"The Pinkbike acquisition adds considerable readership and revenue in the cycling space, and thus adds momentum to the company’s Outside+ membership program. Other have posted this but it should probably also be up here in the top comment. I hope decisions are made moving forwards which consider us, the readership, as I can see this being a make or break moment for PB and I don't think everyone will stick in it for the full journey. The thought of that sense of togetherness disappearing behind a pay wall, or turning into the free version of Singletrack, feels like I'm being robbed of something which I feel I belong to, and therefore have shared ownership in, even if only emotionally. PB is more than a website to many of us, it's a community, in a lot of ways it feels like a tribe or a family. Singletrack, in my opinion, are a great example of what you should NOT do - the only content not behind a pay wall is of far reduced quality to what they did have, and the amount of adverts and pop ups makes the site horrible to use. In your article you mentioned training plans, health videos, books etc and that would be a brilliant addition that I would pay a subscription for as it offers new value that you and your competitors don't currently have. I would really like to see assurances that PB content as it exists currently will remain the free version, and that any pay wall would only apply for new, additional content. I think a lot of the PB community are rightly worried, but I can see it both ways. I wish you all nothing but the best and I hope this venture goes far better than most commenters are predicting.Ĭongratulations. You will unfortunately be subject to people from beyond the mtb sphere making decisions about a website that you (pinkbike staff as a group) have previously had a huge amount of control over. I guess the point I’m trying to make is the growth that you refer to does come at a cost. I’m sure there are intricacies to managing a site like pinkbike that most of us will never understand, but, without attempting to sound too dramatic you’ve made the proverbial “deal with the devil.” That’s not taking a shot at outside by calling them the devil, purely metaphorical. You now have consumers, shareholders, and a board of directors to keep happy, and shareholders don’t care about pinkbike, they care about dividends, and the board doesn’t care about pinkbike, they care about shareholders. But it doesn’t come without it’s own costs. Gaining access to the purse strings of a massive corporation will be a big step towards realizing some of your bigger projects.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |