On Friday, May 8, 2015 at 2:38:07 AM UTC-4, Surge wrote:
On Friday, 8 May 2015 05:43:14 UTC+2, son_of_flubber wrote:
Besides curious pilots and potential glider pilots, we also exclude international glider pilots (many of whom read English).

I disagree.
I'm a South African glider pilot and I had no issue purchasing a one year SSA subscription in order to gain access to the Soaring magazine archives (for a Dick Johnson flight test report).

Making the digital assets (articles) freely available does not preclude financial support from those in the position to make contributions. The current policy puts the articles out of reach of people who are not currently in the position to make contribution and those (the curious) who find minimal value in the material.

Look at how this works with music. High school kids pirate music that they cannot afford. They listen broadly and develop a taste for music that they might otherwise never come across. When they mature and have disposable income, they see the point of supporting artists with their dollars. Pirating creates future consumers. (I realize that there is a generational divide on the issue of pirating.) Net result is more paying consumers for music..

Another less controversial example. I listen to a lot of 'free' podcasts. I make cash donations to a few podcasters that I think are especially worthwhile. The result is that the number of podcasters and podcaster listeners is growing exponentially.

With few exceptions (newspapers maybe?) the paywall and pay-as-you-go model is outdated. www.soaringcafe.com is an example of how this approach might work in the soaring world and it would work even better if more content was made freely available.

As demographics change over time, the digital assets of SSA will eventually be made freely available... it's just a matter of when. The open question is how many people will be interested in reading about soaring in that future.