Over the past couple of months, you’ve heard me talk about changes that were coming to this website that are necessitated by political and market pressures. The first phase of that change happens today.
As previously mentioned in the article The Ads Cometh, we have been needing to generate revenue to keep this effort alive ever since Google put the kibosh on advertising here a few years ago by pressuring WordPress to remove us from their WordAds system.
I realize that many people find advertisements abhorrent, and I’m not one to disagree. Some advertisements are just beyond annoying. However, they are a necessary evil in today’s world of privately operated information dissemination.
So, starting today advertisements will be shown on a regular basis. These will generate some ongoing revenue for WUWT. The good news is that for people that don’t want to have these advertisements we now have a membership system in place and it has been tested and seems to be working. By becoming a member you will be able to browse completely ad-free. Later, additional tiers will be added to the membership system that will provide access to premium content that include a newsletter, member only stories and white papers, and also access to a weekly interactive video meeting where we can all shoot the breeze and ask questions.
Of course anyone who visits WUWT will see content as before, however it will contain ads. At the bare minimum to be able to comment, free registration is required.
Right now, we have the following options (see the upper right sidebar for the registration/login links) or click here.
Subscription Options
1. Ad Free Sponsor with Commenting Paid Annually $66 /year (1 free month)
2. Ad Free Sponsor with Commenting Paid Monthly $6 /month ($72/year)
3. Free Registration that includes commenting $0 (but shows ads)
This is how it looks when you visit the options for membership page:
Since we implemented the registration system a few months ago we picked up thousands of users who were then able to comment as well as view all content. All of our previously registered users have been grandfathered in with their existing registration and are able to view and comment as before except they will see ads.
Tests over the last month have proven the membership registration/purchase system to be successful and some early adopters have signed up. Thank you.
So as of today, we are turning everything on. This post will remain at the top of the website for a couple of weeks so that late-comers we see it. I thank all of you for your patience through this process, and I sincerely appreciate your support of the work we do here.
More to come, stay tuned!
– Anthony
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