Announcement Important Update: Community Growth, Security, and Membership Tiers

Hello everyone,

I wanted to start a discussion about where we are heading. The site has exploded in popularity recently, we are now seeing 34,000+ users! That is incredible, but to be transparent, it brings significant challenges regarding server costs and other resources.

The Update:​

We have made the decision to update the Free Tier messaging policy. We will be gradually transitioning free accounts to a limit of 8 concurrent active conversations.

Why are we doing this?​

This was not an easy decision, but it is necessary. We currently have a very small (0.147%) percentage of paid subscribers supporting the infrastructure for 34,000+ people. The standard for a sustainable site is 2-8%. While we want to remain accessible to everyone, there are those who are heavily using the system, and we need that group to help out.

If you are using the platform to conduct frequent or multiple trades a month, we are asking you to contribute to the resources you are utilizing.

The Benefits for Everyone:​

1. Sustainability: It ensures the heavy users help cover the costs of the site, keeping it alive for the casual users.
2. Security: Limiting concurrent DM’s is the most effective way to stop spammers from blasting the community.
3. Privacy: It encourages you to manage your inbox and delete old data.
4. More Serious Buyers: Because conversation slots are limited, users will be less likely to send casual messages to listings they aren't serious about buying. This means less time wasted on dead-ends conversations.

How it works:​

• Casual Users: If you only buy or sell occasionally, you likely won't notice a difference. Just leave old messages to free up a "slot" for a new one.
• Heavy Users: If you need more than 8 20 active conversations/direct messages, please consider upgrading. You’ll get more access and you’ll be directly supporting the community.

Timeline:​

We will phase this in over the next month or two. If you upgrade now, you will be locked in at the current rates.

Thank you for understanding. We want to keep this platform running for years to come, but we need the community to help us get there.

No changes have been made to give everyone time to manage your mailboxes. We’ll start to move them down gradually next week. There are a lot of changes that are coming to prepare for more growth. The number of listings isn’t changing. The badging system will also be updated and reworked in the next few weeks while we prepare the site to scale up.

 

[ikeo1]

Update on Verification, Badges, and Pricing

We have resolved the system issue affecting CGN Verified Users and one-time donors. Here is a breakdown of the changes effective immediately:

• Legacy Protection: All previous one-time donors will permanently retain the current limits and titles. You will not lose your status as a thank you for supporting us and the community while we were continuing to grow.
• New Badge System: We are retiring the "Coffee Cup" and "Shield" badges in March. These have been replaced by our new automated badging system.
• Verification Update:"Calguns Verified" titles are now applied automatically after we receive the verification message. Please note that verification pricing has increased as of today because you will retain certain permissions. All existing users are already upgraded.
  • Edit time increased
  • CGN Member automatically applied and kept
• Time-Limited Status:Unlike the old system, one time upgrades are now time-based and will expire after a set period. Use the subscription to keep titles consistent or one time if you don't need it over time.
  • Status will be dynamic moving forward.

A number of manual steps are no longer possible so we're updating the ways we do things so it's more automated.

 

[VVBlitz]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to start a discussion about where we are heading. The site has exploded in popularity recently, we are now seeing 34,000+ users! That is incredible, but to be transparent, it brings significant challenges regarding server costs and other resources.

The Update:​

We have made the decision to update the Free Tier messaging policy. We will be gradually transitioning free accounts to a limit of 8 concurrent active conversations.

Why are we doing this?​

This was not an easy decision, but it is necessary. We currently have a very small (0.147%) percentage of paid subscribers supporting the infrastructure for 34,000+ people. The standard for a sustainable site is 2-8%. While we want to remain accessible to everyone, there are those who are heavily using the system, and we need that group to help out.

If you are using the platform to conduct frequent or multiple trades a month, we are asking you to contribute to the resources you are utilizing.

The Benefits for Everyone:​

1. Sustainability: It ensures the heavy users help cover the costs of the site, keeping it alive for the casual users.
2. Security: Limiting concurrent chats is the most effective way to stop spammers from blasting the community.
3. Privacy: It encourages you to manage your inbox and delete old data.
4. More Serious Buyers: Because conversation slots are limited, users will be less likely to send casual messages to listings they aren't serious about buying. This means less time wasted on dead-end chats.

How it works:​

• Casual Users: If you only buy or sell occasionally, you likely won't notice a difference. Just leave old messages to free up a "slot" for a new one.
• Heavy Users: If you need more than 8 active conversations/direct messages, please consider upgrading. You’ll get more access and you’ll be directly supporting the community.

