Read this with a pinch of salt, it's 2am and I'm tired, the following is my opinion not RD's. Also, sorry to Miguel Gonzalez for hijacking his thread.
<rant>
I'm sorry, but I don't agree. Without money flowing in, and let's be honest £15 is 4p per day, the site cannot run. Members have paid significantly more than their fair share to keep this website running.
Gaming computers cost upwards of £700, consoles £300, monitor £100, wheel £200, games £100. I don't see how £15 is an outrage. That's probably less money than the amount you drop down the side of a sofa. People spend more on chocolate in a month than that. Some forums charge upwards of £100 per year for the ability to
read posts, so £15 to edit (and much more) isn't a premium price (pardon the pun). Paying for forums is incredibly common, and premium membership allows free content to be free, and the donators to be rewarded.
I may have only been here, admittedly on the editorial staff, for around 6 months or so. I can see you have been here a while, and yet I would have thought after 2 years of being in RD you would have though that it might be time to repay those who work literally into the night, without sleep, for weeks, to facilitate racing?
I see that you would like the users who use the 'expensive stuff' to pay for it, however that would be unfair towards them. So what, if you're paying for the 'expensive stuff'. It's that 'expensive stuff' that underpins the website, without it it'll have to close, along with the support for the F1 2012 stuff you are involved in.
As @
Rupe Wilson explained, the bottom line is that if there is no income, the servers will be forced to close, and thus the site is kaput. I'm not whining specifically about you, but the 'others can pay' attitude in general. If it comes to users editing posts to keep forums active vs actually having forums, the latter is probably more prevalent.
I'd also like to point out there is a room in teamspeak for F1 20XX, and it is available to you as a licensed member.
</rant>