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Hi,

I have rarely posted here, but I feel a need to post.  I am a business owner.  I have owned many businesses over the last twenty years.  The first thing any business needs to remember before doing anything, is that the business they "run" is owned by the users of the business.  If the users are not willing to pay $20 for a new DVD, they wont, no matter how hard you push it and say it is better than a cd, and you will go out of business.  This is currently the big issue blue ray is having in the market place, hence why blue ray movies are coming back to nearly the same as their DVD counterpart.  It is especially more important in an online business.  You can choose to set a price point that might get you one person in one hundred take up the offer.  Or had you talked to your community about options your community would have spoken back.  They would have given suggestions, you could have collated the suggestions and then acted on the most accepted suggestion.  You did none of this, this is poor business management.  Honestly, right now the reaction that your community is screaming at you, not asking, is your price is way too high.  Any good business person listens very carefully to their community.  Walmart do not put any item in their store without first asking people if they will buy it.  If they won't it does not go into their stores.  I know you have already put the cart in front of the horse by not allowing community input, but right now you need to try and get that cart back behind the horse.  The only way I see this is 1.  remove all costs (temporarily) 2. speak and ask your community of their thoughts.  3. given a small amount of time collating the information from step 2, then offer a vote on the top 3 - 5 options talked about.  Do not think at this point you get to choose the most expensive or best for you. 4.  once you have your votes in set a date to implement it and give notice. No sudden surprises.  5. Watch more money roll in than you would get any other way.  Sometimes les means more.  Hypotetical, if you offer the premium at $10/year and lets say every member takes it up that is $770,000 per year.  Or if you offer it at $84/year (current option) and 1 in 100 takes it up then you only get $65,000 per year.  I know not every person is going to take it up, but this just shows how less can be more.

We all love this site, we all want this site to go on, we all want you to get paid for your services.

Just my thoughts, from a very successful business person.  BTW I have learnt this lesson before in one of my first businesses, so I have real world experience.