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Is Groundspeak Inc. getting very rich from this outdoor hobby?


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This seems to be another topic that defies time. When Jeremy first took the cache listings from exiting sources and started this site, he began to accept advertising, take donations, sell items, and assert various trademarks and copyrights. This was controversial from the start and a number of people accused him of trying to commercialize the game. Jeremy stated that he sought to pay for the site but had no alternative motive: "There is no business here. I will be honest and say from the outset that I considered ways to make money from geocaching. There is none (It's a hobby!). Advertising will never be enough to cover the expenses of creating the site. I don't expect anyone to pay for anything." (September 14, 2000.)

 

Of course he soon incorporated a business and figured it out. Jeremy is not the first one to have turned a hobby into a business. And if it provides value for money, we all profit in some way by it.

Edited by geodarts
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He essentially had 2 choices, either charge a small fee to everyone, such as $9 per year, or make most of the site free and have a $30 fee for anyone who wanted extra features. Since the $30 is completely voluntary, I'd say he did the right thing. A small mandatory fee would eventually have to increase over time, and discourage people who just wanted to try it out.

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He essentially had 2 choices, either charge a small fee to everyone, such as $9 per year, or make most of the site free and have a $30 fee for anyone who wanted extra features.

 

I do not think so that only those two choices existed. They well could have stayed much smaller and not expanded actively and not tried to appeal to a large non technically oriented audience. More than half of their current staff now deals with non-technical, non database issues. Noone forced them, for example, to translate parts of the site to many languages, offer support to some extent in other languages than English etc. It is obvious that this approach increases the number of customers but of course also the costs. Typical nerd sites can well survive without too charging too much and they never will end up with as many users as gc.com has achieved by now (which one can see positively or negatively).

 

Cezanne

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I'm relatively new to this hobby, so maybe some of the "old timers" around here can answer this question: In the past 10 or so years, have their been other sites about geocaching that are no longer around (i.e. - failed or got consumed)? How many? Why?

Edited by Ohiosiouxfan
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I'm relatively new to this hobby, so maybe some of the "old timers" around here can answer this question: In the past 10 or so years, have their been other sites about geocaching that are no longer around (i.e. - failed or got consumed)? How many? Why?

 

Geodarts sums it up very well, and it is true it had been many times publicly stated that Geocaching.com was not started to make money. It just kind of happened. :P The game was invented on Usenet, the first caches listed there, then they were listed on Usenet as well as some guy made a website with his 10 MB free space that came with his Internet service. This guy, Mike Teague, was the finder of the first cache! The domain Geocaching.com was purchased, and the 60 or so existing caches copied over from Mike Teague's website. It is documented that MT was OK with this, but some of the other pioneers of the game? Forget about it, they went bonkers. :ph34r:

 

Other website failures? Nothing of significance. Only a handful, and all long forgotten. The only one I remember with any degree of popularity was Movingcache.com; started, as you might guess, becuase this website stopped listing those. Most of the alternatives are still around. Navicache.com (March 2001), Terracaching.com (October 2004), The Opencaching Network (August 2005) and a fact that somehow escaped Garmin, when they lanuhed Opencaching.com in December 2010.

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Hi all,

 

I'm new to geocaching and I'm really enjoying it. I did only 2 caches. I read about the membership and the restrictions for a non-member. Membership is 30 dollar per member per year. I don't know the number of premium members but it seems that a lot of people here are premium member. (forum statistics show 800071 members and I suppose > 50 pct are premium members)

 

Personally I would think 30 dollar is a lot (too much) of money for webhosting and an online database. So my question is: is Groundspeak Inc. getting very rich from this business? It seems they are earning millions of dollars from this activity if my very rough calculations are correct. What are your ideas about this? It seems most people find the price very reasonable and think they do a good job paying the membership cost.

 

As a UK resident I would estimate that US$30 corresponds to about £1.50/month in local currency. For people who drink and smoke (and unfortunately I do both), that relates to half a pint of beer a month or one cigarette a week. The more intellectual cachers in the UK could buy two local weekly newspapers a month from what they would save by not being premium members.

