I for one am sick of the people who are "quit complaining" about the license fees etc..

I didn't want to do this because it really isn't anyone's business. But...like I have said before I am out of work due to the economy. What savings I had are now gone, and believe me, I went into 'emergency' mode of money savings, expenditures and so on.

I met my soon to be wife on Craigslist of all places, but I am here to tell you that was not an easy feat, with all the unknowns out there. see more We "lucked" out in finding each other. My best man is a young widower and uses the dating sites out there. One common complaint from everyone I polled that was single is there is not a locally based site for matchmaking. And if there is, it is hideously expensive and then you are lucky to get a match that is at the least 30 miles away from you. So, in came the idea to set up a matchmaking site locally based. (Think back to the 70's and 80's when there used to be an influx of dating agencies - now it is online anymore).

When I started looking for software, I had previous experience with working with Tufat's scripts. I went ahead and "gambled" on paying $5 for the script which allowed me to install on my server. I found the script to be very awesome, and very clean, professional and easy to use. My users seemed to like it, but let me ask any true webmaster, when you are done with a script, are you more likely to keep "tweaking" it, adding features etc, to keep it fresh? I am one of those that love to "Tim Allen" things and try to get the most out of them and then some. OsDate wasn't flexible enough for me so I went looking and found Dolphin on Hotscripts.

I installed that on my server and counted the loss of members (about 20 at the time), small and relaunched with Dolphin. but before doing so, I knew this would be the final time I would lose members for this reason so I settled with Dolphin, and scraped up $39 for the annual fee to remove the "powered by" stuff. Since, I am trying to get established in terms of being a locally based site, I want to keep "copycats" from spotting what I am doing and try to oust me from the scene, so yeah...the ad free was what I had to do. After installing and ironing out some bugs, I have managed to get around 50 members by advertising free on Craigslist (getting flagged everytime), but the member base is there. Now, I know this is small in terms of dating sites and of course, we need more members and more activity. So, I am left with the requirement of advertising on billboards, print media, radio, etc to get more people in there. So, things are going that way eventually but can't. (I will explain a roadblock on this in just a minute)

I was quite happy to keep the ad free version going sans Ray and Orca. Since my domain name is about to expire, I figured I would move servers since Orca doesn't play nice with my current host when it came time to renew. So, that is in the plan. Anyway, when Unoboonex announced the expansion of the whole license to include Ray and Orca, I was like a little kid on Christmas day. Needless to say, I was stoked. Then I came to a couple of realizations:

The roadblock I am referring to is that the same fee that the annual subscription that Boonex is asking is about the same as it is to use just ONE advertising medium for one month. At this point for me, I cannot even afford to plunk out $5 a month or more for anything extra (anyone try to pay for a wedding lately?). So, my site is going to be stagnant for a while longer until I get some advertising revenue.

What differentiated Dolphin from some of the other projects out there was the price for ad free and that is what sold me on it. Now, if I was doing the Shopping now instead of a few months back, I would move on as this would be one of those that Caltrade has referred to.

For established businesses, the price is simply good. The company I used to work at didn't flinch at paying for a lot of software that they didn't use. Money wasn't an object to them and they were 100% self funded. (still are I would figure). Anyway, I was responsible at times for buying software, office supplies, computer hardware etc, as needed. If the need were to come to them to use Social networking software, or Dating software (Not likely for them), then looking at the $2900 fee or whatever it is would be a drop in the bucket to them. More power to them and so be it.

If Boonex is looking at cornering those markets out there that have the funding, I am all for it. More power to Boonex.

I agree with those that are calling for a different forum or whatnot similar to what apparently was there for the contributor. The free users get help in those areas, but the paying members - that is the ones who at least paid for the $39 ad-free privilege legally btw, to at least have a support area on up.

Now, when I become financially stable and able to pay for the annual fee later on, I would expect to get my money's worth so to speak. Not that the "Powered by" isn't worth it, it is especially when you compare that fee to one month's advertising. But, extra perks such as getting access to those "Special" forums would make it an added bonus. If the folks at Boonex can't do it, I am sure that someone who is fluent in Boonex scripting and isn't working for them would be willing to volunteer to help out in those areas. :)

My whole point behind this is, yeah, I am a bit stunned by the whole license fee increase, decrease, change, or whatever you wish to call it. It is what it is, I cannot change it so I am left with the decision to go in and see where things go a few months down the road for me. I am not wanting to complain about the cost, but hope others can see where I was trying to go with this whole thing.

For us startups, every little bit of $$ is essential and scarce until we can get a steady flow of finances pumped into our bank account. It just "raised the bar" so to speak in regards to how high we in turn are willing to reach the bar's location.