TidBITS Needs Your Continued Support in 2022
With November in the rear-view mirror, many TidBITS members will be seeing renewal notices arriving in their email. If you’re among them, thank you in advance for renewing—your continued support is essential! If you have trouble, contact Lauri Reinhardt at [email protected] for help. Since TidBITS memberships run on a rolling annual basis, if you don’t get a renewal reminder, it’s likely because you joined at another point in the year. You can check your membership expiration date on your account page; if it’s blank, your membership auto-renews.
We started the TidBITS membership program back in 2011, and it has been a lifesaver. Since then, it has generated the bulk of the revenue we need to pay for managing editor Josh Centers and regular contributors like Agen Schmitz, Glenn Fleishman, and Julio Ojeda-Zapata, along with Web hosting, email distribution, and ongoing maintenance.
However, the boost we got in April 2020 from over 700 readers joining as part of our 30th-anniversary membership drive has faded (see “TidBITS Marks Its 30th Anniversary in a Time of Pandemic,” 13 April 2020, and “TidBITS Memberships Increase—Thank You!,” 20 April 2020). I should have made another call for new members a few months back, but I was hoping things would pick up organically as vaccination rates climbed and the economy soared in response. Alas, that proved overly optimistic, and memberships are down about 4% from last year.
Don’t get me wrong; we’re still on firmer financial footing than many. As I said last year, while I encourage everyone to start or renew a TidBITS membership—even $20 is a help—please don’t let a contribution to TidBITS detract from any help you’d provide to people close to you, worthy nonprofits struggling to make a difference or local small businesses in dire straits.
We’re here to help you learn more about your Apple devices, work more efficiently and productively, and enjoy the magic that modern-day technology provides. We do that through our articles, of course, but also the vibrant, helpful, and fast-growing TidBITS Talk community, where our writers answer questions about their articles and expert TidBITS readers share their knowledge and real-world experience.
So if you aren’t yet part of the TidBITS membership program, would you consider joining the more than 3600 readers who help keep TidBITS running? You know we focus on content that’s practical, timely, and free of the fabricated drama prevalent elsewhere on the Internet. How worthwhile is our work to you?
A TidBITS membership comes with a few special perks:
- Discounts of 15% to 50% on 90+ Mac products worth over $1100
- A 30% discount on all Take Control books
- The option to receive new articles in email as they’re published
- A full-text RSS feed (non-members get a summary-only feed)
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- Optional acknowledgment on our public TidBITS Members page
Be sure to scroll through our Membership Benefits page, which lists all the Mac apps on which members receive discounts. Among them, you’ll find essential apps that we use and recommend, like 1Password, Audio Hijack, Default Folder X, DEVONthink, Keyboard Maestro, LaunchBar, Nisus Writer Pro, PopChar X, Scrivener, SpamSieve, TextExpander, and more. (Contact me if you’d like to add your company’s product to the list.)
You can choose from different levels of support: $20, $50, $100, and $1000, or set your own monthly or yearly amount. There’s also a Boost TidBITS button at the bottom of that page if you want to use PayPal or make an extra out-of-cycle donation. The membership perks are the same at each level, with one exception: the $1000 TidBITS Angel level is a lifetime membership that includes dinner with Tonya and me if you’re in Ithaca or we’re in your city, once recreational travel feels feasible again. Special thanks to the people who joined at the TidBITS Angel level back in September!
So if you find TidBITS valuable or have received personal help from one of us simply because you asked, please become a TidBITS member to help us continue publishing the kind of articles you’ve become accustomed to reading each week. You’ll have our undying gratitude, and more importantly, you can rest assured that every article you read was made possible in part by your generosity. Thank you!
Last year my contribution was dated December 15th, so I guess I will get a renewal notice before then this year. But, seeing your article, I figured I would just go and renew now and not wait. Going to the site I can see my contribution level, and there are options to change it, but I can’t find any way to actually send you money! I can wait for the “bill” to arrive, but that seems like an odd omission.
David
Thanks so much for the support! But yes, just wait. Renewing early could confuse all sorts of things on the back end between Paid Memberships Pro and Stripe, so it’s just easiest to wait a few more days and let it notify you. Or take advantage of the automatic renewal so you don’t have to fuss with it unless you wish to cancel or change levels.
I’m happy to chip in to support TidBITS, the news coverage alone makes that great value, the membership perks are just a nice bonus for me. (And I’ve used those a few times over the years.)
Thank you! Yes, the membership perks are really just that—small bonuses. That’s why they’re the same regardless of how much someone contributes.
Thanks, as always, for all the work you and the TidBITS team do. The quality of your journalism is truly outstanding.
One part of the TidBITS ethos that the article didn’t explicitly mention, but I feel is hugely important, is your commitment to providing all of TidBITS for free to everyone. Maybe perversely, I would feel much less inclined to pay for membership if the articles were locked away from non-members. There is a dearth of high quality information and journalism, and it’s important that it’s available to all, regardless of ability to pay.
You’re very welcome, and thanks for the kind words! I’m really pleased to hear that you appreciate the fact that we keep TidBITS entirely free. Despite this being an age of paywalls and premium content, we don’t want to restrict our content to just those who can pay. Information does want to be free, and as long as the membership program allows us to pay our authors and infrastructure bills, we see no reason to limit TidBITS.
That’s really the concept of “unlocking the commons” even before it has a name, isn’t it?
Whoa, that’s a great piece and an insightful way of thinking about what we’ve been doing for a decade. Thanks for pointing us there!
I just sent an additional donation because TidBITS is the most valuable resource I know of and have subscribed to it for years. Thank you Adam and your staff for consistently providing me with a great resource for information and guidance for my devices. Great service!
Adam and staff! You are the best! I believe I just contributed. I check out info every day and I would be lost without people who are in the know and they actually communicate person to person.
Happy Holidays to all
TidBITS and Talk are must reads for me just about every day. It’s the most trustworthy, and consistently well written source of news, information and opinions about Apple products and services, as well as technology in general.
Keep up the great work!
Hi Adam,
A big part of staying relevant and up-to-date whist trying to avoid the gremlins, is learning who knows what! As the old saying often repeated says, “It’s not just what you know but who you know”; ie. those whom you’ve learned to trust. That’s where you and your team make such a difference. It’s your sifting of the authors and their sources which makes TidBITS such a valuable resource. Please keep it going!
Cheers & Best Wishes from Kiwi Country!