ANS and the future of the list

[quk@isham-research.demon.co.uk (Phil Payne)]

In message <UPMAIL13.199709120014170663@classic.msn.com> "Ian J Haseltine" writes:

> I cant see anything wrong with paying for the list, I reckon that in the last 
> few months I have saved several hundred GBP in servicing costs, learnt things 
> about my car that no dealer mechanic would have told me and had some d*mn good 
> entertainment all for the cost of one or two local phone calls a night.
  
> Lets be realistic here, this is the 90s not the 50s, what does 20 or 30 GBP 
> buy you?  My quattro costs me 40GBP in petrol every week, so I'd get maybe 200 
> extra miles a year, less than 1 mile a day. I spend at least double that on 
> motor magazines every year.

The basic maths don't hold up.  Of the 1200 subscribers, how _many_ would pay?

See Peter de Jager's experience on converting the Y2K mailing list to a paid 
basis - and _he_ had the advantage that it's a business-to-business list.
 
'Payne's Law', formulated long ago on CIS' Canopus, applies - if it's free on 
the Internet anywhere, it's free everywhere.  The signal to noise ratio on 
alt.autos.audi is only high because there's no signal to speak of - if we all 
went over there, it would be usable.  It would also have the advantage of 
newsreaders with thread support - many's the time I've wanted to uncheck the 
box for a thread on coimbra. 

-- 
 Phil Payne
 Committee Member, UK Audi [ur-]quattro Owners Club