<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ozstamps:
Paying even 1c to register would deter a pretty large slab of lurkers and new sign ups - IMHO.</font>
You would have a somewhat more sophisticated system - as I said:
Part 1 of the site: Viewable without registration - as a teaser
Part 2 of the site (the majority of the rest): Viewable only with registration, and only for 30 days
Part 3 (after 30 days, and perhaps certain "premium" parts of the site - and posting rights): Only after payment of subscription fee
This way, the same amount of people would still see part of the site. You would just slowly suck them into registering - and paying.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ozstamps:
The more users and vistors to FT, the better for Randy.</font>
This would be true if Randy made the majority of the money to cover the cost of running this site from banner pageviews and/or click-throughs. I might be wrong, but that is not my impression. At the big portals, everyone used to think "the more eyeballs, the better, we will worry about monetization later". That view has changed significantly.