> From: Samantha Levin <
binnorie@hotmail.com>
> 3. You won't lose many members by charging a membership fee- especially a
> sliding scale. You should, however, make the payment process as easy as
> possible.
All my experience of the net tells me this is totally untrue. You will
certainly lose a majority and possibly a large majority of your members by
introducing a fee. The issue will not necessarily be the fee itself, but the
perceived effort needed to pay it. Imposing a fee immediately raises the
question in the mind of the user: what is the value of this service to me?
Would I care if I didnt have access? And a lot of people will from that
point drift off elsewhere.
So what is the value of Rhizome to most individuals? Well, to me its almost
all the list. And to be honest, I dont feel that has much value these days.
The web site is conceptually interesting, but I dont really use if much. Of
course, there is value in the collection of works on the site, but to some
degree this is just a directory (as most of the works would continue to
exist even if not cloned on Rhizome). The events etc information is
interesting, but I get it all elsewhere.
"Our core activities include commissions, email discussions and
publications, this web site, and events."
Funny thing is, possibly the most interesting thing Rhizome does is
Commissions. But can I find anything about them on the Rhizome site? No. So
I cant even check whether or not I care whether this activity continues.
To sum up, for myself, I cant really see what Rhizome spends all its money
on. I cant see what I would really, really miss if it went. I dont know
about commissions. The email discussions I would probably be better off
without at this stage. Publications I dont see. The Web site is a good
resource, but will be/is replicated elsewhere. Events? Dont see them.
The main thing that I crave is real community among artists. And that I dont
get from Rhizome or anywhere else, except in a very loose generic sense.
So would I pay for Rhizome to continue? Yes. But thats the sort of person I
am. I wouldnt rely on the mass of other subscribers to be that bothered.
Cheers, Ivan