And my desire for it to become a thing of the past.
Perhaps it's the sign of the community world being in its infancy that we often classify communities as being paid or not. I suspect, or perhaps more accurately right now, I hope that in time, we avoid labelling communities this way.
Here are a few reasons why...
Do you run a "free business" or a "paid business"?
Doesn't that sound ridiculous?
No matter what your community or business model is, to define it as free or paid makes little sense. Every community business needs a model to survive. Whilst you may use the term "paid community" internally, to make it define your community business is restricting it.
For people to come in and have top of mind whether it is "free" or "paid" takes away from the value that we hope to create.
What is even free or paid?
Again, the binary of free or paid is not a helpful model for us or potential members to be thinking of when they enter our space.
The idea of being paid could easily put people off. Equally, the idea of being paid could easily pull people in. The reality is that most communities have some aspect of freemium in their strategies, even if their members can't see it.
A regular free newsletter could be seen as freemium. It's still a valuable offering.
It feels better to focus on communicating the value you hope to create, the mission you are on to create change, encourage people to keep coming back and offering products that they will pay for. A product could well be a "paid membership", but it could equally be something else.
Confining your community business to free or paid makes change harder
A better place to be is to be seen as a place that solves problems. Not whether you are free or paid.
The reality is that for communities to survive, they have to evolve. As part of this their revenue models will change over time. It might mean getting rid of paid parts. It might mean balancing it out with other opportunities.
Often it means there are free and paid parts of the community business model.
For example, we have a "free membership" forum, user accounts, profiles and limited content, but we also have "paid membership" that includes much more depth. However, we also offer other things (certifications + conferences), which are still very much part of our community, but they don't clearly fit into the "free" or "paid" mindset.
A big part of my writing this is because people often ask me if we are a free or paid community. And my mind goes to "we're both, but neither, and more". We're a community focused business aiming to serve and solve member needs, we will do this by whatever way we feel is sustainable, from a revenue and culture perspective.
There will always be failures along the way
And hopefully successes too!
If your model is reliant on pushing for a "paid" model, you are likely in big trouble if it fails. It becomes so much easier to give up.
Contrast that with your model being to explore creating a varied and sustainable business that consists of various revenue streams. The idea of one model failing to gain traction will feel like less of a challenge to overcome. You know there are other ways, you wouldn't have put all your eggs in one basket.
You know you don't have to disappoint the people around you, as the way you have been building it takes the bigger picture into consideration (hopefully building with a community system mindset). It's a hiccup along the way, rather than a catastrophic failure.
Community is at the heart of everything
Or I believe it should be, this is my philosophy on community.
The businesses that are truly community-led cannot be separated out community from how the whole business operates. We must learn to talk about community from this business perspective in an integrated way, with an understanding that sustainability is key and the need to diversify our models is likely inescapable.
"Paid community" is a closed mindset
Ultimately, I feel that focusing on the term "paid community" closes the door to possibilities. This can be in our own minds, but also the minds of our people, and beyond towards the ecosystem.
Words influence how we think. I'm most definitely not advocating for being the word police, but we must understand how these may impact how our strategies and industry continues to evolve.
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