For almost a decade The Infidel Guy show has been a voice of reason right to your PC. Now, IG.com is under threat of disappearing. Obama talked about the small businesses that are losing customers and can’t get loans. Well.. IG.com was one of those. Over the past 3 years we have lost over 75% of our subscriber base. Over 95% of the cancellations were the result of gold members losing their jobs. This isn’t enough to keep the site going as well as my children fed and healthy. After fighting and losing to keep staff and volunteers, I just may have to throw in the towel. After struggling for years to make IG.com a success, I am now heavily considering re-enlisting into the Army again. This is no joke! Infidelguy.com is now currently in it’s most dire state since it’s inception in 1999.
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In many ways, Reggie’s economic problems are the result of the changing online landscape. He started what amounts to a podcast long before the term “podcast” had even been coined. When IG started, it was all that was out there if you wanted to listen to something from a freethinking perspective. Now, all you have to do is go on ITUNES, go to Religion and Spirituality–Other, and you can find numerous high quality podcasts on the same subject matter available for free. Moreover, most of these podcasts (i.e. Dogma Free America, the FFRF podcast, Reasonable Doubts, etc) will allow you to download their entire catalog of past episodes for free. IG charges for that privilege. I expect that is why the Gold members have stopped paying for the service–others are offering it for free.
I know the economics of the Freethought online media business pretty well, and the sad truth is that there is virtually no way to make a living at it.
I wish Reggie the best of luck, but the only way that he can avoid this unfortunate situation is to completely revamp his business model.
Hey, I’m sorry to hear about the downturn in subscriptions. Have you considered using Googles “Adwords”? I know it costs money, but it takes money to make money…
Or maybe the answer is to change the format of the website. Advertiser based instead of subscription.
Just a thought. But at least you’re not begging the Feds for a bailout…
Either way good luck with the future of your business…
I hope this comes across as constructive critism. As a employee of a non-profit we constantly have to revise our plan to keep members and show them “value” for their membership. My own view of why I didn’t subscribe to IG is the material didn’t provide me with information I didn’t already know or didn’t find I needed to know. Again, all the respect to IG intended as I appreciate his effort.
blackclawdog,
Nail on the head.
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Good luck IG.
IG’s big problems are a result of his own doing, and began when he did try to “revamp his business model” several years ago that wasn’t broken. In fact, he broke up his forum which had been one of the most popular around, and also split his extremely popular main site into some half dozen with obscure names that made absolutely no sense — it all seemed insane! That’s when I and others gave up on him. And now there are a whole host of great atheist personalities on sites like YouTube that make IG’s site(s) obsolete and even seemingly archaic. The fat lady has already sung.