 

After finding 3 or 4 caches I began to consider the $30, to avoid typing in the coordinates by hand or downloading dozens of LOC files, good value for money, and do not regret this decision one iota.

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That and I've met the principles on a number of occasions and rather than seeing limousines, I saw car pooling and instead of Gucci I saw Levis.

 

To be fair, though, they do live in Seattle. Citizens of Seattle think wearing Levi's is dressing up and is equivalent to Gucci :P

 

You make it sound like a bad thing. :blink:

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I'm fairly new to Caching and I'm more than happy Groundspeak are making loads of cash through this.

 

For me its family fun, we all love looking for caches and having out 4 caches found. TheN there is having our trackable moved about, its really great fun.

 

$30 a year is a bargain if you ask me, more than happy to pay that.

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If I could take a hobby and turn it into a business, would I? Duh!!

 

What an awesome thing to do. Take something that you enjoy doing, have a passion about, want to show others, and turn it into a business that can sustain yourself and dozens of other people. If it weren't a business, it would have to sit to the side as a hobby and get updates "when convenient" because everybody is busy with other their paying jobs (look at navicache.)

 

Making money is a good thing. I like money.

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If I could take a hobby and turn it into a business, would I? Duh!!

 

What an awesome thing to do. Take something that you enjoy doing, have a passion about, want to show others, and turn it into a business that can sustain yourself and dozens of other people. If it weren't a business, it would have to sit to the side as a hobby and get updates "when convenient" because everybody is busy with other their paying jobs (look at navicache.)

 

Making money is a good thing. I like money.

 

Oh, agreed there with the alternatives. Even the new owners of Navicache (yes, there are new owners in 2012) haven't got around to their big plans. We were promised Terracaching 2.0 for years, and it never happened. They too have a new owner, and we're still waiting. Opencaching North America currently does not have a volunteer programmer to fix minor bugs.

 

So yeah sure, make money. There are other ways. I'm not too big into Geocoins, but I'll bet there are small manufacturers making a living off it. The woman who runs one of the oldest mail order Groundspeak authorized retailers makes a living off it, and travels to most U.S. Mega's selling her wares. Wish I thought of that one in 2004, which is when I believe she launched her site. :)

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If it weren't a business, it would have to sit to the side as a hobby and get updates "when convenient" because everybody is busy with other their paying jobs (look at navicache.)

 

I do not think that navicache is a good example. The sites of the opencaching network, GSAK, several national sites are run on a hobby basis and still they react more quickly to bugs, request for new features etc than gc.com.

For example, opencaching.de introduced support for multilingual cache descriptions a couple of weeks after the request has been forwarded, gc.com did not come up with anything over more than 9 years despite of several requests. opencaching.de also had a favourite system much before gc.com and they also offer a system where you can look at the caches recommended by cachers who liked the same cache. The opencaching network profits from the fact that their system is open to participation to who everyone wants to contribute his talents.

 

The greatest advantage of gc.com is its huge market coverage, but that's not really an achievement of gc.com.

 

Cezanne

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If you're unhappy with the cost of a Premium Membership, the Basic Membership is free. The PM perks aren't for everyone: I have a friend who I started caching with 2 1/2 years ago who put down $10 for the Groundspeak official app and since he caches infrequently (less than 100 Finds/year) he has no need for the fancy stuff. Many people don't even buy the app.

 

I'm particular about my caching; I filter out alot of stuff I don't want. Premium Membership here and GSAK (which I also bought) have been worth every penny I've spent on them.

 

What Groundspeak is doing (service is free so anyone can play, but perks are extra) is actually becoming a business model in the online gaming community. Game is free to buy and play, but extra characters/armies/items or special custom appearances for your character/etc cost money. A gaming-related webcomic even poked fun at this:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/06/10

 

Lets also look at the other competitor sites: despite Garmin's financial backing, GarminOC is far inferior to Groundspeak. Terracaching offers fewer free perks on their basic membership and fewer perks on their premium membership on a site with a fraction of the number of listings and activity as this one. Every other totally free geocaching listing site I've see seemed clearly inferior to this one. If someone else can do a better job than Groundspeak they haven't tried. Besides, IMO geocaching is hindered by multiple listing sites more than it is helped (saturation/proximity issues, land manager issues & confusion, stats are not combined).

