It's been kind of quiet here

I always thought the 100% paid model was flawed - most of the truly great sites I've seen are home grown with very little budgets for advertising. They have a passion for the topic and their sites are ones that you can get lost in for hours. They rely on forums, social media and word of mouth. When they do pay for advertising, it's usually in the form of a small ad on a bigger site within their niche and it's for exposure, not link juice.

Many of the sites owned by people willing to spend money to advertise weren't worth the five minutes it takes to look them over. That's why I never charged. I have turned down far more advertising "opportunities" than I accepted. It's hard to say no to someone offering $100 a month for a site-wide text link that would have taken me 5 minutes to place. But, their site had absolutely nothing to do with mine and it was something I never would have shared/referred anyone I knew to. For me, it wasn't about what Google said about those links, it was what sort of sites I link to.

Not charging for listings gives me more freedom to say no. Yes, I made far less money with my directory than the rest of you. Heck, being picky has virtually killed my pet directory but has allowed my other directory to flourish. But, while you're talking about abandoning your sites, I'm looking for ways to expand. And, I guess I'm still stuck in the 90s. I continue to add sites on my own.

And like I said, when it comes to targeted traffic that leads to sales, it doesn't have to be "good traffic"; one or two hits a week, a month or even a year can be quite profitable.

 

While not entirely free, I agree with what you are saying and its the reason we've only ever charged a few bucks and have never raised the price. Covers/justifies the time spent and programming I pay for in house. Obviously its not our only business. Its more of a hobby than anything, and owning an ISP has pretty much afforded me the ability to do so without huge overhead. I just love doing it. Could we charge more and get it? Perhaps, but I really would not feel right about it. Cover my employees time and I let my business eat the rest. There's quite a few folks out there that do it this way because it serves the community. If it were about the money, I'd have moved onto bigger better things by now.