No Pay?

Recently I found a neat new website. It allows you to trade items for points, then you can purchase things with those points. Neat idea, great website and most of the time it's up and working properly. Like most websites there are those people who must scam others. With that comes a lot of moaning, complaining and support tickets to the support people.

When I found the site it was just starting. From what I could tell there was only a few hundred people on it. I didn't mind and was listing stuff daily. Things were growing at a rapid pace with that growth came advertising. Of course this site needed some revenue. Every website does or they soon become run down and untaken care of because someone had to get a job. When the advertising came people didn't want flashy banners, then they didn't want links, ads were to big or to small and the more I read their forums, the more complaining I saw. I finished selling what I had and used up my points. I left the site.

Last week an email came from that site about paid memberships. Just out of curiosity, I clicked over to see what people were thinking about that. The paid membership idea was not going over well at all. More complaining. As with many sites, there seems to be that "group" of people who scream the loudest. This website was not immune, the same people not wanting the advertising or less it was their way, were now complaining about the paid membership. I wonder how many of those people would be willing to labor day and night at a job with no pay?

Personally, I didn't feel the website owners were out of line asking for a fee. There was an option to use for free with the ads remaining. We've all seen sites like this. Websites have to make money. Each one is a little (or big) job. Sometimes there is one person working the site, sometimes there is a whole office suite. We're fortunate that Gather shares their advertising revenue with us.

There's a time to do "Labors Of Love" but there is a time to remember no website was built for free. Someones time and talent is in that website.

Just needed to vent and knew my fellow lucky Gather friends would understand.