We often get emails from members asking us to make a particularly popular article, usually with a safety theme, free, because they feel that many sailors would benefit from it. And, hey, that’s gratifying, thank you.
And, almost invariably, the writer suggests that doing so would increase our membership. Makes perfect sense that showing a person great content for free would make them want to join…except for one thing…it doesn’t work.
Hard to Believe…
I know, that perplexes us, too. To the point that we keep testing it. Probably 20 times in various ways over the 12 years since we went over to a membership model.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
…But True
If that’s true, Phyllis and are definitely nuts! We have used every testing technique in the book1 and the results are irrefutable and unambiguous: Making content, particularly popular content free does not bring in members.
Wait, it gets worse. In fact, giving too much content away actually seems to vaccinate people against joining.
We think it’s because if a person is used to getting something for free, that becomes their default position surprisingly quickly.
What Works?
So what does bring in members, you ask? Simple, showing the visitor just enough of what they are searching for that the pain of missing out gets to the point that they join. Sorry, that last paragraph sounds far from nice…but it’s also true.
Public Service?
I guess some might argue that if the article is about a safety issue we should publish it for free as a public service. But AAC is not a hobby, it’s a near full time job for two people, and let’s just say the salaries are not princely. Plus, like any business, we have overheads.
If we give away our most popular content, we simply won’t stay in business.
Zero Sum Giving
And, also, if we give stuff away that could be bringing in members, we are effectively giving to charity.
Nothing wrong with that. Except that Phyllis and I already give to charity, and a lot of what we give is income from AAC.
So the question becomes do we give to a bunch of people who can afford a boat, or aspire to, or to the food bank and low-cost housing initiatives both of which serve the most disadvantaged members of society? I know which way we vote.
An Alternative To Free
Anyway, one of our biggest sources of members is word of mouth. Thank you!
So that’s what we would ask of you: Instead of asking us to publish an article for free, please consider suggesting to others that they join to get access. Heck, maybe you could even take a moment to send out some emails to friends linking to a popular piece and explaining why AAC is worth the modest cost (US$36/year)…please.
Here are a couple of other options:
So why did I write this Tip? Because now Phyllis (chief support tech and editor here at AAC) can just link to it, rather than explaining every time a valued (and kind) member suggests we move a popular post outside the paywall.
- Most of you think of me as a salt-stained old sailing guy, and that’s true, but I have also had a full career in small business, computers, and by necessity, marketing. ↩︎
Free content is everywhere with facts, conflicting information, opinion, as any forum demonstrates. The reason I pay, is for reliable information, which includes updates and corrections should there be a need for that. For me the content of the articles is more important than the comments, but the comments demonstrate that information from real world experience does result in revisions to the articles, hence it is not an echo chamber.
Happy to continuing paying, as I believe the information is reliable and sets a benchmark that I can measure my own seamanship against. I enjoy Practical Sailor for similar reasons, but I don’t think anyone would suggest that publication should be free. Effort and time spent researching costs money, generates overheads, which need to be funded one way for another. I think the AAC model works and I appreciate the advert free space.
I do direct to ACC in other forums from time to time when discussing a point, but always with a link and statement that it is a subscription service. In fact the jack stay articles were the most recent example where I did this.
Hi Alastair,
Thanks for the kind words. And very good point about the importance of the comments in providing different perspectives and most important of all, correcting me when I make a mistake. Talking of which, one of the recent upgrades I’m happiest with is automatically publicizing updated (often corrected) articles in the monthly digest.
This goes double, and triple, now that “AI” (really, LLM) generated content-farm junk is taking over half the internet.
Not long ago, you could usually tell from a publication’s writing style, the sources it linked to, and the conclusions it came to, compared against others in the same field, whether it was likely a good source of reliable well-researched information or if it was just some yahoos writing whatever came into their heads.
Now it’s the same LLM-generated, or human-initiated and LLM-edited, stuff repeated 40 times over on 40 different sites. Some of it is right; much of it is sorta-kinda right but misleading without context; some of it is flat-out wrong.
The only way you get good, well-researched information, presented in its proper context, is if you pay smart humans to put in the time needed to do the work properly.
