Hi all, happy to be here! Forgive me if I’m not posting this in the right section. I’m a long time lurker, freshly signed up.
I went to subscribe but got stuck on the selection for ‘State’. When I try to choose South Carolina, I only see “South” listed twice. Both ff and edge have this same issue.
While I’m tempted to pick the first option because I’m impatient and Carolina comes before Dakota, I figured I should be a responsible grown-up and ask first. Screenshot attached below.
By subscribing to support Amal, you’ll be able to get more involved in what’s going on at Dangerous Things, be updated with various happenings going on in the lab, talk about projects in the works, have detailed discussion with Amal and other supporters, have access posted videos and interviews, etc.
Is this a separate part of the forum that is a paid tier?
Basically. Think of it like an advanced announcement section.. advanced notice of product releases.. I post little sneak peek videos of the lab sometimes.. stuff like that. It’s not really used as a separate discussion tier. I actively urge community discussion in the public tier.
But since I can’t see what’s in it then I get to imagine all of the injustices being perpetrated by this social stratification based on monetizing the forum users. Please allow me 24 to 48 hours to fester and come back with a well constructed expression of my outrage. I will pre-write a suitably humble apology for my misreading of the innocuous nature of the space which I shall discover shortly after.
Actually, I think the above paragraph will suffice and I will call it settled.
Amal has already explained this well, but I want to reinforce his point because I think people are looking at the DT Club “paywall” the wrong way.
You are honestly not missing out on some exclusive, secret knowledge.
The club is actually not super active. In fact, deep or critically important technical discussions are actively discouraged from happening behind closed doors because knowledge needs to be shared with the wider community.
It’s about support, not profit, Amal isn’t lining his pockets with this. The subscription is a way for people to financially support Dangerous Things and VivoKey so they can continue developing new products and techniques that benefit everyone eventually.
You get everything we get: There is no permanent social stratification here. Everything of worth eventually and often times only days to hours before it filters out to the main forum. We just get it a little earlier.
Think of it like backing a Kickstarter or crowdfunding campaign. The people who chip in aren’t paying to lock everyone else out; they are funding the research and development so these projects can exist in the first place.
Their reward is just early access and sneak peeks at prototypes before the final version rolls out to the general public.
Plus, it doesn’t matter what tier you choose to pay—every single paying tier gets the exact same access. It’s not a hierarchy where richer members get more secrets; it’s just a way to let people support the company at whatever financial level they are comfortable with and rewards those willing to give up the price of a coffee /beer to support the community as a whole.
Nicely put and honestly for what’s offered, it’s obvious profit isn’t the main concern. We’re talking niche products that you’d be hard pressed finding equivalent alternatives for on limited manufacturing runs demanding incredibly low tolerances. Yea.. lots of buzz words there that drive up development and production costs. Not to mention product testing, support, etc etc. All of that and I can get these shipped to my door for less than I pay for 1 month of home internet? Sign. Me. Up.
All that said, @Plato was playfully joking and I for one was looking forward to their deeply-festered, overly egregious response!
