When I joined PBS three months ago, it said something like....Free, no dues. Perhaps in the future there may be a fee.

My question: Does anyone out there pay to belong to PBS?

No.  They want to keep it free from what I understand.

They are trying very hard to keep it free.  They have made it possible to donate credits to help cover the cost of the free credits to new members.  Volunteers do all kinds of work to help out.  At some point TPTB would like to make some money on PBS, but just how or when remains to be seen

Ruth

Thanks for the info. I was just wondering.

A lot of people pay for a Box of Books membership even though they don't use it that much (mine is on hold).  The fee helps support the site and it's $9/year. 

I have to say that I LOVE PBS just the way it is but if the choice came down to a small yearly fee or obnoxious paid advertizing all over the forums, I will GLADLY pay the fee.  I understand that TPTB need and want to make a profit but one of the reasons this particular site is so wonderful is the absence of advertizing.

This is an amazing site and we are so fortunate to be able to participate.  I love it here.

I am just the opposite.  I have learned to ignore the obnoxious ads.  Not just on this site, but on all sites, since pretty much every site has them.  Including pay sites.  I know they want to make money, but if they start charging a fee, I will have to leave.

I would gladly pay a fee for this site. I've donated credits and will donate more when I get them. 

I LOVE THIS SITE!!!

I would pay a yearly fee as long as it was reasonable.  With the amount of books I read-a $20 yearly fee would still be cheaper than buying books new-even cheaper than Ebay is nowadays.   I used get boxes of 15-20 books there for just a couple bucks and now it's hard to find those deals anymore. 

I would be ok with some advertising as well. I've learned to tune it out. 

I'm another who would be happy to pay a small yearly fee if needed. One benefit would be (I think) that if people DID pay a fee, it would mean they were seriously interested in the site--we would have FAR less of the abandoned accounts and waiting days and weeks on books cycling through people waiting for responses. And hopefully less people who join up to unload crappy, water-damaged books that have been sitting in Grandma's basement for 10 years--which they don't realize they can't do til they get a few complaints and PBS yanks their accounts. *sigh*

And as an FYI, that blurb about "there may be a fee sometime in the future" has been there since I joined almost 4 years ago. LOL

Cheryl

And they now get money if you go through PBS to buy at Amazon.  See that buy it button on the book page?  Not that I think anyone should buy from Amazon.  We should buy new books local whenever we can so we keep our independent bookstores.  But it is another way for PBS to raise money.

I'm way more OK with ads than with a fee to belong. I think that the fee will keep away a lot of people (particularly new members), but ads probably wouldn't. If the amount of people trading goes down due to the fee, the site will be less fun for the people who paid the fee to stay.

If they do decide that they have to charge money for membership, I hope they have an option to donate credits as a form of payment. I hate messing with paying for things online and that alone would probably keep me away.

I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee.  I think they have that in the Help Docs or basic information in case they ever do decide they need to implement a fee.  That serves as notice to people so they can't claim they never knew or the information wasn't available when they  joined.  I would imagine that PBS would give new members a trial membership for free....3 months of 6 months.  Used books here are expensive - at least $5 each for PB's.  And the library isn't geared to adults - even if it were well run - which it isn't.  So PBS is definitely my "go to" book provider!

Ruth