No Go with PRO

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I started reading SA in 2014 and really enjoy it.  It consumes probably too much of my time each day.  Although I am retired, it's a great resource for both old and new investors.  The new policy regarding paying 900. per year for PRO is absurd.  That will probably prove to be a very bad business decision.  You need to figure out a better way how to shore up revenue or you will undoubtedly loose good authors and followers.

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anonymous
  • Under review

Hi,


Thanks so much for the feedback.


Just to clarify, all real-time usage of Seeking Alpha is still 100% free. We are only requiring a subscription for investors who wish to do deep-dive research on a stock and read articles in our archive (i.e. published more than 10 days ago). In addition, our breaking news product and articles which are not single stock analysis remain 100% free. 

Thanks,

Daniel

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Jeffery Patterson

I agree with the original post. A $75 per month subscription fee is ridiculous. There are many other sites where research can be done at a much more reasonable price. 

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stocksaremything

I agree! $75 is a but much. However, where else can you get the type of articles and research you can find on SAlpha? Yahoo Finance, Google, and Marketwatch don't even come close. Where ya'l moving to?

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RetiredinIndy

I am waiting to see where some of the authors I follow end up going.  Many of them are not happy like us.  By locking up articles after 10 days, SA management has significantly cut a major value offered by the website.  Many of the authors I follow do so to educate young investors and I totally respect and support their efforts.  This new policy is doing a grave disservice to them.  One of my favorite authors, and one with a huge number of followers, recently announced he is going on vacation for a while.  Although he did not say, I have little doubt that this policy is the cause for the vacation. 

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For $75/month, the quality needs to be consistently good.  Very few articles on SA rise to that level, certainly not enough to justify that level of fee.

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aussyspitz

Sorry but $75 is way too much I believe the fee should be closer to Netflix/Amazon i.e. no more than $10 a month or discounted to $100 a year if paid in advance. If SA continues to go this route I for one and probably many more like me will likely go elsewhere.

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mfreeman775
Quote from anonymous

Hi,


Thanks so much for the feedback.


Just to clarify, all real-time usage of Seeking Alpha is still 100% free. We are only requiring a subscription for investors who wish to do deep-dive research on a stock and read articles in our archive (i.e. published more than 10 days ago). In addition, our breaking news product and articles which are not single stock analysis remain 100% free. 

Thanks,

Daniel

Daniel, 


95% of the articles I have read on SA are more than 10 days old. My process is this: I find a stock I like, then head over to SA to see what's been written on it. It's very rare to find an article that is less than 10 days old on any given stock. That's not "deep-diving". Many stocks don't have any articles less than 10 days old. I don't find value in reading whatever is "trending" on stocks I'm not interested in buying.


The response has been clear. This many people aren't wrong. I'm not saying it is your doing, but whoever made this decision should be more transparent with changes instead of trying to sell us on this whole "nothing has really changed" pretense. Come on, now. We're not stupid.



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GoBlue78

When Pro first started, it was $8000/yr.  I did check it out at the time. Now, it is $75/mo with the onerous forcing function of requiring it for access to items > 10 days old.


This is still too much.  Quality of articles here is hit and miss.  There is much work for the reader to sift through and find what is useful.   I would be willing to pay $10/mo for what SA delivers.  If SA persists in restricting access to content, a competitor will be created with more reasonable usage rules / economics, and SA loses.  Right now, you have built a go-to franchise that I and other use often.  You have begun the process of destroying it.


For what I was looking for on SA right now, I am now going to other sites to find it.  SA loses whatever ad or other monies would have otherwise been generated.

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User 1566071

OP: I chuckled over your comment "It consumes probably too much of my time each day".  So true.


And others in this and other threads have expressed my pessimistic opinion on SA's future.


PRO Subscription: How many of us retired folks have an extra more than 1% of our income available for PRO?

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Smarty_Pants

I agree with the rest.  I've been using SA since 2010.  I've received at least one email request to become a contributor, but I don't have the time.  Blocking access to anything but very recent articles is going to ruin the usefulness of the website and I predict, like others before me, that your traffic and revenue will decrease as a result.  Daniel's feeble attempt to insist that "nothing is wrong" only serves to demonstrate that there's a problem with the mindset of those directing the future of SeekingAlpha.  They are cutting their own throat and refuse to admit it.  Sorry, but asking so much money for access to articles written by voluntary and amateur investors is beyond crazy.  It stuns me that SA refuses to acknowledge their mistake and instead insists on doubling down on stupid.  If this is the only way to make the website profitable, then you deserve to go out of business, IMHO.  And for the record, I find the old SA model to be incredibly useful.  The new one, not so much.