@Vitor: As much as I'd like to be with you on hoping people signed up for the right reasons, it's hard to put your faith into the internet, especially after seeing the huge outpour of community misinformation and vitriol.
" @Cake: If people actually get angry about that at all, I'm going to be awfully disappointed because it means a lot of people won't renew memberships or will cancel them. That brings me to my next point, which is that I'm going to be terribly disappointed and afraid that a large majority of subscribers bought memberships for all the wrong reasons, most notably those people who simply bought a 1 month subscription simply on the basis to "Save the Bombcast", which is an absolutely terrible ideal. People should be buying a subscription because you actually want to support the content and purchase the extra value added for the Whiskey Media sites, not just for this terrible clusterfuck that everyone is making this out to be. "
I get the feeling that nearly all the yearly subs had nothing to do with the bombcast decision though - mostly from users (like myself) having followed these guys for 2 years or more and having decided long ago to opt in day 1 regardless. Just as they cannot measure how many people listen to the bombcast, neither can they know how many people got a sub because of the potential split. I bet the latter probably lost them more subscriptions than it gained so would be way surprised if they didn't turn around completely on the issue come tomorrow. "
I bought a membership for a number of reasons. I would be lying if I said that I would continue getting the annual membership if the bombcast stays the same. It's a big reason I went with the membership.
" So on a scale of 1 to 10, how pissed are everyone gonna be when at 10am they'll have about 4.7k-4.8k subs, and the podcast stays split ? "
Honestly, judging by the massive negative reaction the bombcast split has had (I paid up but don't agree with the decision either), I wouldn't be surprised if they left it unaltered regardless as we got so close. These guys have proven time and time again that they have a great degree of moral integrity, and while some may cry hypocrisy, they've never let us down before and I'm more comfortable judging them by their track record than a spur of the moment backlash. I think they get their user base and the decision for the split is visibly on shaky enough reasoning that I'm hopeful for a change. "
I agree, and I think that fact that they never did anything to let their community down in any way, is what's making most here so upset about the whole deal.Though honestly I don't think they'll keep the current format unless they get 5k+. Here's to hoping I'm wrong huh (: "
But why assume that, after never letting their community down before, that they'd so so now? Wait until their final call tomorrow, but I have faith that they'll what the community wants due to the massive backlash. The sudden pessimism on the site is palpable - the crew here have always been awesome and, dammit, they're gonna stay that way son.
And even if not, I've got enough trust and respect in these guys to accept the decision as being for the site's best interest regardless.
" @Cake: If people actually get angry about that at all, I'm going to be awfully disappointed because it means a lot of people won't renew memberships or will cancel them. That brings me to my next point, which is that I'm going to be terribly disappointed and afraid that a large majority of subscribers bought memberships for all the wrong reasons, most notably those people who simply bought a 1 month subscription simply on the basis to "Save the Bombcast", which is an absolutely terrible ideal. People should be buying a subscription because you actually want to support the content and purchase the extra value added for the Whiskey Media sites, not just for this terrible clusterfuck that everyone is making this out to be. "
I get the feeling that nearly all the yearly subs had nothing to do with the bombcast decision though - mostly from users (like myself) having followed these guys for 2 years or more and having decided long ago to opt in day 1 regardless. Just as they cannot measure how many people listen to the bombcast, neither can they know how many people got a sub because of the potential split. I bet the latter probably lost them more subscriptions than it gained so would be way surprised if they didn't turn around completely on the issue come tomorrow. "
I bought a membership for a number of reasons. I would be lying if I said that I would continue getting the annual membership if the bombcast stays the same. It's a big reason I went with the membership. "
Really? That's not a reason I've seen a lot of on the forums so far - fair enough though. It's such a hard thing to quantify though that, regardless of the number of subscribers they receive, they'll never know how many truly went for the bombcast though. Like they said, advertisers can't measure the value of the thing, and I think it's weird that they're trying to do so.
" So on a scale of 1 to 10, how pissed are everyone gonna be when at 10am they'll have about 4.7k-4.8k subs, and the podcast stays split ? "
I fully expect the Bombcast to stay split anyway To answer you're question. Probably 10 "
Would just be sad if it came down to 100-200 people less, and they say "nah not good enough" "
But it wont go free, they have already said its a drain on there bandwith ect to do it, so unless they were bullshitting us on that. Not to mention the 8 "man hours" it takes to do a 2 hour podcast... "
Splitting the podcast doesn't make it cheaper to make. It will take the same man hours and bandwidth to post it in two halfs - more as they have to edit different versions. What they were saying is that the bombcast is valuable and relatively expensive so lets use it as a perk of subscribing. The problem now is if the backlash drowns out every other discussion of memberships.
Without the podcast thing I think the general reception of paid memberships would have been positive. You would have still got the "I don't pay or websites" crowd but nowhere near this PR disaster.
