Your comments

This is a most unfortunate and poorly conceived and executed monetization attempt.

$240 a year for a glorified bulletin board seems excessive to me. Most of us have access to the wires and professional analysis via our trading platforms and subscription to established sources. 

The educated comments of your users were your capital, and this decision will squander that capital by turning many of them away.

Furthermore, the few Authors I found valuable and follow will feel the sting and lose access to potential subscribers. 

I suspect you will have to reconsider, if not the paywall model itself, your pricing strategy.

Thank you for the years of valuable service you provided.