As the name suggest, a membership site is a site which you have to pay to get in. Inside, you can expect so-called ‘secret information’ on whatever that site is offering. It can contain ‘never revealed blogging secrets’, ‘magic formulas to make money online secrets’ or whatever that people are dying to know so bad that they are willing to pay for it. Why do people start membership sites and do people really pay to be members? It depends.
Who can start a membership site?
Practically anyone. All one need is a script that can handle payments in auto mode. It is a also one of the most touted method of making money online by MMO gurus wannabes, though I doubt any of them have a successful membership sites of their own.
A successful membership site provides a long term income if the owner can sustain the quality of contents to keep members in. Most die out within 2 to 3 months when the initial excitement created during the launch dies out. Once someone pays for something they expect to get 10 times the worth of their money and if the site owner cannot offer this month after month, they naturally will drop out.
Thus, most ‘wise-men’ will not work to make a long term membership site. They keep it at 3 months or maybe 6 months. They make the site into a training course and to get that specialized training, you have to become a member. Some will also limit the number of members to keep the club ‘elite’. No, it is not that they are really that cool. Doing it this way serves 5 purposes.
One, it gives an impression that they are not the round the mill marketers out to fleeced as many people as possible.
Two it serves as a good ‘call to action’ strategy.
Three, it leaves them room for ‘Chapter 2′ in another few months time.
Four, they know very well that there are only so many morons at one particular time. They have to be patient for the next incoming group of morons.
Five, as an ‘elite’ club limited to certain amount of morons members, they can charge more.
Notice the price difference between a training kind of membership site to that of a membership forum site. A forum site does not limit members and every Tom, Dick and harry can join for $2 per month. An elite site where you get all the un-revealed secrets to blogging will probably cost you hundreds per month.
Even though anyone can start a membership site, only those who has great influence and authority on the subject being taught will meet success. They are those who has obtained cult status and in many cases, these “cult” leaders network among themselves, passing their moronic followers through and forth, benefiting and endorsing each other whenever they start something new.
Who gave them the idea of making people pay for information.
Believe it or not, it is noobs like us, or like you, if I want to sound arrogant. Noobs who can’t admit that they are noobs. Noobs who acts like smart alecks. Noobs who refuse to use the Search Engines when searching for answers to ther problems.
The biggest culprit are noobs who likes to send emails to those A listers, asking silly questions, hoping that they will get noticed. Each day, these A listers gets hundreds of these emails, and the day will come when that light bulb will lit up above their head, telling them there is a market for simply answering those questions and making a good bundle out of it. All they have to do is to spend some money packaging and publicizing it. The best thing is they do not have to reply to hundreds of emails, not that they do anyway. All the questions can be answered in on place where all those noobs will have to pay to read,
There will be hundreds who will be more than happy to pay for those secrets that made that guy so successful. For simply, they are noobs and noobs always think they can be as famous as those guys as long as they do what those guys do. As always, noobs never likes to admit or just refuse to admit even when they know they have been pawned after spending a couple of hundreds to get into the training site. They always put on a brave front and they will tell you they got their money’s worth, or maybe even more.
Can we blame them for stating membership sites?
Can we blame the cat who ate the fish that was placed in front of it on an open plate?
Call them whatever you want. Scammers, cheats, liars, whatever. I can hardly blame them. If you give someone the opportunity to take advantage of you, who else can you blame?
Oh of course there are still nice guys around like me who answers the noobiest emails for free, and sometimes even gets insulted for the answers I gave them, but then, I am a dying breed.
And certainly and fortunately, I don’t get hundreds of these mails daily, else I can’t promise what I will turn into. A cat who loves fish?
Supply & Demand
As long as there r people that r willing to pay, there will be people willing to offer. I don’t blame them, they have found their “thing” to make money out of.
When I was working in an eBay store as an IT and customer support, i found it ironic that the more information you put, the more questions, complains and bitching you get from the customers
So I guess the more you try to please wit responses people asking, the more complains and flames you might get
Guess I will just have to please myself then huh. LOL.
Of course
remember u had an article about some song 
that sang that.