No. I value Glocals and I wish Nir and his partners the best financially (and otherwise), but I would never pay a membership fee.

There are several social sites and forums that I visit regularly (both for professional and personal interests), and I wouldn't pay for any of them.I also think it would be a bad business move; the few social networks I know that started charging a fee imploded.

There are other solutions though; one would be to put forum/guide maintenance in the hands of a few volunteers (moderators). That's what most other forums do, and as long as there are clear guidelines that may work for them.

Yes. It will also help keep trolls at bay.

20chf/yr should not stop anyone.

Glocals members = 48600 (almost)

Active regular forum participants = a couple of hundred at best.

An annual/monthly charge wouldn't work, since it would appear that the majority of members either ;  dont participate in forums, (ie only read about advice/things to do/where to go etc etc) OR have transferred out of Geneva and are no longer active in any way.

Lets be really really generous and give "active" membership a figure of 4000 (based on the highest number of attendees at some parties multiplied by 2)

4000 x 20 = 80'000 CHF p.a

Frankly in my opinion thats not enough capital to risk for loosing quite a few people who wouldnt or couldnt pay membership.

The site is great, but the archiving/indexing on old "INFORMATIONAL" posts (ie what newcomers want to know about Gve) is not good enough...hence we get many repeated questions every year. Many questions also appear to be one off's...where can I get XYZ?..... lets not knock these questions... the whole reason of this site is to be helpful... so theyre totally valid.

The parties are great, but you shouldn't need to pay to find out where the next one will be... or they'll be empty when you get there. Its already tricky enough filling places and requires a shed load of work to make them successful.

This site is not for the "elite"... so no need to pay or state your job title or be invited to join... its for everyone, and is supposed to be truely helpful....

So Im sure the founders have considered the concept of a fee... after 10 years there must be a reason why one has not been introduced.

If they introduced one, I would probably pay... but it would change the site, it would change the membership and Glocals would be worse off for it.

IMHO.

I have to agree with the others here. Maybe I'm just a cheapskate Canadian, but I don't like to pay membership for much unless I have to. And with Facebook being free, why would I want to pay for Glocals? Sure, I thikn it's an amazing site, very valuable, helpful and exaclty what a place like Geneva needs (in fact i think every place should have something like Glocals), and I've nothing but priase for the founders. Truly I'm a big fan. Long live Glocals!! ;-) But would I pay for it? Hmmm... probably not. And as Charlie says, adding a fee would reduce the membership to a fraction of what it is, and it would change very much the nature of the site itself. I thikn just knowing that other ppl have paid to be a part of it, I would feel somehow different about joining such a community.

Nope, I don't think a fee is in the spirit of the Glocals community. Cheers!

A mandatory fee would for sure keep off newcomers and drive away many actives as long as there are free alternatives like facbook groups. 

But donations should be made as easy as possible. When someone thinks that this site is valuable and likes to help to keep the ads at an acceptable level, it should be easily possible to donate some money to a specified destination via moneybookers, IBAN/BIC or any other mean. Just think of Wikipedia's fundraising campains as an example. 

I also do not favor premium memberships that provide more than an ad-free site, especially if the accessible non-permium features become too poor.

i think the only real problem with archiving important info is that it quickly becomes out of date

as for a fee - this is the internet -who realistically pays for anything  especially information online?

I would pay the fee specifically to troll if it was introduced

I joined glocals mainly to inform people of events I organise.  I have all the private emails of the participants who have attended and around 30% of them have either joined the Swiss Alpine Club or Oxygene 74.  So as I have too many people wanting to join these outings, I would happily unsubscribe from glocals rather than pay a fee and advise people by email.

Yes, you would. It would be easy to block that credit card on the site, though.

Well, the biz model seems to be "revenue via advertisement", which works well when traffic (clicks) is high (ask facebook if not...) Does Glocals need more revenue through a " member fee"? Do not know, send me the P&L n I tell you Btw, the companies advertising on GL seem strong (ubs, alliance, etc) and they care about "clicks". May be charging for a "member fee" translates into less members, less traffic, may be not. There must be a calculation out there. If not I may help...via a fee ;). On the other hand, paying a membership fee to receive ads? keep trolls away (i do not see that many trolls in here?

I was joking - but it would be tempting to do it out of spite

So was I ;)

Maybe they can have a paid membership which has bonuses -such as the discounts and free membership which does have access to the site but NO discounts

That could lead glocals into dire straits. Imagine paying a membership fee and using a discount offer by a service provider who's out to overcharge you.

You would complain to glocals with a negative review, and the rogue service provider would ask glocals to remove the review, or else... You would insist on the negative review since you are a paying member...

No, glocals can't serve two masters. It either serves the members' interest or the the interests of its financial backers.

This is exactly why I asked the question. There goes the old saying:"He who pays the piper calls the tune".

For someone new to Geneva, Glocals is a great website, and I’m a big fan.  I would pay a (small) fee, but doubt most people will.

The question is, what is Glocal’s unique offering?  Event planning?  Connecting new people in Geneva?  A classifieds section for people to unload old stuff?  A ‘structured’ language exchange connection program?  An ‘unstructured’ relocation service?

My point is, there probably is one thing that Glocals should focus on above all else, and really really drive it.  Perhaps it’s event planning?  So really do events, but make them bigger, get corporate sponsors, etc.  Do BIG events in Geneva, and make people aware that Glocals is about awesome events, and charge accordingly for it.  (Event planning is just an example – it could be anything else).

Nothing is rewarded like focus.  So the Glocals team needs to do some soul-searching to determine what they want to be known for, and execute the heck out of it.  It’s a gamble…but then again, that’s what any new business venture is, right?