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Re: My favorite Apple II
Jeff Blakeney wrote:
On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 11:40:38 -0700, "Michael J. Mahon"
<mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
There is certainly no disputing what the owner is happy with,
but it is not unreasonable that a businessman would be open to
suggestions that could improve his membership/business.
Then again, perhaps he has already done this experiment...
Syndicomm did at one point offer one month trial subscriptions but
that apparently didn't work out so well as they stopped doing them.
Since the marginal value of such an offer depends on the proportion
of visitors who are unfamiliar with what is offered, it is quite
probable that the situation is different today from what it was
a few years ago.
There seems to be a steady, albeit slow, trickle of new Apple II
afficionados into the community. So even though the pool of people
who wanted to subscribe was exhausted when the experiment was done,
there may be dozens (or more?) who would take advantage of such an
opportunity were it to be offered today.
Another possibility must also be considered. Offering trial
memberships is not the same experiment as offering free access to
read file directories, for example. Some users might use their
month-long trial to simply leech whatever they wanted, causing
the value of a full subscription to plummet.
The only sustaining value which would justify a continuing
subscription would be the value of community and interaction
which was exclusively available in the "club"--and the marginal
value of that interaction would only grow as a result of a trial
exposure to it.
To personalize things, I have never been a Syndicomm member, though
I have had interactions with some members and have read some "Lamp"
issues. My impression is that the Syndicomm community's "center of
gravity" leans to the IIgs and IP networking, which are not my
interests. If I found a vibrant community of //e experimenters on
Syndicomm, I would be more interested in joining, but my current
impression is otherwise.
For me, perhaps the biggest lure is the prospect of undiscovered
8-bit treasure in the form of files and documents that I do not
already have access to, but I have no way of knowing that such
treasure exists (just as you have no way of knowing what I already
have access to).
Unfortunately, barring my discovery of a community with interests
similar to my own, that would mean that my motivation to continue
as a member would wane as I found and downloaded the files and
documents which interested me.
This causes me to think that an exclusive discussion group and an
exclusive (largely static) file archive have very different membership
sustainability characteristics. Perhaps linking the two in a single
subscription is a mistake...
-michael
8-voice music synthesizer using NadaNet networking!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/