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paying membership elitist?


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I had a regular non member cache muggled over the weekend. my premium caches are still doing fine. I mentioned that fact on a local caching page. I had a member tell me paying the Groundspeak membership of $30 was elitist and that every cache should be open to everybody to find. I know around my area about 50% of the regular non member caches that had swag or trackables in them are destroyed. seems the premium member caches are always in really good shape and fewer of them are muggled. I have desided all my caches will be premium member caches from now on out.

Edited by gonzogunner
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I had a regular non member cache muggled over the weekend. my premium caches are still doing fine. I mentioned that fact on a local caching page. I had a member tell me paying the Groundspeak membership of $30 was elitist and that every cache should be open to everybody to find. I know around my area about 50% of the regular non member caches that had swag or trackables in them are destroyed. seems the premium member caches are always in really good shape and fewer of them are muggled. I have desided all my caches will be premium member caches from now on out.

by the way I replaced the cache loaded down with swag. if it is muggled again I will archive it.

 

Every cache is open for everbody to find. There are ways a basic member can find a premium member only cache(not called member only caches, because even unpaid members, are still members) and Groundspeak allows them to still log these caches, even leaving a backdoor method of logging them open.

 

If a cache was truly muggled, then it wouldn't matter if it was a PMO cache, or even listed on the website. I do believe putting every cache you own as PMO to prevent others from finding it is elitist. Why hide caches if you don't want people finding it?

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In some countries like Bangladesh, $30 a year probably would be elitist, otherwise it's just capitalism. Not paying anything is more like communism. Using an expensive electronic device and paying for gas, but expecting some other service to be free is just asinine.

Edited by 4wheelin_fool
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I'm a broken record, but I'll say again that just because there are $30 premium memberships with many enhanced features, does not mean there has to be, or ever had to be, premium member only caches. That's the only "perk" that ever gets tagged as "elitist". You think that guy cares that I can create bookmark lists? :huh:

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I had a regular non member cache muggled over the weekend. my premium caches are still doing fine. I mentioned that fact on a local caching page. I had a member tell me paying the Groundspeak membership of $30 was elitist and that every cache should be open to everybody to find. I know around my area about 50% of the regular non member caches that had swag or trackables in them are destroyed. seems the premium member caches are always in really good shape and fewer of them are muggled. I have desided all my caches will be premium member caches from now on out.

by the way I replaced the cache loaded down with swag. if it is muggled again I will archive it.

 

Every cache is open for everbody to find. There are ways a basic member can find a premium member only cache(not called member only caches, because even unpaid members, are still members) and Groundspeak allows them to still log these caches, even leaving a backdoor method of logging them open.

 

If a cache was truly muggled, then it wouldn't matter if it was a PMO cache, or even listed on the website. I do believe putting every cache you own as PMO to prevent others from finding it is elitist. Why hide caches if you don't want people finding it?

 

PMO does prevent thefts, although it doesn't stop it completely. It's like locking your car, versus leaving the key in the ignition. Locking it doesn't deter everyone from stealing it, but it does make it less likely.

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I had a regular non member cache muggled over the weekend. my premium caches are still doing fine. I mentioned that fact on a local caching page. I had a member tell me paying the Groundspeak membership of $30 was elitist and that every cache should be open to everybody to find. I know around my area about 50% of the regular non member caches that had swag or trackables in them are destroyed. seems the premium member caches are always in really good shape and fewer of them are muggled. I have desided all my caches will be premium member caches from now on out.

 

I agree.....all mine are premium.....you will also get less nuisance NA and NM logs from new cachers who simply can't find your cache.

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It's funny, but $30 is the cheapest thing about geocaching! Unless you bike and never use any gas...

 

Agree fully. In most areas you will quickly find all the caches around your home and gas expenses will begin to mount. Then as you begin to travel the country on geocaching vacations there are hotel expenses, etc.

I once calculated that is cost $5 or more in actual expenses for every cache I've found so I've spent about $60,000.00 in 11 years making the $330 I've paid for membership look like peanuts. The above expenses does not figure in depreciation of the 3 vehicles I've about worn out geocaching.

 

* NOTE The above is for FINDING geocaches......hiding and maint is another story.

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I don't think it's elitist. There are plenty enough non-PMO caches to go around and you can play this game for free as long as you like. For those who elect to go Premium, there are some useful benefits and tools in addition to being able to seek PMO caches. And as stated above, nowadays making caches PMO is becoming necessary as a defense against having your cache trashed/stolen (I won't say "muggled" as that implies that the cache was taken by someone who doesn't know what Geocaching is...More and more lately caches are getting screwed up by clueless newbies as opposed to random passerby)

 

Unfortunately in today's world there is a whole new generation of entitlement who cries and moans about how anything they can't afford or aren't willing to pay for is "elitist". It costs money to provide a product, and that includes maintaining a Geocache listing site. Somebody has to pay for it. I think the gripers and whiners should be glad that there is still a LARGE component of the game that is free and probably always will be, instead of complaining about a few benefits that some members are willing/able to pay for.

