People are happy to pay but there's a limit. I pay that $180 for a Meetup group yearly but that's already crept up from... $120, I think, over the past few years, and I was already starting to wonder if I was going to keep paying it.
If they increased it another $50 on me, I'd probably just kill it and move as much of the group over to Facebook events (doesn't help the group has been in a lull lately either since I've had a year of planning for my wedding taking up all my time).
So I think they figured this change would let them get more money in the long run without having a bunch of Organizers drop their Meetup groups with a big price hike, but they're going to lose groups this way too and I suspect it's going to make things worse in the long run.
If they increased it another $50 on me, I'd probably just kill it and move as much of the group over to Facebook events (doesn't help the group has been in a lull lately either since I've had a year of planning for my wedding taking up all my time).
So I think they figured this change would let them get more money in the long run without having a bunch of Organizers drop their Meetup groups with a big price hike, but they're going to lose groups this way too and I suspect it's going to make things worse in the long run.