MSE Discussion: MoneySavingExpert.com to join the MoneySupermarket.com group

barmonkey

poundshillingpence wrote: »

Recently, I noticed aggressive marketing to sign on for the email. - screen blacking out, 'get the email' window highlighted. Almost giving the fleeting impression that you couldn't read the weekly email without subscribing.
Now I know why they were so keen to harvest all those subscriptions...

im not signed up and ive never seen that

barmonkey

Patr100 wrote: »

Yet Another drama Queen.

theres an awful lot of them around at the moment,
dont know why they dont just flounce off and be done with it.

nilrem_2

barmonkey wrote: »

theres an awful lot of them around at the moment,
dont know why they dont just flounce off and be done with it.

OTOH life would be pretty boring if we all thought the same way.

I don't agree with all the anti Martin/Forum comments, a few do have some merit though some are quite ridiculous, however I think it is only right that people are allowed to voice their honest opinions even if negative without being told to 'clear off'!

The forum is (IMHO) the richer for diverse views.

patchwork_cat

blossomhill wrote: »

I have given the situation some thought and I think the reason why people feel so aggrieved is because of who the posters were - eg someone who has gone through bankruptcy, prepared to share their experience in the hope of helping another, and instead someone else decides to profit from that.

Someone in debt who has found a way to get through the day without spending money they don't have and shares their tips; hey kerching! I can make a profit from their ideas!

If it had just been ordinary consumers who shared how to maximise glitches I don't think there would have been such an issue but this feels like Robin Hood skimming the poor to give the profit to ... Robin Hood

I don't agree with your summation that it those in debt that feel aggrieved. No debt here, simply someone trying to manage a family on one salary. It is down to the message you received - whether you thought Martin a philanthropist or not. Whether you believed the skimlinks guff about revenue to run the forum, no money to pay for moderation and then find that in teh last 3 years he has made more than £30 mill!

Whether the fact that someone who is making that amount of money is still accepting complimentary tickets to the theatre, visiting poundland and making a thing about being offered a free coffee in Starbucks and because he wasn't skint anymore he gave the money to a tramp outside. Whoopdedoo I say with your money you should have given the tramp a whole meal.

We feel betrayed, we thought he was a people's champion. Personally I thought he was like me and had compassion.

ford_prefect_3

kaya64 wrote: »

you cannot delete your account i asked the same thing yesterday and it isn't allowed.

I suggest you contact the information commissioners office and make a complaint, unless its being retained for law enforcement purposes you have a right to be deleted from the database either by direct deletion or anonymisation per the EU data directive (some databases dont like deletions as it breaks stuff)

blossomhill_2

patchwork_cat wrote: »

I don't agree with your summation that it those in debt that feel aggrieved. No debt here, simply someone trying to manage a family on one salary

Glad you editted your post - miaow!!!

Neptune

aliasojo wrote: »

You're all acting like a dumped spouse.

It's business.

It's obvious the site users will have a different perspective to it's owner.

I live on this site and I hate change but I don't particularly think this is a bad thing. It's us users that have made this site what it is (sorry Martin but without us the site would never have grown) and I can't see that a new company would shell out £87 million just to come in and make sweeping changes to a working model and risk alienating it's user base.

Time will tell I guess.

You have to remember two key elements to all this:
1.) MSE was never looked at as a business by it's userbase. It was treated more like an independant advice service, maybe even operated by friends? It's this 'Trust' that has been the key to MSE's success. Remove the trust and possibly everything else goes with it?

2.)Business is business as the poster states. But business is about wealth creation. MoneySupermarket will have already worked out exactly how to recoup it's investment and make a profit within 5 years (Anybody remember the A&L change from a mutual after 3 years years all you got was constant marketing and appalling investment returns, and poor products). MoneySupermarket will, I am sure, run steady as you go for 12-18 months, then without us noticing little by little subvert us and use us, and strip us of our available cash using the very information (user behaviour and recommendations) on MSE to do this - Business is Business!

As another point of note, it is an editorial 'CODE', and we all know how succesfull 'codes' have been in protecting the consumer!

I for one am grateful for what I have learned here, but I will be taking that and going out into the world to continue the fight, before I am subverted to the MSup business model.

First to go weekly email, then forum, then bye-bye MSE.

What other site financing options were considered?

aliasojo

Neptune wrote: »

You have to remember two key elements to all this:

1.) MSE was never looked at as a business by it's userbase. It was treated more like an independant advice service, maybe even operated by friends? It's this 'Trust' that has been the key to MSE's success. Remove the trust and possibly everything else goes with it?


What other site financing options were considered?

1) I'm part of it's 'userbase'. It's never occurred to me that this site is anything other than business. Obviously others feel differently.

As for your last question.....why does it matter? It's not our business to know things like that surely? Especially since we're not shareholders, not have had any financial input to the site. We're *only* users who have used this place to meet and interact....for free.

Neptune

It would be interesting for me and maybe others to know why you chose this 'business' over the many others out there? Is there something we should be looking for in an alternative.

As for my last comment. Inclusion in decision making is far superior to exclusion. If this is a 'business' I missed the AGM's where I could ensure I voted on directors renumeration and company strategy via a shareholding right. There is another post on this very subject. Why not do a share issue to raise capital with existing registered site users being offered first?

WarriorPrincess

aliasojo wrote: »

We're *only* users who have used this place to meet and interact....for free.

I don't think we're 'only' users. We've brought questions, expertise, experience and a weight of consumer pressure to MSE. I think things will change - I think change is already evident.

I don't think there'll be a mass exodus - more likely a slow increase in 'institutionalisation' will result in lower interest in some parts of the forum and a slow attrition. I think traffic on the Grabbit board indicates that may already be happening.