The money for that can come from subscriptions (the way this site works), or from grants (the way medical research works), or from ads (the way most magazines work), or pay-per-copy (the way book publishing works).
There are no grants for what AAC does. And ads bring a dependence on the advertisers’ goodwill that makes it very hard for ad-supported publications to call advertisers out on their BS and their bad decisions. Hence, subscription. Good call, John.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the support and good point on the rubbish produced by AI. Aside from how often it’s wrong, I think what people often miss about AI is that there is no original thinking in the output, but instead just an aggregation of popular opinion on a given subject, which is often wrong or incomplete.
Out of curiosity a few months ago I got Chat GBT 4 to write an article and even prompted it to do it my writing style. Let’s just say I’m not fearing for my job, at least at the moment.
That said, I do find AI useful in research but even then I find it vital to verify at source.
which is the reason why I call it “AS” for “artificial stupidity”.
in fairness to “AS/AI” though, I have occassionally worked for folks where it would have been an improvement had they been replaced by a bot.
the impact that you observed is one of the reason, why I have exited most blogs. I started this on a trial basis a few weeks ago but the improvement on the quality of my life has been so substantial that I plan to go permanent.
there are issues where I heartily disagree with the general opinion voiced at AAC. but agree or not, the arguments and the comments are well reasoned and that makes them worthwhile.
not surprised about the poor conversion rates
I must say,
I agree completely with both Alastair and Matt. I have gained so much knowledge from AAC.
Compared to it’s price, this is downright cheap.
Your knowledge and experience, John and Phyllis, is an invaluable resource for me. When I first subscribed I was hesitant, based on my experience with other things. But, between AAC’s experience and the feedback of its members, I’m so very satisfied and do recommend AAC to others.
Thank you for your hard work and diligence. And, I do also truly enjoy your writing style, a true wordsmith.
Mitchell Allen
sv Sonata
San Francisco Bay
Mi Michell,
Thanks very much for the kind words, particularly the last line, much appreciated.
“Wait, it gets worse. In fact, giving too much content away actually seems to vaccinate people against joining….”
And thus goes the publishing industry.
I can speak most dirrectly to testing. You buy products and then destroy them. The testing itself is generally laborious, as you compare a dozen or more products over a period of years. Test racks on the roof ad at the marina, and the racks have to be built and the samples prepared. Often duplicate equipment on the boat, for years. Data analysis takes time. Additional software and fees. Paper. Shop supplies. Rooms full of new and used marine equipment and test equipment. Under a pay model, the work paid about 5-20% of what I would expect in industry (the the 20% is only for stuff that I learned in my day job and could do very efficiently). The result was impartial information, not an “unboxing” report or an infomercial based on AI. These typically review only one item and do not look at durability or reliability. It’s the difference between a thinly disguised ad or blog post and actual researched, fact-checked information. But the free reviews are, well, free. The blessing and the curse of the internet.
And in my expereince as well, free content does not grow membership or subscriptions.
Hi Drew,
Totally agree on all the testing you did. In fact today I keep my Practical Sailor membership current for one reason only: to access Drew Frye’s testing reports (and a few others) in the archive. It will be interesting to see if PS’s new strategy of using YouTube to feed subs will work. I’m betting it won’t but I could easily be wrong…because I have not properly tested it.
Now days I test only what strikes my fancy. I enjoyed 3 years of antifouling testing, but largely because I wanted to see what worked in the Chesapeake, and of course, Darrell asked nicely and helped with the paint sourcing, and funded panel construction and necessary costs. It was an undertaking.
This moment I am editing something on conversion coatings and Parkerizing, but mostly because I’ve gotten back into machine work and had old tools to recover and new tooling to treat. Marine applications? I think some in the engine room and tool box. But I am doing this because I stumbled across it, and it is interesting and useful to me.
I completely agree on the we should pay for what we get here and the price is right and not a barrier for most.
I did find it hard to find the gift membership and didn’t even notice the crew/family option.
Maybe put a link to gift and family memberships at the top of every page.
I think for many of us the issue is we want to share on article with a non-member and can’t easily do this. Its all or nothing.
An option there would be create a trial membership that expires in 2 weeks when we forward an article.
