Viewing links as guests

[wAnted]

Dear AndroidCentral,
I love your site, I really do! One thing that bothers me is how I have to log on to see the links that other users posted. I come to AC everyday to checkup on whats new and whats happening in the android world.

Seeing : [Only registered and activated users can see links. Login] Sucks donkey butt.

I know that you guys are an open community and don't charge for the registration but I just get annoyed when I look through other computers or even mine when I'm not logged in.

Q1: Do you guys want more users to register to see the links?
Q2: Is it dangerous to leave the login off to see the links? Why does it have to be private?
Q3: Do you guys do this to attract guests to make usernames and make money? What's the deal here?

I personally prefer if the links were shown without the necessity of logging into our accounts. Our phones are "open", why can't the links be "open" too?

 

[Moscow Desire]

Rules,,, are rules. Everybody pays the price for admission.

When you fly business class, you pay the price for boarding the plane first, free juice, and first choice at the newspapers.

Here, the price is login to see the links. I seriously doubt fortunes are being made based on membership. AC gets more than enough from advertising, product promotion, etc. They get to play with a lot of new toys, which is more than enough compensation.

"Sucking Donkey Butt", is something I think most of us here are not familiar with

 

[Cory Streater]

Dear AndroidCentral,
I love your site, I really do! One thing that bothers me is how I have to log on to see the links that other users posted. I come to AC everyday to checkup on whats new and whats happening in the android world.

Seeing : [Only registered and activated users can see links. Login] Sucks donkey butt.

I know that you guys are an open community and don't charge for the registration but I just get annoyed when I look through other computers or even mine when I'm not logged in.

Q1: Do you guys want more users to register to see the links?
Q2: Is it dangerous to leave the login off to see the links? Why does it have to be private?
Q3: Do you guys do this to attract guests to make usernames and make money? What's the deal here?

I personally prefer if the links were shown without the necessity of logging into our accounts. Our phones are "open", why can't the links be "open" too?

There are 3 reasons we do this:

1) It encourages membership.
2) It masks email addresses embedded inside of posts - which protects our members from malicious web scrapers. There are several contest threads and the Google + invite thread in particular that is filled with members posting their email addresses.
3) Our Android Developers and Advisers spend countless hours of time putting together guides, tutorials, tools, and ROM's only to have their work copied and pasted across the internet. These individuals are volunteers who make zero money off of the community. In return, we encourage members to login, and interact with them, even if it's just a simple thank you.

This is where we differ:

When you're logged off: you will not see advertising embedded inside of or in between posts. In addition, our "please register" banner does not have an embedded flash advertisement as seen on other sites. For example we do not do this:

When you login you will not see advertisements popping up between and/or inside of posts; there is no advertising on either side of each of the forums, in thread views, nor above the post reply boxes as shown in the example shot below:

In fact we have pushed our flash ads to the very top of the screen above all other content.

In the end - every forum wants to grow their community. We do not sell personal information, spam our members, and zero money is made from registrations so it's definitely not done for financial reasons.

One last thing -- our registered members do not have to pay a bi-annual fee of $20 for any of the features you see listed on other sites:

All of our members are premium in my book & get all of those things for free.

I guess my question to you (and I'm really not trying to be flip) is how does logging in impact you in a negative way? If there are things we can do to simplify the login process I am all over it.

Either way, your feedback is appreciated and welcomed. I would like everyone's experience to be a good one, whether logged in or not.

 

[wAnted]

Well thanks Cory! That sums it all up for me. I'm glad you answered the questions I had and now I realized why it is that way.