
Ask HN: Are you paying for access to a private community? Why? - RikNieu
I&#x27;m trying to understand paid-for and private social networks and communties and would like some input from those who use and appreciate them.<p>What communities are you part of? What makes it worth the money for you? Why not just use free alternatives like Reddit or FB?<p>I&#x27;d really like to understand this because it&#x27;s such a foreign concept to me - I don&#x27;t think anything could convince me to sign up for something like that, yet loads of people do.<p>Any thoughts?
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shakkhar
I pay ~$10 for membership on a niche dating website (for a community that is
not served well by the likes of Tinder / Match.com / etc.). The emphasis is on
meeting IRL, and the biggest problem they solve is to offer a large and dense
(geographically speaking) network of like-minded real people who are ready to
meet. Paid subscription is not the only trick they use to weed out fakes, but
it goes a long way. Money is pretty much the only constraint that keeps the
site from being flooded by bots and spams.

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muzani
Membership quality is the most important part of a good community. Cash is a
good filter.

Something Awful bans a lot of people, quite often. Cash keeps them from simply
signing up to get around the ban _and_ acts as fine to remind them to behave
and read the rules.

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gitgud
> _" Membership quality is the most important part of a good community. Cash
> is a good filter."_

That's true, but in some cases _cash_ can act as bait, to lure members in with
a false sense of security.

The Ashley-Madison leaks revealed that a large percentage of their female
users were just bots, made by the company to increase engagement...

You can't always trust private walled-gardens

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h2odragon
It's not easy to run a good forum; helping the people that do so earn a living
seems like a great idea. Such communities often benefit from the filter of
having everyone there having a stake in wanting to be there, or a good reason
to _not_ want to be there when its no longer fun.

Those aspects make a forum fertile grounds for cultist tribal social bullshit,
which often kills the community. It's like setting out fresh baked bread; it
_will_ grow mold eventually; but for the period before that it's a lovely
wonderful warm comforting thing.

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smarri
Financial Times. Articles relevant to work and comments section makes for good
reading i.e. often well informed commentators and debate, usually the
journalists chime in too.

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throwaway180118
I spent $10 on an internet forum :|