 

If nobody's allowed to get rich, nobody will take the chance to build the next great thing.

 

Because getting rich should be a goal in life. If Next Big Thing while only receiving fame, a sense of accomplishment, and substantial profits that don't make you a billionaire is for chumps.

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The great thing about the Interwebs? It's a great equalizer! If you don't like GS making money, or your unhappy with its feature set, there is nothing stopping you from trying to launch a competitor and take them down. Sure it won't be easy, but Facebook did it to MySpace and Google did it to Yahoo. Myself? I agree with everyone else that says that $30 is a fantastic bargain, and if they're getting rich off of me, then good on 'em!

 

Buy the premium sub or don't. You have a choice. Me? I'd rather pay GS to maintain the sites and the apps than try to do it myself. I'm more than happy to pay the money to make sure that the work continues. Money provides a great incentive to get things done. If things truly get bad, revenue drops, customers walk, and they have some very viable reasons to improve.

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That and I've met the principles on a number of occasions and rather than seeing limousines, I saw car pooling and instead of Gucci I saw Levis.

 

To be fair, though, they do live in Seattle. Citizens of Seattle think wearing Levi's is dressing up and is equivalent to Gucci :P

 

Then how do you explain Nordstroms?

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Cable and Internet for one month $151.14 (Canadian) including tax. PM for a YEAR $30 (US) tax free. Seems like a good deal to me.

I think we are getting away from the original topic here. It seems a lot of people are answering the question "Is premium membership a good value?". I think we all know that premium membership is a great value. But that isn't the question that was asked. The OP asked "Is Groundspeak Inc. getting very rich for this outdoor hobby?".

 

Personally I would think 30 dollar is a lot (too much) of money for webhosting and an online database. So my question is: is Groundspeak Inc. getting very rich from this business? It seems they are earning millions of dollars from this activity if my very rough calculations are correct.

 

Silvershadelynx, you are not taking scale in to account. While you can very basic web hosting account for under $10/month a site like Geocaching would not fit. The databases and all the supporting files are just too large. Then there is the next step up. A dedicated managed server. Accounts go for around $500/month. But a single server isn't a good solution for Groundspeak because of bandwidth. Groundspeak gets so many visits in one day that they need multiple servers to handle the traffic. So now you have go the next step up. Building your own data center. This means renting office space or leasing/buying a building. Buying the servers and all the hardware needed to network them together and to the internet. Hiring people to manage those servers. Also your high speed internet from your local cable company isn't going to cut it when it comes to bandwidth. A business solution (read $$$$$) is needed for that too. Then there are all the incidentals. The hamsters eventually get tired and electricity is occasionally needed to run the servers. I'm sure desks and office supplies cost money too. I am sure if we thought long enough about this we would discover that there is a lot of money that Groundspeak spends running the business.

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Silvershadelynx, you are not taking scale in to account. While you can very basic web hosting account for under $10/month a site like Geocaching would not fit. The databases and all the supporting files are just too large. Then there is the next step up. A dedicated managed server. Accounts go for around $500/month. But a single server isn't a good solution for Groundspeak because of bandwidth. Groundspeak gets so many visits in one day that they need multiple servers to handle the traffic. So now you have go the next step up. Building your own data center. This means renting office space or leasing/buying a building. Buying the servers and all the hardware needed to network them together and to the internet. Hiring people to manage those servers. Also your high speed internet from your local cable company isn't going to cut it when it comes to bandwidth. A business solution (read $$$$$) is needed for that too. Then there are all the incidentals. The hamsters eventually get tired and electricity is occasionally needed to run the servers. I'm sure desks and office supplies cost money too. I am sure if we thought long enough about this we would discover that there is a lot of money that Groundspeak spends running the business.