 

You know, when I attend a sporting event I observe that while I'm sitting in a bleacher seat there are also some luxury boxes at the stadium that I don't have access to, because I am either unwilling or unable to afford them at this time. That doesn't make those folks elitist, it just means they have more means at their disposal and can pay for something better. I still get to watch the game. B)

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It's funny, but $30 is the cheapest thing about geocaching! Unless you bike and never use any gas...

 

Have you seen how much it costs to tune up a bike?

 

About half an hour?

Very well, many cachers are DIY's.

 

Just don't spend $5,000 on a racing bike - they're so light and efficient they burn less calories.

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I had a regular non member cache muggled over the weekend. my premium caches are still doing fine. I mentioned that fact on a local caching page. I had a member tell me paying the Groundspeak membership of $30 was elitist and that every cache should be open to everybody to find. I know around my area about 50% of the regular non member caches that had swag or trackables in them are destroyed. seems the premium member caches are always in really good shape and fewer of them are muggled. I have desided all my caches will be premium member caches from now on out.

I see premium membership like the AR on your profile. It's not just a basic AR, but it is built on the same platform. You get what you pay for. :anibad:

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I don't see it as "elitist" but it's just not very common around here. The one cache owner who does it a lot seems to place a lot of unremarkable traditionals that certainly wouldn't compel anyone to pay for a membership.

 

The serious, targeted cache vandalism issues that I've heard of were all perpetrated by people with grudges who had premium memberships.

 

I doubt that PMO caches see any substantial protection from cache theft or cache vandalism compared to any other cache that doesn't make it on the intro app. All that PMO caches really do is keep the cache off the silly app (and there are better ways to do that) and prevent casual cachers from being able to find them.

 

Previous discussions about the relative affordability of geocaching have not shown others in the best light so might I suggest that it is unwise to go down that path of discussion again?

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It's funny, but $30 is the cheapest thing about geocaching! Unless you bike and never use any gas...

 

Have you seen how much it costs to tune up a bike?

 

About half an hour?

Very well, many cachers are DIY's.

 

Just don't spend $5,000 on a racing bike - they're so light and efficient they burn less calories.

 

That's OK, I'm heavy and inefficient so I still burn a fair few :)

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The way I see it now, if your cache is not a PMO cache, GS will try to get muggles to find it, likely getting it muggled. Seems a little strange to me...but that is the way it is now.

Not strange at all.

Things change and promises made many years ago (remain free...) may not be such a great idea now.

Start the process by making many feel they have to make their hides pmo, instead of refraining from placing traditionals for a while.

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I don't see it as "elitist" but it's just not very common around here. The one cache owner who does it a lot seems to place a lot of unremarkable traditionals that certainly wouldn't compel anyone to pay for a membership.

 

The serious, targeted cache vandalism issues that I've heard of were all perpetrated by people with grudges who had premium memberships.

 

I doubt that PMO caches see any substantial protection from cache theft or cache vandalism compared to any other cache that doesn't make it on the intro app. All that PMO caches really do is keep the cache off the silly app (and there are better ways to do that) and prevent casual cachers from being able to find them.

Agreed.

 

If new, I'd be a bit upset to find I coughed up the bucks and found that pmo was no different (and sometimes less in quality) than the rest of the lpc, roadside and guardrail pill bottle hides in the area...

 

If I wanted to keep the free app folks away, I'd make real simple multis and puzzles.

- They can only find traditionals.

Edited by cerberus1
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I don't see it as "elitist" but it's just not very common around here. The one cache owner who does it a lot seems to place a lot of unremarkable traditionals that certainly wouldn't compel anyone to pay for a membership.

 

The serious, targeted cache vandalism issues that I've heard of were all perpetrated by people with grudges who had premium memberships.

 

I doubt that PMO caches see any substantial protection from cache theft or cache vandalism compared to any other cache that doesn't make it on the intro app. All that PMO caches really do is keep the cache off the silly app (and there are better ways to do that) and prevent casual cachers from being able to find them.

Agreed.

 

If new, I'd be a bit upset to find I coughed up the bucks and found that pmo was no different (and sometimes less in quality) than the rest of the lpc, roadside and guardrail pill bottle hides in the area...

 

If I wanted to keep the free app folks away, I'd make real simple multis and puzzles.

