[thewitt]

It will be interesting to watch the dynamic in the online community space, as people move from one free community to another.

I suspect that many will leave as the community either becomes flooded with ads they can't stand to have pop up all over the place, or when the site becomes pay-for-use.

Most Internet communities are not driven by the owners, they are driven by the members. When the members feel like they are no longer members but paying customers, I suspect most will go somewhere that feels more like a community than a pay-and-get-in club.

As a paid service, you will also be expected to provide higher level of support and services, and when the service is not received, you will not get those customers to sign up again unless you go out of your way to provide other significant value for the money.

I'm not suggesting that anyone not go down this path - only that it may not be exactly what you think it will be in the end. I left the pay-for-talk services like AOL, Compuserve and Genie when the quality of talk on USENET was higher than those subscription services. I never looked back. I suspect others will do the same in the new Internet order of pay-as-you-go forums.
-t