My take on the Meetup group fees
I am the "Organizer" of the Boston Bloggers Meetup group. Meetup.com recently instituted a $20 per month charge to all Organizers as a fee for the group.
The deadline to pay the fee is May 15. I just posted my views on the fee.
Thank you to the members who posted their views on the new Meetup group charges.
Here are my thoughts:
I am very disturbed by these new fees. For two reasons.
First, the fee is excessive.
$20 a month is A LOT of money. $240 a year! Meetup has discounted this amount to encourage people to sign up, but it seems that even Meetup realized that the fee was too high, because after their first announcement they extended the duration of the lower amount. But in the final analysis, the fee is $20 a month, and in my view that is too much.
Meetup has never provided services that are worth this much. They are adding new services, and that's good, but it's still not worth $20 a month.
Second, the way the fee is structured and presented is sadly disrespectful.
I am a relatively new Organizer, so this doesn't really apply to me, but...
Meetup has become successful largely because of the work of thousands of group Organizers who have volunteered their time and efforts to make their meetups happen. Then Meetup suddenly says, "Organizers you now have to pay us $20 a month, and if you don't pay we're going to kick you out."
That's just such a sad, disappointing way to treat people who helped you.
And the puzzling part is that this seems certain to hurt Meetup. I predict that the number of leaderless groups will soar after the deadline. I don't understand their thinking on all of this.
But in any event, I am opposed to the fee, and I won't be paying it.
If anyone would like to become the Organizer of this group, please speak up. I'll hand it over. Otherwise, I'll remain as Organizer a little longer, then, as a feeble protest of this whole misguided thing, I intend to withdraw before they kick me out.
-- Jack Hodgson, Boston Bloggers Meetup Organizer
Posted by jackhodgson at May 4, 2005 09:23 AM