- They can only find traditionals.

 

For this reason, I will *never* hide another traditional cache.

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I don't see it as "elitist" but it's just not very common around here. The one cache owner who does it a lot seems to place a lot of unremarkable traditionals that certainly wouldn't compel anyone to pay for a membership.

 

The serious, targeted cache vandalism issues that I've heard of were all perpetrated by people with grudges who had premium memberships.

 

I doubt that PMO caches see any substantial protection from cache theft or cache vandalism compared to any other cache that doesn't make it on the intro app. All that PMO caches really do is keep the cache off the silly app (and there are better ways to do that) and prevent casual cachers from being able to find them.

Agreed.

 

If new, I'd be a bit upset to find I coughed up the bucks and found that pmo was no different (and sometimes less in quality) than the rest of the lpc, roadside and guardrail pill bottle hides in the area...

 

If I wanted to keep the free app folks away, I'd make real simple multis and puzzles.

- They can only find traditionals.

 

For this reason, I will *never* hide another traditional cache.

 

I see the point here but I've really got to hide what I like to find and I don't care for multi's and I detest puzzles.

As I've said, my traditional's fare better as PMO's.

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If I wanted to keep the free app folks away, I'd make real simple multis and puzzles.

- They can only find traditionals.

 

Around here you would reduce your visits by 75-90%. I find our PMO caches only get a slight decrease in visits (about 10%) fewer visits, while our easy puzzles (not PMO) get, on average, one visit every 2 months (and we're in a cache dense location). I think people don't even bother looking at the puzzle descriptions.

Edited by L0ne.R
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If I wanted to keep the free app folks away, I'd make real simple multis and puzzles.

- They can only find traditionals.

 

Around here you would reduce your visits by 75-90%. I find our PMO caches only get a slight decrease in visits (about 10%) fewer visits, while our easy puzzles (not PMO) get, on average, one visit every 2 months (and we're in a cache dense location). I think people don't even bother looking at the puzzle descriptions.

 

This comes up again and again, but I fail to see why this is an issue. I'd rather see a coherent log once every six months than a litany of "That's one more find more me..." nonsense every day.

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If I wanted to keep the free app folks away, I'd make real simple multis and puzzles.

- They can only find traditionals.

 

Around here you would reduce your visits by 75-90%. I find our PMO caches only get a slight decrease in visits (about 10%) fewer visits, while our easy puzzles (not PMO) get, on average, one visit every 2 months (and we're in a cache dense location). I think people don't even bother looking at the puzzle descriptions.

 

This comes up again and again, but I fail to see why this is an issue. I'd rather see a coherent log once every six months than a litany of "That's one more find more me..." nonsense every day.

 

Yes, good logs are almost guaranteed when you place a good multi or puzzle. Favourite points too. :) But PMO caches, at least in my experience, have a big decrease in the number of "Found xxxx today and yours was one of them", "TFTC", "That's one more smiley for me" logs. I've been tempted to remove the PMO status on our caches now that the finds are dropping off significantly after 2 years, but every time I get another "TFTC" or canned message on our non-PMO caches that thought flies out the window. Like Bamboozle, I enjoy finding mostly traditional caches. When I'm travelling I filter out puzzles and multis. Locally I'll do them since I can make return visits if necessary. I too want to hide what I enjoy finding and also what will get a decent amount of finds. 1 find a month is OK on a couple of caches but too boring for me as a CO, for all of our caches.

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But PMO caches, at least in my experience, have a big decrease in the number of "Found xxxx today and yours was one of them", "TFTC",

 

I find this interesting as the majority of such logs in my area comes from PMs.

There a few beginners which log in this manner because they do not know any better and follow the example of others, but most of the generic logs come from cachers who find many caches per caching day.

 

 

Cezanne

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I don't see a reason to make them all premium members only. Give a little to the new to caching community. If it is close to home and easy to check make it for all. The harder ones to check on or hard to replace containers for sure but I think it is cool to put some out for the new players. We only have a few PMO caches and that is because it was needed for those. It is up to you but I think it is good to have some for everyone to find to get them interested if you can do so.

We put out many 5 terrain caches but also put out some 1 terrain if someone in a wheelchair wants to go find one of our caches. I think to make them all PMO just because is not needed.

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I don't see a reason to make them all premium members only. Give a little to the new to caching community. If it is close to home and easy to check make it for all. The harder ones to check on or hard to replace containers for sure but I think it is cool to put some out for the new players. We only have a few PMO caches and that is because it was needed for those. It is up to you but I think it is good to have some for everyone to find to get them interested if you can do so.

We put out many 5 terrain caches but also put out some 1 terrain if someone in a wheelchair wants to go find one of our caches. I think to make them all PMO just because is not needed.

