Why are classifieds even offered for free?

[jjmichael]

Why is this even a debate.. site operators do whatever they want.. they’d like to charge something to cover the cost at the same time avoid losing traffic..

Its a business decision…

 

[Gawernator]

Capitalism more like opportunistic rat

Can't handle a little competition in a free capitalistic market?

 

[Daytona675]

"Starting Monday, the free Classifieds ad limit will be lowered from 3 to 2 active ads."

I personally feel there shouldn't be ANY classified ads for free. Support the site, even if it's temporary to sell your stuff.

 

[Daytona675]

I’m glad I came to this site first. I found exactly what I wanted and connected with a seller within 24 hrs. PPT within 48.
The seller even drove distance to my FFL. Picked up in 11 days.
I can’t even see pictures on another joint.

 

[findoutcoolbb]

Love the site and willing to support ... but how? I looked navigation bar and footer, coulnd't find anywhere to donate or support. Do I miss something?

 

[five.five-six]

Standard for big tech but we’re not a DSP. Granted the ads you see are part of that, but like I said we’ve been negative for a lot longer with members supporting the free tier. The model isn’t the same here as the big social platforms, which is why so many have died off and the importance of community powered sustained instead of subsidy.

Your feed is still 100% but your post is limited due to a number of reasons as mentioned. Keeping a cynical eye on it without acknowledging the practical side of it due to a misunderstanding of the model seems to be really common by a number of people who seem to like free things.

Note: Your feed is allowance is not reduced, it’s optimized. You are still able to get the same or more. Unutilized capacity is returned since it isn’t used as much, it’s still open and both you and @Plenty_Pack_556 don’t have 3 listings. You’ll find this is more common than not but for some reason have something to say.

You can still put multiple listings in one, which is standard for GAFShub.. Plus we offer some additional features considering this place is more than a marketplace. The classifieds use is almost the same as the forum and other parts of the site now. Access has expanded but consider it redistributed so that those who take advantage are reigned in. You still have the free option.

Let’s get practical. If you didn’t have us members, you would not have a product to sell to the advertisers. It’s the people who produce the most engaging content that keep the forum alive. This is observational, not judgmental or cynical.

I’m not sure do I even have anything up for sale right now? Actually, I might post something for trade, though I doubt anybody here will be interested in it.

 

[21SF 2.0]

Can't handle a little competition in a free capitalistic market?

Only when rats benefit lol

 

[ikeo1]

Only when rats benefit lol

I’m done messing around. Take a break and learn some manners.

 

[RustyIron]

Only when rats benefit

Try harder.

 

[ikeo1]

Let’s get practical. If you didn’t have us members, you would not have a product to sell to the advertisers. It’s the people who produce the most engaging content that keep the forum alive. This is observational, not judgmental or cynical.

I’m not sure do I even have anything up for sale right now? Actually, I might post something for trade, though I doubt anybody here will be interested in it.

When it comes to practicality, you’re right if I didn’t have members there wouldn’t be anything which was why I was negative for the first 22/30 months. It was mainly subscriber based and out of pocket.

We didn’t have a lot of content or members before, but we did have a lot of guys like 21SF who thought we shouldn’t exist even though nothing was working.

We literally started from 2 people. I can’t count how many times we ran into the “yet another calguns alternative site” or “you’ll never get anywhere” comments. You see the comments still happening from the same people.

The whole point of the limits is the site is more popular than it used to be and we’re adding more specifically by sponsoring different ranges. We spend into 5 figures annually to have our banners at different ranges. This helps the ranges out and us by bringing more people who still don’t know about us. Not only that we as I’ve mentioned I spend to improve the technology here with both AI assisted and paid developer work, not to mention artwork and equipment etc. I try to be transparent about it.

You might think we run it like how other sites in our space do, I don’t. We sponsor 5 guys and looking to sponsor our first women next. So they can represent what CA has to offer and promote safety awareness and performance. These help pay for their ammo and match fees throughout the year on a schedule. If I did the typical route, and just sat back and collected, then I wouldn’t need to do anything.

You can see them in action on our Instagram. They’re one of the reasons behind our growth from the younger crowd and we’re still growing there with our collaborations.

I’m very active at the range and basically stopped being a competitor to just do Range Master duties for 5 matches this year and as the embedded RO on every match I attend. You might not get what that means, but it takes up a lot of time. Combined with trying to develop an entire ecosystem behind https://ca2a.com and https://2agear.com I hope you understand that majority of what I’m building is to connect the community and keep funds circulating in our community, including FFL’s. Some people believe in that mission to help and support with $1.67-$8/mo. 98.6% don’t. One thing I think we all can see now, if we give too much for free, some tend to lose the value and people start to become entitled. Many people here would like to say that’s D’s but from my POV ironically it’s the opposite, which is fine but they’re also the ones posting the most hypocritical posts and I can’t help but roll my eyes.

https://www.instagram.com/caguns_net?stkn=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=

Our ad spend goes to ranges and people, not Meta or Google