Full disclosure: I used to run the site. This is, at this point, just my personal take; I handed it off to other folks in the community whose work I believe in entirely and I am glad they are working on this now.
So, MetaFilter already had and has an enormously higher than normal rate of voluntary contribution per capita; when the first call for community support went out in 2014 on the tail of the great web ad market fuckification, something like 20% of the userbase stepped up with contributions, which is an unheard of number.
It's obvious to say "just charge everyone" but it's unreflective of both the buy-in the community already has from folks willing to support the site, and of the degree to which slamming a door on a historically open community flies in the face of the ethos the site has tried to be increasingly inclusive and increasingly aware of the need to build a community out of not just folks with idle subscription cash sitting around.
A paywall is great if your goal is to use it as a stick against non-paying folks. If you want a community to include folks who want to be there vs. just folks inclined to pay to be there, it's a poor solution. And if you build a good place, people will pay even if you don't make them. That MeFi still exists at all post-2014 is proof of that.
So, MetaFilter already had and has an enormously higher than normal rate of voluntary contribution per capita; when the first call for community support went out in 2014 on the tail of the great web ad market fuckification, something like 20% of the userbase stepped up with contributions, which is an unheard of number.
It's obvious to say "just charge everyone" but it's unreflective of both the buy-in the community already has from folks willing to support the site, and of the degree to which slamming a door on a historically open community flies in the face of the ethos the site has tried to be increasingly inclusive and increasingly aware of the need to build a community out of not just folks with idle subscription cash sitting around.
A paywall is great if your goal is to use it as a stick against non-paying folks. If you want a community to include folks who want to be there vs. just folks inclined to pay to be there, it's a poor solution. And if you build a good place, people will pay even if you don't make them. That MeFi still exists at all post-2014 is proof of that.