Timeline:​

We will phase this in over the next month or two. If you upgrade now, you will be locked in at the current rates.

Thank you for understanding. We want to keep this platform running for years to come, but we need the community to help us get there.

No changes have been made to give everyone time to manage your mailboxes. We’ll start to move them down gradually next week. There are a lot of changes that are coming to prepare for more growth. The number of listings isn’t changing. The badging system will also be updated and reworked in the next few weeks while we prepare the site to scale up.

Congratulations on going the way of Armslist, a dead site now. Make your money on ads, not the very resource that makes this site successful

 

[ikeo1]

Congratulations on going the way of Armslist, a dead site now. Make your money on ads, not the very resource that makes this site successful

There are very limited ads in California, not sure if you know what a geo fence is… There’s so many restrictions that businesses don’t advertise here because of the barrier of entry. That’s why you see CAguns ads 80% of the time and not others.

If the site dies, it’s because people don’t understand what we have to deal with in CA.

You are obviously doing deals. Armslist charges before you can post, so does Tacswap. Here there’s just a limit, there’s people with 30+ feedback who’ve contributed nothing to the site so now you can still do it, it’ll just take longer if you want it for free.

If we were outside of California then there would be more ads but guess what, it’s not google ads because they don’t allow it. Please use common sense

 

[VVBlitz]

There are very limited ads in California, not sure if you know what a geo fence is… There’s so many restrictions that businesses don’t advertise here because of the barrier of entry. That’s why you see CAguns ads 80% of the time and not others.

If the site dies, it’s because people don’t understand what we have to deal with in CA.

You are obviously doing deals. Armslist charges before you can post, so does Tacswap. Here there’s just a limit, there’s people with 30+ feedback who’ve contributed nothing to the site so now you can still do it, it’ll just take longer if you want it for free.

If we were outside of California then there would be more ads but guess what, it’s not google ads because they don’t allow it. Please use common sense

Great post till the end. Common sense? I deal with california silly too, I've seen lots of policies go wrong. I'm saying the ONLY reason this site exists needs to be valued and appreciated by people like you. I have many bills and memberships I have no problems paying for, I'm saying be careful you don't shoot yourself in the foot after having success, exercise your own common sense.

 

[NaboombuLagoon]

Congratulations on going the way of Armslist, a dead site now. Make your money on ads, not the very resource that makes this site successful

Can I get the link for the site you built for the California 2A community that survives only on ad revenue?

 

[ikeo1]

Great post till the end. Common sense? I deal with california silly too, I've seen lots of policies go wrong. I'm saying the ONLY reason this site exists needs to be valued and appreciated by people like you. I have many bills and memberships I have no problems paying for, I'm saying be careful you don't shoot yourself in the foot after having success, exercise your own common sense.

you don’t need the membership, if you do one off sales, then you have multiple options.

We all have bills, the bills are growing for me and I’m passing it along because we got our account closed. Like I said, 0.15% of membership pay, but if you see the amount of feedback we have to manually process it’s a lot.

There’s still something for everyone, and we’re just trying to be sustainable. You can look around at statistics, sites like this need 2-8% membership to work. If people don’t value the extra features they don’t have to use the extras. All the services work, just have some realistic limits. $10 for 2 months isn’t a lot. It’s not even lunch these days considering all the things we do.

And my apologies if I came off harsh, I get a lot of haters man. I put in so much time into this, more than a full time job. To make sure we’re kosher all around

 

[VVBlitz]

you don’t need the membership, if you do one off sales, then you have multiple options.

We all have bills, the bills are growing for me and I’m passing it along because we got our account closed. Like I said, 0.15% of membership pay, but if you see the amount of feedback we have to manually process it’s a lot.

There’s still something for everyone, and we’re just trying to be sustainable. You can look around at statistics, sites like this need 2-8% membership to work. If people don’t value the extra features they don’t have to use the extras. All the services work, just have some realistic limits. $10 for 2 months isn’t a lot. It’s not even lunch these days considering all the things we do.

And my apologies if I came off harsh, I get a lot of haters man. I put in so much time into this, more than a full time job. To make sure we’re kosher all around

I will be joining immediately to support 2nd ammendment friendly sites like this, keep up the good work.

 

[ikeo1]

I will be joining immediately to support 2nd ammendment friendly sites like this, keep up the good work.

