To be clear, Groundspeak, nor it's founders, never said that. What Jeremy said was "traditional geocaching itself will never be a pay to play service."
You can come to this website today, and still do the same things for free, that you could do when the site was first created. You can still find caches without paying a cent. There has even been much improvement in the site for non-paying users.
However, if you have the means, sure, you can pay a modest fee and get a bunch of perks that may make your experience better. But that doesn't mean that you have to.
I seriously doubt Geocaching.com was founded with profit as the intent.
I was here ten years ago, and it was not nearly as commercial in feel.
The "modest fee" has gotten a lot less modest while I've been away.
Advertising would have more than covered the costs of Geocaching.com, with a healthy profit.
I have a geocache that dates back quite a while - and still gets found regularly.
People have been logging finds recently, which made me think about finding a few caches again.
I figured I might even return to the hobby, so I looked for the android phone app.
$10... you have got to be kidding.
$30 per year to be a premium member - and more and more content is becoming available only to premium members?
Making a profit is fine, but the spirit of Geocaching has been lost at Groundspeak.
It really makes me sad to see this. It was so much better when it was focused on the hobby
more than business profits.
I doubt I will return to the hobby other than an occasional find here and there, and my one remaining geocache hide.
If that one ever gets plundered, I doubt I would replace it. It seems absurd to me that the work I put
into hiding geocaches would go to a company that would also charge me to use their services.
But I will say "kudos to Groundspeak" for leaving this message thread and allowing the discussion.
There are other companies which would delete negative comments from their forums.
This post (below) says almost exactly what I was trying to say, but far better than I could ever say it: