo is hard for me to mentally separate from although I can afford it.

I'd be more interested in events or competitions where a $5 fee means we get some awesome prizes up for grabs. A donate button is OK in my book too.
 
Update #3 (also added to the bottom of poll's news story):
More responses and votes have kept coming in through the weekend, thank you for your opinions and (sometimes blunt) honesty. Before the topic gets buried with Monday news I wanted to address another of your repeated concerns, which is, what would we set to accomplish with the subscription money.

For now, three key projects we have set for H1 2014 include:

1) completing TechSpot's redesign
2) improving our server infrastructure
3) hiring a full time web developer.

These won't depend on the subscription happening, but it's where we are allocating budget so for the sake of transparency, there you go.
 
You publish number of articles...let say about 300 per month (make your real average) - you may create account with full access to more complex articles that will consume "credits" on account. let say - 5$ - 300 credits. For those who want to read all of you articles it will cost as you plan, but for others, who are not interested in news about programming it will cost less. It also will encourage authors of better articles than others (we can have our favorite). You dont have to change main page, only "deeper" access. Think about it
 
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