I know the ads are annoying, but if you had a choice of Tribes with no ads

or

no Tribe at all, what would you choose. The reason Tribe is in trouble is because not enough people click on ads.

>Some people get so used to the concept of social networking sites being "free" that they fail to understand why they're free.

We face the same thing in public radio where only a fraction of regular listeners ever become members. It amazes me.
The money has to come from somewhere.

" But I guarantee that you'll find the ads far more annoying and intrusive on the bigger more predatory social networking sites that are the alternative."

That's for sure. Face book is crawling with them. I especially dislike the ones with sound and movement. Thank God Tribe doesn't have those.

A quote from Pincus...

"if we could generate another $60-70k a year (about $5k per month) we could hire a full-time engineer to work on more serious maintenance and even new features"

how about not paying and volunteer some hacker time or servers tribe has some of the richest and smartest computer heads on the planet as members so if tribe made a general broadcast for help i think i would get fixed fast.
i think tribe should go co opp i know that they want to make money at it but the tribe didn't like it when they tried to go mainstreams
so i think a non mainstream answer is the solution
that way no money no taxes and no bad adds
what do you think?

Have no doubts that I would be on many lists but I also know it would be mutual.

Now over 21 years old BM needs to grow up, move out into the world and show we have the better idea on building a community anywhere (Including the Internet) with simple determination, the well to survive, succeed and promote community involvement to solve issues that our citizens are effected by. Sure there are many over lapping tribal communities such as Rainbow, Naturist, Spiritual, Health, Lifestylers, Etc... that have tribal rooms and groups on Tribe Net. Be not affraid of inclusion, be affraid of exclution. The answer is not always money.
It may be about design and drawing sponcers, advertizers and community supporting those who support us.

X's, Beach
Las Vegas Tribal Swing
(Building swings as bridges to adjoining tribes through community involvement)

"Have you ever organized a coop? "

Yes. A nightmare.... logistically and emotionally. Tribe becoming a coop would be like making a monkey fly the space shuttle.

The point I wanted to raise here is that while I might pay for tribe, I know that probably well over %60 of users on tribe would not. They would go elsewhere, where the community is free, and accessible. Tribes would fold in on themselves, and many of the feelings that tribe is a community would crumble. Half the people you know that are active/semi-active users would no longer be around, tribes would become "ghost tribes" an occurance within the past 3 years that we have seen happen A LOT. Tribe has already lost enough users to facebook and myspace.. charging everyone a fee to use it would simply put it under. The amount of user decrease, coupled with the fact that you now have to pay for a seemingly doomed community wouldn't be very appealing, especially to others your trying to incorporate into tribe (as mentioned previously, its not an easy feat).

I don't mind you guys all standing up and supporting the community by saying you'd pay and suggesting it as a good idea.. you all have very good intentions. You might just be damning it to its eventual defeat.