Has any one here heard of the recent poll on yahoogroups about charging for their lists. I read a post on Ozark Homesteader list, think that was the name. or the OH list. Anyways, I noticed a month ago yahoo changed their e-mail page and also shortened the storage space like hotmail did. I had this feeling. I happened to think of this when I read the close of this forum post and someone suggesting that they would be willing to pay for it.

Seems that this could really put a crunch in the lists over at yahoogroups. I moderate 3 lists and placed a good many files in it. If we have to pay then all of this information and archives will be lost.

It seems that this is a growing trend since last fall when Goatworld went to a pay forum.

I also read that smartgroups.com is hosting free lists. Guess w emay need to consider if yahoo does that to start lists again there. I ahven't seen anything from Donna Palmer who runs most of the talklists.

What I can't figure is why now? Doesn't make sense to me.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), February 17, 2002

Answers

1) Because they're not making enough money to cover costs; 2) Like TMF, they'll find enough suckers to pay for it;

I noted my free ad for real estate suddenly got cancelled (12/01) and money was demanded to continue or re-instate the listing. I cancelled it and haven't used them since. Yahoo ads keep popping up inside the e-mails and that's frustrating too.

-- al (yr2012@hotmail.com), February 17, 2002.

Yahoo is running this survey and on another List, it says that from the looks of it, it seems as though they are considering radically changing the groups.

Basically, they are considering a two-tier system: free-groups and fee-groups (which they call Premium).

The model they propose in the survey is quite limited for *free* groups: smaller archives (2 MB), smaller file area (10 MB), and a limit on how many members can join per day/ per 6 month stretch (only 100 in a six month period).

Even with the Premium (fee) set up, you would only get 25 MB of archives.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2222@hotmail.com), February 18, 2002.

Well, there is no free lunch.

Any mail list that has real activity (as in the ones most worth subbing to) is going to start eating up resources, particularly if it keeps archives. The dot com bubble has burst and if the days of free resources haven't precisely come to a close they certainly are getting much, much leaner. If the hosting companies can't make some return off of advertising then they'll either start charging for the services or end them. In the case of Yahoo this is unfortunate as I read about six different lists hosted by them. If they charged a nominal fee there are two that I'd pay money to continue to partcipate in but I'd have to let the others go.

Hard times for discussion forums and e-mail lists but not exactly unexpected.

.........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), February 18, 2002.

Many of us are on quite a few Yahoo Lists. I wonder if in the end Yahoo will stop the ads and be charging the $4.95 for each List you're on. (The alternative.) Don't know about you, but I'm not about to pay $4.95/month for each List. Hope the owners of these Lists find another place for them. Then again, Yahoo may wind up kicking themselves if it doesn't work for them.

Hmmmm, wonder if this is the beginning of ending free forums.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2222@hotmail.com), February 18, 2002.