Thank you, I appreciate your understanding. There's a lot of work for us to do. We'll be coming out with more things to see if we can do things properly.

I think we'll continue the coffee cup for all subscribers until we. hit our 2 year anniversary. After that, we'll close it out.

 

[rcjunky3]

Thank you for the very detailed information and hard work I appreciate it, I have been here a few months and see what a great site this is. I just purchased a membership

 

[ikeo1]

Just a note, the final mailbox limit was updated to 20 total which should be plenty for the majority of use cases.

New badges will be coming out soon. Lots of development lately, stay tuned.

 

[Bryan720]

If paid membership dropped to $20 per year I'd sign up. Trying to tell the wife about a $60 Internet membership isn't worth the fight. At $20 most wife's won't care.

 

[ikeo1]

If paid membership dropped to $20 per year I'd sign up. Trying to tell the wife about a $60 Internet membership isn't worth the fight. At $20 most wife's won't care.

I’m working on that but it’ll be a simple badge and title change but extra features will be limited. However we’ll create some annuals at $20 on up, similar to Tacswap, but not required.

We’ll be coming out with a few tiers, main thing is we need community support for this niche. A lot of people expect ads but full rate is very dynamic and swings pretty heavily.

—— not just for you but expanding for others

We need a good balance for stable OpEx. The paid accounts here have always subsidized the free accounts here and lately I’ve been getting asked by things are limited. Everything is resource based here. We’re on cloud infrastructure, not a dedicated server so our costs are dynamic, not fixed. Everything expands as the community does.

Really big shout out to the folks who signed up this month. We still have a long way to go but that was solid. That buys some time, and less stress for me.

An example of our ad fill. This can range, on a good month it’ll go up to 40% but it’s almost never the whole month.

This is % fill. 10 = 10%

Out of 1,000,000 views, 100k get filled. So majority was

 

[Warpspeed]

If paid membership dropped to $20 per year I'd sign up. Trying to tell the wife about a $60 Internet membership isn't worth the fight. At $20 most wife's won't care.

That's $ 5 a month.

If you need your wife's approval for $5 a month, you married the wrong girl.

 

[Bryan720]

That's $ 5 a month.

If you need your wife's approval for $5 a month, you married the wrong girl.

Definitely married the right one. You sound like you might have worked for BlackBerry in the past, or sat on the board of directors for those car brands that want people to pay subscriptions just to adjust their mirrors and seats. Most of us would rather spend that money on ammo. If you’ve got unlimited funds, high five to you—I think we all wish we had your bank account. But for the average person who just lurks here, $20 is a much more compelling price point to actually get us to support the site.

 

[ikeo1]

Definitely married the right one. You sound like you might have worked for BlackBerry in the past, or sat on the board of directors for those car brands that want people to pay subscriptions just to adjust their mirrors and seats. Most of us would rather spend that money on ammo. If you’ve got unlimited funds, high five to you—I think we all wish we had your bank account. But for the average person who just lurks here, $20 is a much more compelling price point to actually get us to support the site.

We'll have an option in that range for folk just looking to support without all the whiz bang. I appreciate the comment, if one person says it, usually there are others thinking it.

 

[gorgothmog]

1000% support this site. It's worth the membership. Full of great features, and it's growing. If you need a volunteer mod, let me know.

 

[Warpspeed]

Definitely married the right one. I will take your word for it as we have never met.

You sound like you might have worked for BlackBerry in the past, or sat on the board of directors for those car brands that want people to pay subscriptions just to adjust their mirrors and seats. Nope

Most of us would rather spend that money on ammo. If you’ve got unlimited funds, high five to you—I think we all wish we had your bank account. Not unlimited, but very close

But for the average person who just lurks here, $20 is a much more compelling price point to actually get us to support the site. Priorities - It's all about priorities.

 

[ikeo1]

I just opened up a basic option for $20. It removes the warning label for a year and gives you a badge. No big upgrades though, Our free version is already pretty good IMO. We just want an affordable way for people to support the site in different ways.

The new one will use our new Username Highlight...

 

[H. Bowman]

I just opened up a basic option for $20. It removes the warning label for a year and gives you a badge. No big upgrades though, Our free version is already pretty good IMO. We just want an affordable way for people to support the site in different ways.

The new one will use our new Username Highlight...

The free one is plenty good for free. If folks can't afford to kick in 20 bucks a year they need to focus on other priorities in life anyway.