Important News!!

@Quantum Erasure Saw that post as well. Their is conflicting information been shared (possibly by myself as well).

What I have seen it may just include the last few digits. and once you click on the payment method, your been requested of information to verify your authorized to make the payment. My understanding what the user provide here is been themselves and the payment processor, otherwise if merchants/stripe had access to that information there would be a risk of someone else making requests for additional payments. (but at least with AIB, you are request through the app to authorize the payment, can't remember if I had to do that with my sub).

Visa enabled gift card is a cool tip, but who has them.

If someone is bothered about sharing some minor personal information about their sub to a site where there is a only a few people (Mike and Odhran) that would ever have access to that information, I would have to ask why are you so shy about them knowing your name? Unless you have some really weird name you are almost totally unidentifiable or you are saying something you shouldn't that makes you identifiable if the gards ever came along to ask questions. Seems more an excuse to say this is why I won't pay

I never expected the mods to change anything.

I'm not sure why you think I did.

I've put the question here so the owners can have a think about it.

At what point will you call it a day then?

In other words, what is the deadline for 2000 subscribers?

Don't see any plan to radically reduce costs or bring in other revenue streams - just a case of we need more users to pay us money.

May as well start the winding down party now as there is no way you are going to get even close to 2000 subscribers. Accounting should be a once off a year - this is not a multimillion euro business, what legal expenses could you possible have with one employer and ongoing contracts. Where is the plan to move to a substantially cheaper platform/server costs.

Just seems to be the attitude I don't care and when boards closes it's all the users fault for not stepping up.

Oh and cancelling my monthly sub as seems pointless at this point - can see many others doing the same. Quelle surprise I cannot find any cancellation link…

Who they have listened? People where requesting a

DONATE OPTION {PayPal}

? So don't have to commit to a sub, but assume you won't get the benefits of sub.

Even if the community take the site over, it will cost money to host and run. In any case, I don't see where the site goes from here. Calling a spade a spade, the sub goal is unlikely to be reached - an on that, I see plenty of my long time sparring partners have decided not to back the site, which is a shame.

The site was/is an important part of Irish internet and media culture for the last 25 years. I'm sure there are some grants and official sponsorships out there that could help support it.

In the meantime, you should offer subscribers the option to leave ads on. I suspect most have subscribed to save the site rather than have an ad free experience.

If the site does go dark, I'd ask that the archive be preserved and sent to the national library internet archive project. The last 25 years have seen Ireland transform from a homogeneous culture to a multi culture that saw two major shocks in the crash and epidemic. Future historians writing a social history will find this place a goldmine.

I’ve kept to myself on this because people are entitled to their own opinions on this (it is a discussion forum after all) but it’s hard to not see some of the relentless complaining as quite petty and short sighted. Like standing around a burning fire pointing fingers at who is to blame, saying this could have been prevented and asking who is gonna rebuild the house when some are still trying to save it. I literally saw that in my own estate as a river was over flowing and threatened to flood houses and had to tell neighbours to shut up and help fill up sand bags.

€50 a year or €6 a month , is not alot to commit. Some of the comments looking for account balances and business plans are pedantically over the top. If somebody is struggling to find €6 a month to commit, I’d wonder why they are even worried about boards , I’d say you’ve far bigger worries to focus on, so I call bullsh*t on anybody saying it’s a big commitment or that some of us are “being duped”. Feck with that nonsense.

People have given their reasons for supporting and not supporting. I’m not sure what Odhran (fun fact - I’ve same name, different spelling) or Mike can say at this stage as some people will not relent until everything is exactly as they want. You either want to save the site or not, make your call and be at peace with it.

Mistakes, I’m sure, have been made and maybe continue to be made , but if there was a simple solution, some of the people who keep saying “there’s a simple cheap fix” could of already done it. It’s like some people spend more time complaining than actually doing anything. Make a good site for free so and let’s have you, it’s hard to see why this hasn’t happened already if it’s so easy to do.

The world has changed. Maybe boards hasn’t fully adapted or maybe it’s not going to be able to adapt in a way that’s sustainable. Maybe it could be run better . If there really isn’t much that can be done to fight the changing tides then maybe a sub model is the only saving grace.

Am I saying “don’t ask questions or look for more information” ? No , I’m not , I get some people are really desperate for this to work out and maybe they do see opportunities that are being missed. But we won’t be able to ask these questions in a few weeks/months so if you haven’t subscribed, maybe do a bit of both and ask the questions and support or promote the site anyway you can. At least don’t just f**king complain and contribute nothing other then negative feedback.