 

I'd still be interested into a split of the costs into "technical" (servers, people running the servers, coding guys etc) and non-technical and I somehow guess that the non-technical ones increased considerably over recent years. I'm not convinced that these costs are necessary to the same extent if the focus would be a different one than it apparently is.

 

Cezanne

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So now you have go the next step up. Building your own data center. This means renting office space or leasing/buying a building. Buying the servers and all the hardware needed to network them together and to the internet. Hiring people to manage those servers.

 

I'm pretty sure Groundspeak aren't doing this, they were certainly using a managed datacentre a couple of years ago when it went offline due to a fire. So I'm sure they lease the datacentre space, the network infrastructure will come as part of the datacentre package and they may even lease their servers.

 

As to the OP question, I think they're making a good living out of it, clearly Jeremy, Elias, etc at the top of the pile will be making most, but they're not in the Bill Gates/Mark Zuckerberg league. I think $30 is well worth it, and anyone who doesn't want to pay can still play for nothing!

 

Good luck to them I say.

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I think we are getting away from the original topic here. It seems a lot of people are answering the question "Is premium membership a good value?". I think we all know that premium membership is a great value. But that isn't the question that was asked. The OP asked "Is Groundspeak Inc. getting very rich for this outdoor hobby?".

This is an excellent observation. Could we focus on economics and the growth of a small business, rather than using this thread as a catch-all discussion for everything that Groundspeak is doing wrong (or right)? Thanks.

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Cable and Internet for one month $151.14 (Canadian) including tax. PM for a YEAR $30 (US) tax free. Seems like a good deal to me.

 

Used to be I spent a lot more time caching and I did watching cable. And the price of cable was 24x that of my geocaching membership. So the price per hour of entertainment was at least 100x more for cable than geocaching.

 

I dropped cable, and now pay $0/year for TV, so the price comparison looks more favorable for TV now.

 

$30 is a bargain, for me anyway.

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Hi all,

 

I'm new to geocaching and I'm really enjoying it. I did only 2 caches. I read about the membership and the restrictions for a non-member. Membership is 30 dollar per member per year. I don't know the number of premium members but it seems that a lot of people here are premium member. (forum statistics show 800071 members and I suppose > 50 pct are premium members)

 

Personally I would think 30 dollar is a lot (too much) of money for webhosting and an online database. So my question is: is Groundspeak Inc. getting very rich from this business? It seems they are earning millions of dollars from this activity if my very rough calculations are correct. What are your ideas about this? It seems most people find the price very reasonable and think they do a good job paying the membership cost.

Sure they are making money and I do not have a problem with that. You do have to pay for premium membership the option is yours

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Unfortunately, this is a subjective topic. Is Groundspeak getting "very rich" can mean different things to different people.

 

Yeah, but is $30 a good value? Is it only 8.219 cents a day? Is it a better deal than other activites you participate in? Ok, sorry, couldn't resist. :lol:

 

Actually, I feel they're probably putting most of the money back in, considering how the number of employees keeps growing. I believe I said 66 earlier in the thread.

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Unfortunately, this is a subjective topic. Is Groundspeak getting "very rich" can mean different things to different people.

 

Yeah, but is $30 a good value? Is it only 8.219 cents a day? Is it a better deal than other activites you participate in? Ok, sorry, couldn't resist. :lol:

 

Actually, I feel they're probably putting most of the money back in, considering how the number of employees keeps growing. I believe I said 66 earlier in the thread.

The latest lackey coin has something like 69 or 70 icons.

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Unfortunately, this is a subjective topic. Is Groundspeak getting "very rich" can mean different things to different people.

 

Yeah, but is $30 a good value? Is it only 8.219 cents a day? Is it a better deal than other activites you participate in? Ok, sorry, couldn't resist. :lol:

 

Oh we're on the same page. :rolleyes: See my previous posts. (two hours at the movies with my family is way more than PM, app, etc.)

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...

