Jeff Moriarty wrote:

>You said you haven't gotten much value from the site, but you have listed at
>least 30 hits on their site.  That means you are using all the work that has
>gone into building the site, you are using their software, using their
>internet bandwidth, using electricity on their servers, and using hard drive
>space on their servers.  You are relying on their site to show you were
>caches are to be found, and returning to their site to log your visit as
>part of the experience.  Even Snaptek's great site relies on
>Geocaching.com's data to operate.  Ask yourself this - if Geocaching.com
>were to vanish then how much fun would this hobby be?   Perhaps you value
>the site more than you think, and might want to consider that membership.
>  
>
Being someone with similar internet obligations as geocaching.com. I can 
definitely say, that if I were to sell teeshirts, mugs and other stuff 
as well as memberships...  I would not care at all which ones someone 
went with to support the site, just that they did something... anything 
to help support.  In the end the money is just as green spent on a tee 
shirt than money spent on a membership.  There are people that can't 
afford to just hand over $30 for a membership that has little value to 
the basic necessities, but they could justify buying 3 or 4 shirts, 
because they have to buy some shirts anyway to keep warm (not to mention 
cover their nipples that society seems to demand covered :) ...at least 
in this country).
Before there were memberships, all you could do to support the site was 
to buy items, which Jason and I promptly did, the second that the tee 
shirts were available.  It was great knowing that the tee shirt helped 
advertise the site and also helped the site to stay connected.

Brian Cluff
Team Snaptek