Some people use the site seasonally or sporadically for a variety of reasons (jobs, child custody, weather conditions) or possibly they are interested in longer term FWB situations and come here when they are in between those relationships.
I am mainly searching for SM's and I see a lot of them in my area switching from paid to free and later back to paid. It is fairly common.
The only reason not to remove Free Members after a "trial" period is if they have ever paid for a membership at any time. We have been debating going lifetime or sticking with every 3 or 6 months ourselves. The "monthly" option allows one to let the profile go "free" should life get in the way. Of course there is always paying for a lifetime and then a few weeks later the site shutting down but we do not see that happening. The point is like in our case we have no free time every year starting mid-November through all of December but even more recently the wife has been working a lot of overtime (normal 4 day week up to 5 for the past couple months and sometimes 6). Aside from going to a "monthly" party at a local club we plan for we really have not had much time to meet up with others. Of course for us being free would make it hard to work something in if we did get some time free or communicate with other party attendees. For us we have decided to go lifetime when the current sub runs out (although we may be free for a couple days due to limited computer access when it runs out). That said we can see where some may want to keep it on a month by month basis going free when unavailable and paying when they are.
They are here for ONE reason and ONE reason only. SLS can say,
"We have a Gazillion members ."
Management deleted all email over a year old to make room on the server. A Big Fat Lie. Then they put an end to emails. Another blunder.
The free members are a worthless
WASTE OF SPACE. Give them 30 days to decide to join. That is what they are about doing.
Nope. They can look at profiles and events and that's pretty much it.
Can free members do ANYTHING on this site? You know, answer messages, initiate messages to name just 2 things?