The only one I remember with any degree of popularity was Movingcache.com; started, as you might guess, becuase this website stopped listing those. Most of the alternatives are still around. Navicache.com (March 2001), Terracaching.com (October 2004), The Opencaching Network (August 2005) and a fact that somehow escaped Garmin, when they lanuhed Opencaching.com in December 2010.

 

Wasn't there another one in the Navicache mix?

 

I recall three of them being around and all have different caches with a little cross over.

 

Wasn't there another site called GPS Games or something like that?

 

And didn't Magellan have a Geocaching site for awhile?

 

I also recall there being a site for GPS the movie. They would even send you a physical cache to hide!

Although, that was really a promotional site for the movie and not a competitor to gc.com (I think) :)

 

Of all the sites that tried their hand at Geocaching, Letterboxing and GPS Games, Groundspeak's effort is by far the best and worth every penny I've paid in premium membership. I really appreciate that the founder of this company put their necks out on the line to bring the website and the sport to the next level on several occasions. I hope they are compensated well, and continue to be so that the game and website will continue to evolve and make me and other players happy.

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Ok, since when did it become so wrong for a business or an individual to prosper? It seems like this kind of mentality has become so prevalent.

 

I just think that geocaching is not really suited for a prospering business. I agree with many previous posters insofar that the PM fee of 30$ is not much when compared to other costs. Still the setup of gc.com as a company motivates GS to aim at expansion and be happy with a fast growth rate of geocaching and work actively towards this aim which is a very bad thing for geocaching in my opinion.

 

For example, I recently encountered the following text about mega events in the guidelines

 

Please note that publication of a Mega-Event cache provides exposure to millions of geocachers both on Geocaching.com and through our weekly newsletter. In consideration of the significant resources we devote to publicizing the Mega-Event, Groundspeak reserves the right to deny or retract publication of Mega events sponsored by other commercial geocache listing services, as well as parent and affiliated companies, unless written permission has been granted in advance by Groundspeak.

 

I would prefer if mega events would not exist at all and if they need to exist, they are not publicized that widely.

 

There are many other examples where I feel that the wish of a company to earn money somehow collides with what I regard as good for geocaching, an activity which I think is better suited at an activity not getting too much exposure in the public.

 

 

Cezanne

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I just think that geocaching is not really suited for a prospering business

....

Cezanne

This is really a common difference in thinking between Europe and North America.

The American Dream!

 

I'm familiar with the American Dream, but when writing my statement above I had something different in mind.

 

North America can much better cope with a high number of caches and cachers than many European countries due to many reasons.

In particular, countries like the US, Canada, but also the UK to mention an example for a European country, have systems that

at least to some extent control that not too much harm is caused by geocaching in the long run and typically in those countries there also

exist geocaching associations or similar groups that can be contacted by authorities and who are willing to act as a lobby for geocaching.

 

Each time when I encounter sites like that one

http://www.follow-the-arrow.co.uk/resources/default.shtml

or comparable sites with information for cachers from various US states, I get to understand better why a high number of cachers and caches is

less of a problem in those countries than it is in countries like Germany and Austria.

 

If someone is doing good work and earning a lot, I do not have any issue with that. As geocaching is related, I just feel that some countries are not

prepared to the geocaching growth rates they are experiencing. Hardly any business will not want to expand if they can and this in combination of what I

said above causes my concern.

 

Cezanne

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I just think that geocaching is not really suited for a prospering business

....

Cezanne

This is really a common difference in thinking between Europe and North America.

The American Dream!

(Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged?)

 

That's the plan. All of the capitalists will get together and stop everything. But the actual ending will be different from the book. Russia and China invade a weakened America, laughing that the bait was taken from a former communist that wrote it..

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I just think that geocaching is not really suited for a prospering business

....

Cezanne

This is really a common difference in thinking between Europe and North America.

The American Dream!

 

I'm familiar with the American Dream, but when writing my statement above I had something different in mind.

 

North America can much better cope with a high number of caches and cachers than many European countries due to many reasons.