I'd definitely blame failing to meet the 5k on the lack of a Paypal option. I very nearly didn't bother because of this, and I know many people are totally unable to subscribe without it.
I know they said it would likely come later, but it should have been a day one thing.
" I hope WM had the foresight to overshoot the number of subscriptions needed for a free bombcast. "
It seemed an off the cuff offer rather than a calculated bait. Suggests they were expecting more like 2500 day one subscriptions and thought hell, in the unlikely event that we double expectations it will be worth altering the business plan.
" So on a scale of 1 to 10, how pissed are everyone gonna be when at 10am they'll have about 4.7k-4.8k subs, and the podcast stays split ? "
I fully expect the Bombcast to stay split anyway To answer you're question. Probably 10 "
Would just be sad if it came down to 100-200 people less, and they say "nah not good enough" "
But it wont go free, they have already said its a drain on there bandwith ect to do it, so unless they were bullshitting us on that. Not to mention the 8 "man hours" it takes to do a 2 hour podcast... "
Splitting the podcast doesn't make it cheaper to make. It will take the same man hours and bandwidth to post it in two halfs - more as they have to edit different versions. What they were saying is that the bombcast is valuable and relatively expensive so lets use it as a perk of subscribing. The problem now is if the backlash drowns out every other discussion of memberships. Without the podcast thing I think the general reception of paid memberships would have been positive. You would have still got the "I don't pay or websites" crowd but nowhere near this PR disaster. "
Agreed. Everyone was so excited at the possible feature set (which was pretty much a known quantity by this point) that this seemed to come totally out of left field. It was sprung on us way too last moment and the reasoning was (and still is) pretty flawed. Like I said, if advertisers can't quantify the value of the podcast, how can they do the same as they'll never know how many did actually subscribe just for that?
Oh god, why don't I have any money on my card right now? Whyyyy!? I have about 3 bucks, I'm so close to being able to get the monthly subscription. I feel so poor right now.
" Oh god, why don't I have any money on my card right now? Whyyyy!? I have about 3 bucks, I'm so close to being able to get the monthly subscription. I feel so poor right now. "
Hey well I don't even have a credit card, so I think you still win this one!
" I wish I didn't have to "waste" money on food, bills and other important stuff so I could chip in. Sadly the real world is kinda hard, so enjoy it while mom and dad are there to pay for everything.. "
The real world is hard. That's why I have a full time job that enables me pay for the things I both need and enjoy in life, including services like Giant Bomb. Way to generalize the community. "
Congrats on having a full time job like many of us have. But are you actually trying to tell me that not a single person here had mommy or daddy help pay for this? Next month I'll be able to pay for a year, but this months money are all used for the important stuff. Giantbomb is not important enough for me to say "Maybe we should not get the medicine for me to survive this month and pay for some WhiskeyMedia thingy!" :P I mean, I enjoy the sites a lot but not enough to have myself killed :P "
I agree you should not kill yourself because of the WhiskeyMedia thing that's just not smart.
I have a feeling this is going to be really sad when we fall short of 5k not because of a lack of people wanting to subscribe, but to a lack of payment options/problems with overseas payment methods.
I think the 10am deadline kind of sucks but I guess it makes sense since it lines it up with the start of the big live live show. I had planned on doing it and I almost forgot I needed to do it before 10am to help the cause. I wouldnt be surprised if alot of people think they have til the end of the day to make it count towards the bombcast for everyone.
" I have a feeling this is going to be really sad when we fall short of 5k not because of a lack of people wanting to subscribe, but to a lack of payment options/problems with overseas payment methods. "
as long as they support Mastercard and Visa that's not exactly a lack of options.
" I have a feeling this is going to be really sad when we fall short of 5k not because of a lack of people wanting to subscribe, but to a lack of payment options/problems with overseas payment methods. "
as long as they support Mastercard and Visa that's not exactly a lack of options. "
Yes, but they don't support paypal yet - which I'm pretty sure they'll get up and working in the future. I've seen more than a handful of posts probably of people saying that the only thing stopping them from subscribing is that there's no paypal option and they have no other means of subscribing.
" I have a feeling this is going to be really sad when we fall short of 5k not because of a lack of people wanting to subscribe, but to a lack of payment options/problems with overseas payment methods. "
as long as they support Mastercard and Visa that's not exactly a lack of options. "
It is when they are not one of your own online payment options. To pay online for things i use Paypal or Maestro, none of which are an option. So i have a dilema of wanting to give GB my money... yet i can't.
I did my part last night by donating $5 to save bombcast from splitting. I don't want bombcast to go in the way of GFW or 1up and lose its uniqueness because of financial dilemmas. Both of these podcasts went downhill when its main members left because there were more stable jobs available elsewhere.
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