That is basically how I understood things would be when this was discussed last August. I agree that most of the features that might present costs that needed to be passed on to members are likely outside the focus of a message board site to begin with. That said, if IH has enough users will to pay for such a service and IH can profit from it...do what you gotta do.
BTW, as I see it there are two subclasses of "grandfathered"...those that have made a donation or subscribed, and those that haven't. I would never suggest that someone that simply signed up for the site in August 2001, and hasn't been much of a contributor in any fashion to the development of the site (especially in a financial sense) should be "entitled" to a lifetime free ride for all things IH regardless of cost. I don't know how many "grandfathered" users made donations or subscribed, but if the number were small enough and the cost insignificant enough, I would hope you would consider just letting that group have the feature anyway. Especially if you and Matt are making the big bucks with IH!
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.