In particular, countries like the US, Canada, but also the UK to mention an example for a European country, have systems that

at least to some extent control that not too much harm is caused by geocaching in the long run and typically in those countries there also

exist geocaching associations or similar groups that can be contacted by authorities and who are willing to act as a lobby for geocaching.

 

Each time when I encounter sites like that one

http://www.follow-the-arrow.co.uk/resources/default.shtml

or comparable sites with information for cachers from various US states, I get to understand better why a high number of cachers and caches is

less of a problem in those countries than it is in countries like Germany and Austria.

 

If someone is doing good work and earning a lot, I do not have any issue with that. As geocaching is related, I just feel that some countries are not

prepared to the geocaching growth rates they are experiencing. Hardly any business will not want to expand if they can and this in combination of what I

said above causes my concern.

 

Cezanne

I really do not what the growth of geocaching in europe compared with the growth rate in the USA has to do with anything. Other companies have tried to compete with ground speak, non of them has done well.

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I really do not what the growth of geocaching in europe compared with the growth rate in the USA has to do with anything. Other companies have tried to compete with ground speak, non of them has done well.

 

The point I tried to made was not comparing the growth rates, but arguing why I think that geocaching is not well suited for being handled by a prospering business in some European countries.

 

To sum up, I do not care if someone gets rich, I have no issue with the PM fee, but I have an issue with the fact that handling geocaching as a business and the accompying tendency to expand and increase the number of geocachers endagers geocaching.

The sites who have been a failure (except Garmin's site no companies have been involved to my knowledge) do not make me worry for obvious reasons.

 

Cezanne

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Ok, since when did it become so wrong for a business or an individual to prosper? It seems like this kind of mentality has become so prevalent. I don't think Groundspeak is very rich, but must be making a profit.

 

Where in the OP posting did it say he/she felt it was "wrong" for Groundspeak to make money. I didn't see it. I saw a question regarding the pricing model and a comment about how they felt $30 is a bit much. But never one mention that it is "wrong" for GS to make a profit.

 

Why is it that whenever ANYONE asks a questions that goes against the status quo in these forums do people feel a need to reinterperate what is being said?

 

(i am sure my local stalker will jump on this)

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I have an issue with the fact that handling geocaching as a business and the accompying tendency to expand and increase the number of geocachers endagers geocaching.

Cezanne

 

So you're saying that you don't want to see Groundspeak start advertising the hobby in mass media. I agree with that I hope it doesn't go that direction where there are TV commercials and print ads in newspapers.

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I have an issue with the fact that handling geocaching as a business and the accompying tendency to expand and increase the number of geocachers endagers geocaching.

Cezanne

 

So you're saying that you don't want to see Groundspeak start advertising the hobby in mass media. I agree with that I hope it doesn't go that direction where there are TV commercials and print ads in newspapers.

 

Why not, just think of how many wonderful power trails that could be set up!!! :rolleyes:

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My current GPS unit cost more than all the premium memberships I have paid in my 10 years of geocaching. Groundspeak has managed to survive and expand during a time when the global economy has been doing poorly. They are a smart company, but they are not at the same level as Apple or Microsoft or even Garmin. Kudos to them for being successful. They only have a monopoly on this game because they made smart moves along the way.

 

GPS Unit: $100 - $500

Premium Membership: $30/year

All the wonderful places it has taken me to, and amazing friends I have made along the way: PRICELESS!

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Why is it that whenever ANYONE asks a questions that goes against the status quo in these forums do people feel a need to reinterperate what is being said?

 

Every thread is pigeonholed into a previous category by forum regulars who remember previous threads and responses and answer accordingly. It's a handy way for left brain dominated people to organize everything, and for the OCD to work properly without any speed bumps. Since you posted a word in all caps, that identifies you as possible troublemaker according to forum history. :ph34r::P

 

 

I also wanted to add that 4wheelin_fool is currently busy, but he has paid me to fill in for him on his forum duties. My name is Jaspal, and I'm posting from Vikarabad, India.

Edited by 4wheelin_fool
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Why is it that whenever ANYONE asks a questions that goes against the status quo in these forums do people feel a need to reinterperate what is being said?