It would be another experiment do folks sign up after expiry or wait for their pals to forward more?
Hi Stanly
Good suggestions. We have tested trial memberships, and our Get To Know us program A/B split test at a higher conversion level: https://www.morganscloud.com/get-to-know-us-for-free/
That said, that’s with a prospect who comes directly to the site so I am wondering if when an existing member recommends the site and sends a link to a trial membership whether that might work better since it would make the prospect feel special, always good marketing.
I hear you on the gift membership. The trade off is always cluttering up a clean site design, which is super bad for both Google rank and conversions, with making things prominent but I’m thinking that maybe add buttons for gift and family/crew (it’s new) to the pink box at the bottom of articles might get the job done.
I will test that. Thanks for the thoughts.
I would imagine that the members making the suggestions that “increase membeship” may be biased since they feel strongly enough about the value of your content to have paid for membership. I’m sure I’m in that minority. Years ago I lurked in the free section gobbling up as much knowledge as I could. I found so much value in that knowledge that I WANTED to pay for it. Altruistically, I felt endebted to compensate the contributors for their hard work. Selfishly, I wanted to ensure that this flow of knowledge woudn’t dry up. Like your testing has shown, the folks are going to convert are going to convert with the amount of free content already here. Everyone else is just looking for free content, whatever the quality may be.
Hi Ben,
I think that’s a good analysis and in line with what we have learned from testing.
Very funny. Basic 101 marketing 😂
Don’t pretend you were surprised!! Since when making something free increases its value!
I have recommended this site so many time, posted the links (mostly paid articles but few could have been the free ones) on FB boats groups to illustrate the problems and recommend solutions… I know very VERY few people actually ending up subscribing.
Sad really.
H Cyrille,
You are right and also about FB. In fact we get almost no members from social media (less that 10 a year). Same reason: if someone uses social a lot their whole mind set is free. What they sadly miss is that assuming they are posting things of value, like on many of the boating groups, they are giving their intellectual property to the Zuck…another worthy charity.
That said, I really was surprised by how strong this effect is, particularly since most every “expert” out there, and may lay people will tell you that to get subs you must give a lot away for free.
Won’t argue with your tests, but as a low-budget sailor, I joined because I read a free article on anchoring (think it was the one on Rocna failures) which convinced me that the quality of the content was worth the small price being asked.
Hi Gordon,
Good point, that article is provided free (together with nine others) as part of our get to know us funnel in exchange for an email address. So you are right, free content is not always a bad idea. That said, that funnel actually brings in less members than someone just landing on an article from Google search and then joining because they want to read it. Strange huh?
While we are chatting about this, what was your thinking on pricing when you joined? And any other thoughts you have gratefully received. Testing is good, but member input on their joining experience is solid gold.
I didn’t think twice about signing up although I am (and have to be) very budget conscious. I sail a Sadler 26 solo in challenging waters (north coast of Ireland, Western Isles of Scotland) on a small income. On principle, I don’t subscribe to anything on the internet, I don’t have cable TV, I habitually walk rather than pay to park, I rarely buy anything that I don’t consider essential. I broke my own rule in this case because the value was too good to walk away from. I haven’t been disappointed – I have learned a lot and implemented numerous solutions, particularly around safety issues. Had the cost been significantly greater, I would have had to reluctantly pass it by.
Hi Gordon,
Thanks very much for the fill on how the price looks against value, much appreciated.
I’m traveling on a train from Porto to Lisbon, so please excuse the editing.
What’s the cost of docking a boat overnight in Maine?
What’s the cost of fueling a boat one time?
What’s the cost of one dinner in a decent restaurant, with one drink?
I sail almost exclusively on a large lake. Yet this site has offered countless helpful information. This information would be even more valuable were I actually sailing on an ocean. Let’s just say it would be invaluable.
I’m actually embarrassed to be charged so little and receive so much.
One more thing. If you had a serious legal problem and you went to a lawyer and asked him how much he charged to represent you and he told you $50 an hour I guarantee you’d go look for somebody more expensive. There’s no accounting for how people think, but even in 2025 you get what you paid for.
You should charge much more than you do.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for making the very good point that in the context of what cruising costs AAC cost is a rounding error.