

PlentyOfFish Starts Charging Premium Membership Fees - jwesley
http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2009/03/plentyoffish-starts-charging-premium-membership-fees/

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finnw
Thank you, Markus.

If just a handful of users are stupid enough to pay the fee to put a badge on
their profile that effectively says "I'm _really_ desperate" it will have the
opposite of the intended effect, and maybe improve _my_ chances. And at the
same time they'll be paying for my share of the bandwidth.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Actually, back when I used to frequent dating sites (10 years ago or so), I
met most people when I had a paid membership.

OTOH, I met my wife on Yahoo Personals when it was free. In fact, if it was
only for pay we'd never have met since she wouldn't have bothered with a
paysite.

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jwesley
"There will be no addtional features and functionality for users, this upgrade
will be strictly to signal intent to the community."

So basically, all you get for your $20 a month is a badge saying that you're
cooler than people who didn't pay. And for your premium membership, you still
get the same crap service that freeloaders get.

Are people really that stupid? Asking people to pay something for nothing
reeks of arrogance. I'm starting to think Frind got lucky with PoF.

~~~
yan
Well luck definitely had a huge component of it. Speaking of his new
subscription model, I wouldn't exactly call it "stupid," (nor would I call it
especially smart) I just think he didn't explain it correctly.

That's the psychology that the luxury goods market exploits. A $30,000 watch
won't tell time any more accurately than a $30 watch, nor will it look much
better than, say, a $500 watch, but some people who can spring for luxury
items do simply as a token of wealth. Just look at the stereotypical nouveau
riche spending habits.

~~~
asnyder
Indeed, usually the $30 watch is more accurate than the $30,000 watch. After
all your cheap quartz watch is 99.999% accurate, while your $30K watch is only
99.997% accurate.

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blhack
Has anybody ever seen this website before?

It feels like if you hired a "webmaster" from the mid 1990s to build you a
domain parking page.

It is AWFUL.

~~~
h34t
This comment reminds me of people who complain about the design of Hacker
News, and miss the point entirely.

Plenty of fish has a large and growing user community. I know of more people
(personally) who have met dates on POF than any other site (though I am in
Canada, where his community is strongest).

~~~
mikeyur
From the Inc. article I read he really believes in the saying "if it ain't
broke, don't fix it."

He doesn't know how a design change will effect the users or how changing the
badly-cropped user images will effect click-throughs etc.

~~~
eru
A/B testing?

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SteveC
I contacted someone with a serious member badge and she says it was given to
her for free and she never asked for it.

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albertcardona
Interesting typo in the text quoted from Markus: "funcationality".

I'd like to speculate it reveals usage of a famous language, but PoF has been
described as a Redmond-only shop in the past.

