Pro Plan is big mistake

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  • updated
  • Under review

You are making a huge mistake here. Many people came over to SA after the demise of Yahoo Finance Message Boards, looking for a place to have free exchange of dialogue. While SA wasn’t perfect, some of the amateur articles were pretty good, but more importantly, there was often an active dialogue in the comment section. Unfortunately these comments would die down within a few days or if lucky, a few weeks, so it couldn’t mirror the value of YFMB, which had open running dialogue on each stock (it still does, but it is such a poor system that most don’t use it anymore). The beauty of YFMB and of SA was that it offered a free exchange for the everyday investor who couldn’t afford to buy high end research. In fact, many felt that the dialogue among many investors is much more valuable. What will happen now with the move to Pro is that the majority of your readers will not pay up for Pro, and you will lose the most valuable part of your site, the article comments. Case in point: I subscribed to a Marketplace author, and while I enjoyed his articles, there were virtually NO comments, which rendered the overall experience unworthy of a fee. You know why there were no comments? Because no one is willing to pay a fee for amateur articles. You need to understand who your readership is, and stick with an advertising model, or else you will price yourself into irrelevance.  Don’t make this mistake. 

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anonymous
  • Under review

Hi,


Thanks so much for the feedback.


Just to clarify, users who commented on an article retain access to the comment stream even after the 10 days have elapsed.


Thanks,

Daniel

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coroscant72

I agree whole heartedly with jeffkad. Seeking Alpha does not realize that the large part of it's value comes from user interaction and user inputted information.  You can now no longer research a new stock because all articles over 10 days old are no longer available.  Daniel Hochman says you'll still have access to the comment stream, but only if you commented on the article in the first 10 days, so any new research will not turn this information up.


Just like with YFMB the users will flock to the next free exchange of information site that is user friendly.  SA I hope you are tracking your daily users and change this policy before you become irrelevant.  For some reason you think your value comes from your content and not your users, which is a very flawed way to look at social media.