My final words on Platinum

[George Spellwin]

Dear friends and fellow athletes,

Stop the Platinum discussion. Platinum memberships are not a conspiracy, plot, censorship, or greed.

The bottom line is the board is operating at a substantial loss.

We have enormous bandwidth requirements and the pictures are largely responsible. We also need more hardware and have large legal bills – all of which have to be paid to bring this forum to you. And the sales of supplements are coming nowhere close to paying for these boards. And 90% of you have never bought any anyway.

I am really sad that you are too cheap to support this site. Many of you spend in excess of four hours a day here and yet you are unable to find 39 cents a day so that we can stay online. We even provide you with free technical support for your free accounts when you have problems.

Worse, you use my site as your own soapbox to criticize me and my business – like you have some kind of right to come here and do this. If you are not happy, leave, but don’t try and convince those members that support the site that they are doing the wrong thing by contributing so that we can stay online.

I wish everything here could be free – but it cannot. And it has been seen all over the Internet, that if members do not value the sites enough to pay a small fee for them, then they will not stay around. And why should they? If something is not worth paying for, it’s not worth having.

When the day comes where we can no longer afford to keep Elite online, I hope you will realize what you have lost and I hope you will remember that you let it happen.

Details of the memberships are here:
http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/platinum/11.html

I will delete threads other than this one on the subject.

 

[mlomker]

The bottom line is the board is operating at a substantial loss.

I believe you. I work at a radio station and we constantly find it difficult to cost-justify streaming our audio content. Shelling out $5k/month for bandwidth gets to be quite a drag on the IT budget.

I buy 12 lbs of Triple Threat/month and I encourage the other bros on here to do the same. It's a good product.

 

[BigAndy69]

Yeah, you're right, this is an amazing site, nothing like it on the net, but I think that the people who posted those pics in the "porno" have a right to complain that they no control over them now.

 

[flickenu]

people bitch and whine too much, its getting annoying. im just glad this will weed out alot of people. hell i dont even visit the pictures boards but i'll gladly pay for it just because you let amaf register as m0f0.

 

[Adaptek]

Fuck me.... George you are a good man. I am very grateful for this site. Thanks for the reality check!

I am one of these guilty sons of bitches. I have not bitched or complained. But I use my FREE elite email, I get a wealth of FREE knowledge, I send FREE Private msgs, I got FREE tech support when my account had problems.

I feel like a real pussy, as a bodybuilder I am not rich, but I am gonna support this site!!

My cheque is in the mail for platinum membership and some sups and Elite gear too.

 

[Big Brother Val]

I totally understand why George is doing this. He has a business to run. Would you invite everyone on the board over for drinks if you had to buy 'em all? Fuck no.

Financially, I'm in a real shithole right now. I don't have any credit cards, or even a checking account. So I can't do a paypal thing, even if I wanted to. But I may be able to send in some money through the mail... when I have a bit extra, if that's allowed.

But I am still totally willing.

I have learned so much here. I got gear info, supplement info, cycling info, shit... I even got my sources from people here.

How much would I pay for all the added muscle I've gotten from being on this board for two years? A shitload more than George is charging.

Do you bitch for having to pay money to put gas in your car? No... if you don't wanna pay for gas... you just don't fuckin' drive. This is George's house. If he wants me to pay rent to house me... I think that's fair. I don't have it right now... but will pay up as soon as I can.

 

[needsize]

I agree, George has provided us with a forum like no other to discuss shit that we can't even discuss anywhere else, we should support it.
I did sign up for the 6 month platinum last night and even got emailed a receipt from paypal, but still cant access the other areas. Can a mod help me with this?

 

[bigpimp]

Nothing is free and George has been paying out his ass every month so we all can be members here and pay nothing.....its only fair that we(the members) stand up and start taking responsibility for this site and contribute to making it even better....by doing this maybe we can weed out all the idiots that just take up space.....if it matters, George...you got my vote

 

[DaMan]

I understand you completely.

What I find inappropriate, however, is that you did not give us any warning, and you do know that some members posted naked pictures of themselves (no, not me) over which they have no control anymore.

Whether or not they're too cheap is not the issue, they should have the right to remove them without paying. All that was needed would have been a warning - it's not that hard.

Having said that, though, I agree with all you said - it's ridiculous that people come here and bitch the second they're asked to pay for something they actually USE. If they don't want to then fine, or complain on another board, but not here - there are enough free forums they can still leech off without paying a dime.

 

[Zyglamail]

George, one thing to consider. last time I peaked at the pole about people subscribing to the platinum service it looked like only 6% said they would. Many sighted it was just too expensive. Now, if you look at the numbers and do a little math, you may find that 6% paying +$100 a year does not come as close to making money as lets say a 50% subscription rate at $30 a year. Just as an example, if we use a user base of 1000 subscribers and do the math with the above numbers you get:

60(6% of 1000) x $100=$6000

OR

500(50% of 1000) x $30=$15000

Just something to consider.

P.S. Mass Q suppliments comprise a large portion of my suppliment regimine.

P.S.S On a side note, I love your flax seed oil BUT I end up wasting half of it since it drips down the side of the bottle after pouring. Have you thought of using a pour spout type lid that you would find on shampoo or something??? I e-mailed that idea to the boys at mass-q allready