Your comments

Like everyone else here, I'm very disappointed with the decision to put everything behind a paywall.  I've been reading Seeking Alpha for almost eight years and consider it a valuable source of information, particularly the news blurbs that make it easy to stay on top of relevant developments in the financial markets.  I'm surprised even those news blurbs have been put behind the paywall, as that information is all available for free elsewhere, SA just organizes it in a way that makes it easy to consume.


The articles are also informative (quality is hit or miss), but as others have said the active community engaging in the comments sections is one of the most valuable aspects of SA.  I'd be very surprised if the paywall doesn't do serious damage to the size and liveliness of the community going forward.

I understand that the site needs to bring in revenue to continue operations, but I don't think a paywall is the answer - or at the very least, not a paywall with a minimum of $20 / month.  I think people might be willing to stick around for something more like $5 / month, but in my opinion the service simply doesn't offer more value than that.  I know you've tried to add other things like the Quant Ratings to improve the value proposition, but I don't think most of us really care - we just want the basic news, articles, comments, and notifications.

Wikipedia is one of the largest websites in the world, and it manages to be funded entirely by donations.  People are willing to donate because they find the platform and the information contained therein useful.  Have you considered just trying to run a simple annual fundraising campaign?  I would think a lot of people would be willing to donate to keep the site otherwise free and to keep the community thriving.

I'm not willing to give up on SA just yet, but I certainly won't be paying $20 / month for a premium subscription.  I guess I'll just wait around and see how everything shakes out, because I seriously doubt this decision is going to bring about the desired results for SA and something is going to have to give.