Hello, MWOers
I've just bitten the bullet and become a subscriber to this forum (see the little pencil by my name?). I'm not affiliated with MWO in any way other than as a member whose life has been changed by participating here.
I would not have joined if a payment had been required initially - I had no confidence at all that an online support group could help me solve my problem and I certainly would not have paid to give it a whirl. Nor would I have been comfortable revealing my identity, despite the promises of security. I wasn't thrilled to do it today but I feel like it is time for me to step up to the plate.
The messages from RJ make it clear that MWO is in financial trouble and frankly, I'm not surprised. Another stop-drinking site that I'm aware of is in a similar predicament. I've been watching what is going on there. The choice was made to have a mandatory subscription, to begin at the end of this month. You can imagine the reactions to that. What appeared to me to be a pretty supportive community, much like this one, became very worked up with many of the posts heart-breaking.
They are looking into allowing newbies a week of free access before being required to join but their ability to do that is up in the air. The fears expressed by many of the members that some people will leave and many fewer people will join seem reasonable to me.
RJ has made it clear that she is going to try to go the advertiser route rather than mandating subscriptions. I personally am very glad she is going to do this -- I don't think it is that difficult to either benefit from or ignore ads, depending on what they are for.
However, this site, as well at the other one I've been talking about, both allow for donations. It turns out many people on that other site had never even noticed the donation button. I wasn't aware of the donation option here until I went in today to subscribe. On the other site, many of the upset members swore that they would have donated it they had known there was such a big problem and that the site was going to either close or become subscription-based.
This reminds me of the dilemma faced by public radio and tv in the US. Many people enjoy and benefit from these services without contributing financially. They often don't know how much they value them until one by one they are removed due to funding. Like public media, web forums need money to operate.
The subscription cost for MWO comes out to less than $10/month. I think it pretty much goes without saying (but I will
) that most of us spent much more than that on alcohol - probably in a couple of days. For those of us for whom MWO has been our only support for stopping drinking, we've saved thousands of dollars in treatment costs and likely avoided more in medical bills.
MWO needs to be freely available for those people desperately searching the internet for a lifeline out of the abyss they are in and to those who truly cannot afford to pay. I hope that any of you who can afford it and who appreciate what you've gained here as much as I do, either donate or subscribe to MWO (and while you're at it, to your public radio station
).
All the best, NS
I've just bitten the bullet and become a subscriber to this forum (see the little pencil by my name?). I'm not affiliated with MWO in any way other than as a member whose life has been changed by participating here.
I would not have joined if a payment had been required initially - I had no confidence at all that an online support group could help me solve my problem and I certainly would not have paid to give it a whirl. Nor would I have been comfortable revealing my identity, despite the promises of security. I wasn't thrilled to do it today but I feel like it is time for me to step up to the plate.
The messages from RJ make it clear that MWO is in financial trouble and frankly, I'm not surprised. Another stop-drinking site that I'm aware of is in a similar predicament. I've been watching what is going on there. The choice was made to have a mandatory subscription, to begin at the end of this month. You can imagine the reactions to that. What appeared to me to be a pretty supportive community, much like this one, became very worked up with many of the posts heart-breaking.
They are looking into allowing newbies a week of free access before being required to join but their ability to do that is up in the air. The fears expressed by many of the members that some people will leave and many fewer people will join seem reasonable to me.
RJ has made it clear that she is going to try to go the advertiser route rather than mandating subscriptions. I personally am very glad she is going to do this -- I don't think it is that difficult to either benefit from or ignore ads, depending on what they are for.
However, this site, as well at the other one I've been talking about, both allow for donations. It turns out many people on that other site had never even noticed the donation button. I wasn't aware of the donation option here until I went in today to subscribe. On the other site, many of the upset members swore that they would have donated it they had known there was such a big problem and that the site was going to either close or become subscription-based.
This reminds me of the dilemma faced by public radio and tv in the US. Many people enjoy and benefit from these services without contributing financially. They often don't know how much they value them until one by one they are removed due to funding. Like public media, web forums need money to operate.
The subscription cost for MWO comes out to less than $10/month. I think it pretty much goes without saying (but I will
) that most of us spent much more than that on alcohol - probably in a couple of days. For those of us for whom MWO has been our only support for stopping drinking, we've saved thousands of dollars in treatment costs and likely avoided more in medical bills. MWO needs to be freely available for those people desperately searching the internet for a lifeline out of the abyss they are in and to those who truly cannot afford to pay. I hope that any of you who can afford it and who appreciate what you've gained here as much as I do, either donate or subscribe to MWO (and while you're at it, to your public radio station
).All the best, NS
. Maybe there was a glitch in your enrollment. Glad you are joining, though
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