Topic: do they really not want us to subscribe?

[danxx]

Kinda funny. I'm unable to locate any link to their paid subscription server on the weatherunderground.com home page, or on any of the forecast pages. If you Google it, you can find https://www.wunderground.com/members/membersonly.php .
But Weatherunderground sure isn't making an effort to get people to pay $5/year. You'd like to believe that in "Member Settings" they would point you to that membersonly page, if you wanted to do so. Am I just missing something obvious? Or is it just not obvious? Or is it really just not there? Even the WU signup form only allows you to sign up for free.

[Notsorusty]

It looks like things are changing regarding Memberships. Looking thru the site I have uncovered some things;

1)  Looking at the Feedback & Support / How do I join Weather Underground? -- They state that the one year membership is $10 and they are showing a non functioning link to https://www.wunderground.com/signup. I think memberships were $5, maybe not.

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Putting it into your browser manually it takes you to a page to set up an account but before you are able to enter any information the page disappears into the default WU landing page.

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2)  Selecting "Ad Choices" in the bottom banner takes you to another page that I don't remember going to before. It has some very interesting and disturbing information. It talks about two ad viewing options but nothing about a paid membership. Maybe memberships are going away.

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3) Going to My Profile only lets me Delete my account. My account is still paid up so maybe when it expires I might be able to re-up my account.

[Bushman]

I have a pro account and never paid for it.  Does that make me a bad person?

[PaulMy]

I think memberships were $5, maybe not.

I've always had the free account but pretty sure the paid subscription was $10, when I first signed up in 2008.

Enjoy,
Paul
 

[WSWeather]

It's been $10 for a long time...since at least 2005.

[danxx]

Whether or not there are really still paid subscriptions, WU sure doesn't make it easy to pay. Any normal business would have membership availability advertised prominently. "Feedback and Support"???

[Lighty269]

I have been a member since around 1998 and it has always been 5 bucks a year.

[danxx]

Any half-intelligent online service that likes to get membership dues would put subscription opportunity on the login page, or, once logged in, on the My Profile>Member Settings page. That's just basic marketing smarts. I have to assume that WU really doesn't care too much about getting money from subscribers.

Hey, you want to give us money? Well, you gotta go LOOK HARD for how to do it!

WU may have a team of webmasters pulling apart the site and reassembling it, but they need some marketing smarts if they want to market their product.

[galfert]

I don't think they make any money on the subscription. The subscription just makes up for not showing ads. It's probably a break even between ads and subscriptions.  We aren't the customer when we pay for a subscription.

I don't think they care one way or the other.

[danxx]

That must be correct. But one does have to wonder what the business case is for WU - at least the online reportage. Your don't need that online reportage to sell forecasting to A.P., newspapers, & etc. Maybe IBM/Weather Company is just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

The fact that they hide their no-ad subscription service probably means that they really want users to see ads.

[lightmaster]

I pay a subscription through Google Play for $1.99. Supposed to be just for adfree for the app, but I've also never seen an ad on the site too....

[galfert]

If you have a weather station set up with WU then you get the ad free experience for free on both the site and on the mobile app.

If you then also pay, then you are just being generous. As that then really has no purpose.

[HLS Fishin]

Today, I also tried to upgrade to the Ad Free subscription. I usually use my phone, but the Ads on the PC I figure it worth $10 to remove the ads. Like others I read how to update to a paid subscription but following instructions does not let me upgrade, only delete my account.

Hmmmm, makes one wonder. Most likely with the recent mergers in past years WU is being pushed to increase their revenue stream. AdWare and "Click Bait" are the way to get the most ($$) out of the customer. I don't think customer service is the first priority anymore. Just like the Data Miners such as Twitter, Facebook and such, the product is not the product. The customer is the product.

It's a shame that WU and its assigners can only think as far as potential revenue and not the product they are providing to attract customers. They should have never let IBM and the Weather Channel get ahold of them, both are poor business models. I'm also curious if my comments here, will even be posted or if they get screened out.

C'est la vie. Je sors d'ici ...

WU used to provide such a Great Product! I just don't know anymore...

[danxx]

That makes sense. WU probably gets more money from hosting clickable ads than from subscriptions that remove such ads, and it is therefore in their interest to discourage subscriptions. You'd think they could match the revenue by making the subscriptions expensive enough, but they're probably just being honest with themselves about how much a consumer can be convinced to pay.

[WSWeather]

Joke's on them...I use uBlock Origin and never see any of their ads, logged in or out.  Plus, I use it to rearrange the "new and improved" website layout to my liking and get rid of all the useless nonsense.  Win.

[danxx]

Good point. It actually works a lot better than AdBlock (which used to work well).