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Is there any credibility to speculation that the Las Vegas Advisor website is considering the possibility of becoming paid subscription only in order to access online content?
It's not speculation. It is, to drive home the point, the new bottom line. Or at least it will be sometime this month.
This has been known since the July issue of the Las Vegas Advisor was published. In it, Anthony Curtis wrote, "It means that once we flip the switch, only paying members will have access to Question of the Day, Vegas News, the blogs, the message boards, all the gambling content, our buffet, parking, and resort-fee lists and updates — in short, pretty much everything we post online."
The primary reason for this, as alluded to, is monetization.
"Of all the things we do," Anthony continued, "the costliest and most labor-intensive component is maintaining the site. True, it attracts a lot of eyeballs, some belonging to people who become LVA members or buy books. But beyond those, we generate almost no income from LVA.com and that’s been a problem for decades, as tens of thousands of visitors are consuming our product (information) for free on a daily basis. We simply can't continue doing that."
For LVA subscribers, of course, nothing changes. They'll have access to the entire site, including the newsletter, and can take advantage of the Member Rewards Book and Member Online coupons. But for the rest, there will be a nominal fee. We've pretty much settled on $3 a month (10 cents per day) or $30 a year (a little more than 8 cents per).
If you're willing to pay 8-10 cents a day, you'll find a new and improved site that's evidence of the renewed energy from your faithful content providers who, frankly, have lost their enthusiasm for pouring their hearts into a product that they've given away day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade.
And for all those who'll be disappointed, or howl from the rooftops about greedy grubbing gougers, all we have to say is this. If you don't want to pay for the valuable content you've been getting for free for 20-plus years, we'll be sorry to see you go. It's been a good long ride, but those days are ending.