johnsonny

Most of the views via the personalized cache maps are due to PMs anyway. You seem to ignore that a single cacher who is viewing at the map often and scrolling around, creates a lot more than one view per day. Currently there are 2 million views caused by gc.com per day and this is increasing exponentially. There are many PMs who would not want to pay more - so your calculcation does not work out at all. Cezanne you may be right. My understanding was that it was per 1,000 visitors, not 1,000 visits. Regardless, this is obviously ruffling a LOT of feathers around here, and it'd be nice to know if we're just going to have to deal with this or if Groundspeak is looking into other options.

According to this article (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/27/google_maps_api_no_longer_free/) keeping Google Maps would cost $4 for every 1,000 visitors. If one in every 1,000 cachers is a PM, why not simply increase the PM cost from $30 to $35? Or increase the cost for PM to $35 and only let the PM use Google Maps. I'm relatively new to Geocaching, and I have been spreading the word like crazy to my friends, family, and coworkers about how great the activity, community, and Groundspeak in general is, but this change has really frustrated me. With as slow and buggy as the maps are right now, I can't imagine those I talk to working through the pain of these maps to get started caching. And just as a side-note, if Groundspeak had initially sent an email out to Premium Members explaining the situation and asking for a vote for poorer maps or increased cost, I am sure the majority would have been in favor of increased costs.