The Pay-to-Post Business Model

Metafilter.com has an interesting business model. It’s called “Pay to Post” although it isn’t referred to as such.

If you want to expound on, disagree with or hijack anyone’s thread, you must pay $5 for the privilege first. It’s ah, an economically-driven commenting site with a pseudo-conscience so-to-speak:

Due to the bursting size of the community, its use of resources, and the cost of running the servers, all new users have a one-time $5 charge, to help defray these costs. If you sign up an account to pimp your product, act like an ass, or generally just do things that break the guidelines you will be booted and there will be no refunds.

I guess that means all those Google Ads running on the site aren’t paying the bills.

Or, that slick entrepreneur, Matthew Haughey, is smarter than me… what with this double-dipping. He’s probably smarter than me… Go for the Gold, Matt… I think I’d fall over if our local papers decided I had to pay to opine in their esteemed publications (filled with ads as well). What can I say other than, “more power to you if you can get it.”

There is a one week waiting period for full access to the site even though you’ve payed your full-fare:

Due to a few opportunistic members that ignored guidelines in the past, there is a one-week waiting period after signup, before you are allowed to post a new question to Ask MetaFilter or a new post to MetaFilter. You can post comments to MetaFilter and MetaTalk, and answers to Ask MetaFilter right away though.

And there you have it: The pay-to-post business model. Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen here. You can, however, make a donation!