It's been a long, hard road to this point, but I'm pleased to announce that effective immediately, we are officially accepting subscriptions to SoylentNews. Subscription support is an important step in helping make SoylentNews successful as an independent entity that is fully funded by its users. In case you don't remember, here's the rundown of subscription features:
You can purchase a subscription on your user panel, or by clicking this link. Subscriptions are $20/year, and you can be reminded via email when that period is coming to an end via subscription settings. All payments are currently processed by PayPal, but we hope to add new merchant support in the future.
Here's hoping to seeing lots of stars in the near future!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday August 28 2014, @08:43PM
Zaf - that was nicely done with a touch of humour. But not all of the posts in this thread have been in quite the same vein. Members realise, of course, that running any site must have a cost associated with it and many have asked about contributing to help out with covering these costs. It was discovered that accepting donations was not as straight-forward as one might at first think - there were all sorts of legal hoops that had to be jumped through just to enable SN to accept donations. But offering subscriptions appears to be the least contentious way of enabling members to help support the site.
No-one is being coerced into subscribing - and there is no limit to what the site offers to non-subscribers compared with what we have been offering for the last 6 months or so. But, for those that wish to do so, they can now subscribe - and to ensure that it is not a donation we offer the potential to be able to access some of the stories and comment data more directly in the future. The site only exists because of the community. Everyone contributes to its success - by submissions, comments, coding, buying swag, or simply by page visits.
None of the 'staff' take a salary as was mentioned in one post, nobody takes anything out of the system other than essential running expenses and we all do what we do because we, like every other member of this community, believe in what we are trying to achieve.
Anyway, I discovered that the VIP toilet key is not much use in France - it only gives me access to the same roadside bush that everyone else seems to urinate against! However, my dream is that one day, whilst urinating against the aforementioned bush, I will realise that the person standing next to me is also wearing a SN t-shirt, with his Mercedes key dangling from his unobtainium key ring....