I just read a Comscore report stating that the click through rates for display ads have gone down throughout the years. Hence, if this revenue stream is being diminished, will this push companies to start charging members for membership? I remember this was done in the early 2000s and those charged communities just died or adopted a freemium or free model. So if your online community is facing extinction, would you pay not get ads?

It would depend on the value I derive from the community versus the quantity of ads I am being bombarded with. If there is a lot of value to be had and the ads are numerous then I might pay. But other than DaniWeb there are not many other communities I belong to but that is because I only really stay with the ones that offer value.

Daniweb has got the model , if you can afford to pay few bucks to disable advertisement , it is worth paying it.

I am not really bothered by the ads on DaniWeb but that is because they are inobtrusive whereas at other sites they are either pop-ups or they are the redirects to ads that you have to either click to return to the original page or wait out the 15-25 second countdown.

I think that now a days, people prefer to deal with ads than to pay.

I agree. I think we have become so used to them being there that they have to really be annoying or obtrusive for people to actually pay to eliminate ads.

yep I would have done it if i was a normal member but i get it ad-free so its a moot point.

Daniweb is also handy as you (anyone) can turn off the most annoying ad forms in your CP, leaving just the less obtrusive ones

I agree with MktgRob. What one gets in exchange for the minor irritation of the ads is probably worth it.

What I am glad to see is that taking into consideration the recent uproar over facebook using members photos in ads that they did not turn around and offer to stop if members paid a fee. That would have been a PR screw up of unmeasureable proportions!

You are right and they probably realized they would go from hero to zero very quickly or take a big dent in users!