I don't have a problem with new players. I was one once. What I have a problem with is muggles getting directions to my cache from GS via the intro app. From how is it setup, I suspect 60%+ have no idea what geocaching is, and what the most basic rules are. Why don't they just advertise where all of OUR caches are in the local paper.

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We only have two caches that we have hidden. Although the second is PMO, the idea was to limit traffic to the location. I realize that this one could be muggled, or vandalized just as easy. But at the same time, I try to be careful of what caches I place other people's trackables in. Just sayin. :blink:

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We pay the $30. We've yet to hide a PMO cache.

 

So far the most trouble we've had with caches disappearing was one cache that kept on getting left on the ground. (By the squirrel whose tree hole we were invading.)

 

Your mileage may vary.

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But PMO caches, at least in my experience, have a big decrease in the number of "Found xxxx today and yours was one of them", "TFTC",

 

I find this interesting as the majority of such logs in my area comes from PMs.

There a few beginners which log in this manner because they do not know any better and follow the example of others, but most of the generic logs come from cachers who find many caches per caching day.

 

 

Cezanne

 

The people who set up GSAK to automatically log all their finds tend to be PMs. These are the worst offenders for bland, pointless logs in our area.

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I am not sure I would make all my caches PMO. I make them PMO based on the area and pretty much nothing more. When I do a hide in a neighborhood I on the norm do make it PMO. I could be wrong and yes for one of mine it would be nice to have a NON PMO cache in the area but I just feel that the people that pay to play seem to have a touch more respect then the general populace. I pay for my account and my daughters. I guess I could just pay for one and she could still log the PMO caches we find. I just feel like it is my way of giving back to keep things going. I have been lurking for the past few years but I want to take a more active roll in several aspects. I think common sense should prevail IMHO.

 

-Todd

AKA: inetfun

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I have a house. Most people on this planet do not. I have central air conditioning that keeps my house 62 degrees year round. Most of this country, much less the world, do not. I have a five PC network with high speed access that is dedicated to nothing but play. I pay for premium membership to a number of sites and services, just because I want to. Does that make me elitist? If so I suppose I am. But I think that just makes me a capitalist. I worked hard to earn the money to pay for the things I want. You get what you pay for. I pay for Premium Membership because I appreciate this website, though I have never hidden a PM cache (actually I did hide one PM cache, a geocoin trade cache, stocked it with 30 geocoins and it was stolen the next day). This elitist question has come up fairly regularly over the years, mostly by people not willing to pay for the game they want to play. It's not elitist for those of us willing to pay to have access to benefits those not willing to pay do not get.

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The new people post TFTC, while the premium members with experience write fancy multicolored logs with different fonts and smileys, which are copy and pasted. What's the difference, exactly? :rolleyes:

 

There are exactly two people who do that in my area. It's beyond annoying. Since people are completely amazed beyond all comprehension when I us BB code to put a hyperlink in a cache log, I'll assume most people just can't figure out the colored logs and fonts to copy these two people. I'm going to guess that almost no one is "amazed" they know how to do it though. :P

 

Hey, 30 find all Tftc logger just dropped two caches 3 miles from my house. Should I return the favor with a Tftc (or less) log? I actually did do that once. As rare as it is seeing a Tftc logger ever hide a cache. :o

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PMO can be elitist, but so can regular caches. It depends on why you created the cache, not how.

How can a reason to hide a cache be elitist?

 

You could create a challenge cache (non PMO) with the sole purpose of excluding certain cachers. That would be elitist.

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Hey, 30 find all Tftc logger just dropped two caches 3 miles from my house. Should I return the favor with a Tftc (or less) log? I actually did do that once. As rare as it is seeing a Tftc logger ever hide a cache. :o

 

No, show him how to write a real log. Use a gibberish generator to fill out the maximum amount of characters, and then Bing translate it into Hungarian, Latvian, or even Klingon. :P

 

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/03/15-dummy-text-generators-you-should-know/

 

http://www.fillerati.com/

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Hey, 30 find all Tftc logger just dropped two caches 3 miles from my house. Should I return the favor with a Tftc (or less) log? I actually did do that once. As rare as it is seeing a Tftc logger ever hide a cache. :o

 

No, show him how to write a real log. Use a gibberish generator to fill out the maximum amount of characters, and then Bing translate it into Hungarian, Latvian, or even Klingon. :P

 

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/03/15-dummy-text-generators-you-should-know/

 

http://www.fillerati.com/

 

I'm gonna roll with a passage from Moby Dick, translated to Klingon. And yes, I'm really going to do this. Over the weekend, perhaps. :ph34r:

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