Premium membership to post in the marketplace

Samuel Preston · February 11

So I wanted to post two rolls of 16mm film for sale in the marketplace at a good price because I have it left over from a shoot, when I saw that you now need a 25$ one time payment for premium to post things there. I am not against buying a premium membership for a tool and resource that I find very valuable, but the marketplace has lots of great listings by people who selling stuff and do not post here regularly, or are selling something like film. That would mean essentially taking a 25$ hit on the sale price, which for the cost I was going to put the film up for, would mean I'd be paying extra just to post it here for sale.

I think it is a pretty misguided decision to add a paywall for such a well used resource, especially when lots of people who browse the marketplace relatively frequently, will no longer do so as the only things that will get posted there now are arricams, sr3s and expensive lens sets. The site sponsors have their own websites with these high end items for a reason, and I don't mind seeing ads for their sites or listings on the marketplace for items on their sites. But this is not what all people are interested in but it will be the expensive items by site sponsors and paying users that will be worth posting for the 25$. For other people, it simply wouldn't be worth doing so. I don't think turning the marketplace into a centralised thread of site sponsor listings is a good decision at all.

The fact that it limits the diversity of postings in the marketplace will likely have an impact on general postings here, as people will go elsewhere to sell but will then also be less inclined to interact with people here generally. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a decrease in daily users and returning users.

Anyway, this slightly ticked me off this morning because I think it's a bad decision for a great resource with maybe some bad repercussions. Maybe someone else thinks the same way.

Edited February 11 by Samuel Preston
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Kamran Pakseresht · February 11

I guess on the other side of the equation it probably does a really good job at eliminating scammers.

Tim Tyler · February 29

It's basically a small step that helps weed out scammers.

For the last ten years I've been manually vetting every single new member account added to the forum, but a few troublemakers still get through. I mean, I'm not running ID's through INTERPOL or anything like that, but an effort is made. A PayPal transaction helps confirm their identity.

steven jackson · February 29

4 hours ago, Tim Tyler said:

It's basically a small step that helps weed out scammers.

For the last ten years I've been manually vetting every single new member account added to the forum, but a few troublemakers still get through. I mean, I'm not running ID's through INTERPOL or anything like that, but an effort is made. A PayPal transaction helps confirm their identity.

so that would work equally as well for a transaction of $1 (which is what paypal does to confirm new members identity!)? $25 is a rather hefty amount to expect to place an ad. In any case, it was a deterrent for me when wanting to post an ad for my eclair motor.

Edited February 29 by steven jackson

Samuel Preston · February 29

5 hours ago, Tim Tyler said:

It's basically a small step that helps weed out scammers.

Makes sense to try and reduce scammers. But someone scamming with a multiple thousand dollar item is not going to be discouraged by 25$ to pay with their already fake paypal account. Additionally, like steven has said, if the reason is to have a paypal transaction to confirm identity, this could be less, maybe 1 dollar.

I get you have to keep the forum up and running and pay for this service, I just think it’s a real shame as i’ve already seen the effects in the marketplace, just high value items by the big players who already sponsor the forum anyway. Extreme lack of diversity is already totally noticeable.

Tim Tyler · February 29

30 minutes ago, steven jackson said:

$25 is a rather hefty amount to expect to place an ad. In any case, it was a deterrent for me when wanting to post an ad for my eclair motor.

Not such a hefty amount when you combine that motor with the complete ACL II package you advertised a few months ago.