Power Hungry forum

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I forgot about the ads until yesterday when my annual subscription expired. 🤦

I was just gonna say the exact same thing. For a second I thought the forum got hacked or something along those lines. 😁
 
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If you have to, use an ad blocker or use the Brave browser which blocks everything by default.

Absolutely not, blocking the ads means you’re depriving the site of revenue. If you don’t have a subscription, you have to keep the ads. :whipped:

PS to the very ignorant OP, if this were a commercial site, it would seek sponsorship from watch manufacturers and watch businesses like several for-profit forums, and then you’d be forbidden from making negative comments about the manufacturers in question. The owners have managed to keep this site afloat without compromising the free expression of honest information, and that’s what’s gotten it to be mentioned in the New York Times as one of the top sources of watch expertise on the web.

Talking about it, Ashley, what’s this business about this forum considered less authoritative than a blog? I don’t get it.
Maybe you should send them that NYTimes article!
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I was just gonna say the exact same thing. For a second I thought the forum got hacked or something along those lines. 😁

My autopay avoided this. Of course, I was still surprised by the charge when it popped up. But no ads!
 
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69 posts in three weeks since joining this forum. Mostly likes posted in reply to meaningful posts from others. A disgruntled post farmer, it would appear. Oh dear!

I've interacted with J!m and believe he is just enthusiastic like the rest of us.

If he gets to 1000 posts per year like me then that might be post farming. 😁
 
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I've interacted with J!m and believe he is just enthusiastic like the rest of us.

If he gets to 1000 posts per year like me then that might be post farming. 😁

😁😁😁
 
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If he gets to 1000 posts per year like me then that might be post farming. 😁

When you hit 10k posts and pay the upgrade to the Tier 5 package (so exclusive you didn’t know it existed but you have to have it now) you get access to the silver lounge which puts you on the list to get into the platinum lounge- but you need to buy 3 tier 2 memberships, 4 tier 3 memberships and send fruit and chocolate baskets to the mods who will laugh at you and tell you how inferior your gift baskets are compared to other members who buy more memberships and offer better gift baskets.

Perhaps if you keep buying cheaper memberships you can bump yourself up the list for a tier 5 membership, but I hear there are membership shortages so you may do better getting one on the grey market at a 40% markup but it’s an investment…. this is all sounding very familiar…..
 
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When you hit 10k posts and pay the upgrade to the Tier 5 package (so exclusive you didn’t know it existed but you have to have it now) you get access to the silver lounge which puts you on the list to get into the platinum lounge- but you need to buy 3 tier 2 memberships, 4 tier 3 memberships and send fruit and chocolate baskets to the mods who will laugh at you and tell you how inferior your gift baskets are compared to other members who buy more memberships and offer better gift baskets.

Perhaps if you keep buying cheaper memberships you can bump yourself up the list for a tier 5 membership, but I hear there are membership shortages so you may do better getting one on the grey market at a 40% markup but it’s an investment…. this is all sounding very familiar…..

I hear that if you buy memberships at all the other watch forums, even the ones you're not interested in, and you flash your Amex Black Card, you might get invited to a Tier 6 membership. That one also has ads, but they are gem-set.




But this is also a reminder that I need to renew my membership! My ads just started back up too.

OP - support the forum with a membership. It sounds like you'll break even with all the power savings on your devices!
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You are on a roll this evening, Mr. Rosenthal. LOL.
 
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I have mine set to auto-renew, no ads but got a PayPal notification and knew I hadn’t purchased anything so feared the ambien induced buying spree again.
 
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PS to the very ignorant OP, if this were a commercial site, it would seek sponsorship from watch manufacturers and watch businesses like several for-profit forums, and then you’d be forbidden from making negative comments about the manufacturers in question. The owners have managed to keep this site afloat without compromising the free expression of honest information

That's so important to recognize! The vibe and level of expertise here owes so very much to the owners' commitment to allowing unmarketable levels of free and open conversation.
 
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I have mine set to auto-renew, no ads but got a PayPal notification and knew I hadn’t purchased anything so feared the ambien induced buying spree again.
Every time some vendor sets up auto-renew, I immediately go into PayPal and cancel it.
 
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Every time some vendor sets up auto-renew, I immediately go into PayPal and cancel it.
I have very few but OF is one of them.
 
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I have very few but OF is one of them.
If I kept any, it would be OF. I just think it's a better practice to be reminded each pay period instead of potentially losing track of subscriptions. Obviously, my credit card monthly auto-renews are out of control with streaming services, etc. And it makes me a little nervous.
 
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That's so important to recognize! The vibe and level of expertise here owes so very much to the owners' commitment to allowing unmarketable levels of free and open conversation.
You mean that I can't speak my mind over at The Rolex Forum? Oh man, I'm signing up tonight. This is gonna be fun. At least for a few minutes 😁
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When you hit 10k posts and pay the upgrade to the Tier 5 package (so exclusive you didn’t know it existed but you have to have it now) you get access to the silver lounge which puts you on the list to get into the platinum lounge- but you need to buy 3 tier 2 memberships, 4 tier 3 memberships and send fruit and chocolate baskets to the mods who will laugh at you and tell you how inferior your gift baskets are compared to other members who buy more memberships and offer better gift baskets.

Perhaps if you keep buying cheaper memberships you can bump yourself up the list for a tier 5 membership, but I hear there are membership shortages so you may do better getting one on the grey market at a 40% markup but it’s an investment…. this is all sounding very familiar…..

Isn’t that how the Rolex forums work?
And if they don’t why are they missing out on the opportunity to fleece the membership in the same way that Rolex does to its customers?
 
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Absolutely not, blocking the ads means you’re depriving the site of revenue. If you don’t have a subscription, you have to keep the ads.
I understand the sentiment, and I almost didn’t post what I did, but I’ve been using ad blockers for a decade. Two things I hate in life are ads and surveys. I shamelessly block ads across the board and I never take surveys.

So who’s going to gift Jimbo a membership? ::stirthepot::
 
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If I kept any, it would be OF. I just think it's a better practice to be reminded each pay period instead of potentially losing track of subscriptions. Obviously, my credit card monthly auto-renews are out of control with streaming services, etc. And it makes me a little nervous.
Exactly the reason I went with an annual reminder.
I saw a charge on my PayPal account a while ago, after some detective work I found it was a subscription to a bike forum I'd forgotten all about and hardly ever used after the first year.
Add that to Direct Debits for utility bills, Microsoft 365, Amazon, Netflix, etc etc.
I ended up using a spreadsheet and putting everything into a "Sunscriptions" calendar in iCal.

The payment due reminder is fairly obvious and takes less than 30 seconds to renew.
 
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If I kept any, it would be OF. I just think it's a better practice to be reminded each pay period instead of potentially losing track of subscriptions. Obviously, my credit card monthly auto-renews are out of control with streaming services, etc. And it makes me a little nervous.
Friends talked me into getting back into Quicken. Best “filter” for finding those pesky auto renews. Glad I did it.
 
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I paid for a membership for a year, but didn't renew. The advice and information were definitely worth the cost, but I need the mildly annoying ads as a slight deterrent to spending more time scrolling here. It doesn't work all that well, though, so if you wouldn't mind making the ads a little more obtrusive, that would be great. 😀