 

Every thread is pigeonholed into a previous category by forum regulars who remember previous threads and responses and answer accordingly. It's a handy way for left brain dominated people to organize everything, and for the OCD to work properly without any speed bumps. Since you posted a word in all caps, that identifies you as possible troublemaker according to forum history. :ph34r::P

 

By "status quo", I hope nthacker is not implying a forum consensus!! OMG! ROFLMAO! :lol:

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I have an issue with the fact that handling geocaching as a business and the accompying tendency to expand and increase the number of geocachers endagers geocaching.

Cezanne

 

So you're saying that you don't want to see Groundspeak start advertising the hobby in mass media. I agree with that I hope it doesn't go that direction where there are TV commercials and print ads in newspapers.

 

Actually, the present situation in some sense is already worse than that. Mega events, power trails and other signs of gigantomism have already led to the mass media reporting about geocaching. When a mega event takes place, they get the ads for free and do not even to pay for them.

 

There are countries where the future of geocaching is seriously endangered by the policy of unlimited and uncontrolled growth and cache placement.

One goal of most traditionals companies will always be to expand and that's part of the problem. When Garmin or Apple double their sells, I do not care as it neither affects me nor anyone in my close to me. That's different with GS.

 

Cezanne

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Personally I would think 30 dollar is a lot (too much) of money for webhosting and an online database. So my question is: is Groundspeak Inc. getting very rich from this business? It seems they are earning millions of dollars from this activity if my very rough calculations are correct. What are your ideas about this? It seems most people find the price very reasonable and think they do a good job paying the membership cost.

 

So what if they are getting rich, $30 to me is very cheap entertainment for a year and I'm happy to pay it. In fact I think that Groundspeak should give everyone NEW a 3 month Full membership including what benefits we have as Premium members. But after that free period I think Groundspeak should charge everyone that wants to use the site a flat $20 a year including all benefits. I think there is a lot we don't see that goes on to make sure our site runs well, and I'm sure it costs $$$$$.

 

I would say if you think it is to much, then don't upgrade or complain, or find another activity

 

Scubasonic

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You have not golfed or gone hunting or fishing as those are expensive hobbies too.

 

If Groundspeak can get rich and keep me entertained as it has for the last nine years, so be it.

 

I think the membership fee has always been $30 which is a good deal.

 

You should delete your topic until you have found 500 or so caches then come re-post your topic and see if you still word it the same way.

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Are they getting rich? I don't know for fact, but I (and a few friends) went sailing with Jeremy & family yesterday on 220 ton sailing vessel. There was a crew of twelve and he never had to raise a hand to help...

:laughing: You know, pirates are very rich. They have a reputation for hiding chests full of treasure. Hmmm. :unsure:

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I hope the lackeys are getting rich too. But I get the idea that Jeremy and gang hardly geocache. I am not complaining about aanything but if one thing bothered me, it is someone not actively in the game dictating to us what the game should be. And I am fully prepared to be corrected. So there..

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I hope the lackeys are getting rich too. But I get the idea that Jeremy and gang hardly geocache. I am not complaining about aanything but if one thing bothered me, it is someone not actively in the game dictating to us what the game should be. And I am fully prepared to be corrected. So there..

Jeremy found [Traditional Cache] Board Walken

 

Saturday, 25 August 2012Washington W W 1474.9 mi from your home location

 

The coordinates were off a bit but the pirate crew prevailed on this one.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=cfb78216-a27c-4c08-a572-3e5cbbe78c10

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I hope the lackeys are getting rich too. But I get the idea that Jeremy and gang hardly geocache. I am not complaining about aanything but if one thing bothered me, it is someone not actively in the game dictating to us what the game should be. And I am fully prepared to be corrected. So there..

Jeremy and Bryan don't have huge amounts of finds, but they're active cachers and go to a lot of events. There are a few lackeys who have fairly high amounts of finds. Groundspeak has also been working hard on getting their employees out caching, especially this year. I've been seeing a lot of logs from lackeys group caching around the Seattle area this year.

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