membership versus subscribing

I have been a subscriber for a few years. Within a week of when I found the Texas forum at Dave's,I wanted to support the site(kind of like public TV you know) So what exactly do subscribers have access to that members don't? ( just wondering in case the site changes drastically and I need to decide if the money is worth it.) Are all forums free and accessible? Or can only subscribers post topics and answer? Plant files are accessible from the web as is Garden Watchdog aren't they?

You can log out and look around. What you see is what you will get. I do that sometimes just to look around and see ads. LOL

Duh, why didn't I think of that! thanks

It was too obvious. :) Just make sure you remember your password BEFORE you log out...

Just know that the site is undergoing huge changes right now. Dave is no long going to be in charge of Dave's Garden. A large company, IB, will be in charge...who know where this site is heading now?

This message was edited Jan 30, 2010 12:28 PM

I spent a few minutes logged out looking around Dave's and I spent a little while looking at one of the travel sites(a site about sea cruises) I used to browse that is owned by IB. It doesn't look like there is any difference from a few years ago when I was getting info for my family's cruise and I found it very useful. There also doesn't seem to be a fee to have access to the info. So maybe after all this turmoil shakes out they will decide the hassle of keeping some things "for subscribers only" isn't worth their time(which always translates into money in the corporate world).
My greatest fear is that there won't be good moderators to keep the forums running smoothly without fighting, etc.I used to spend a lot of time on another gardening site, that now i only check on the weekends, and even then there isn't much going on.It seems the really serious (and knowledgeable) gardeners are here!
So the factor to help me decide to renew is how useful the site remains to help me garden.

The nitty gritty is that IB will do whatever they want to do with the site. I've been through this kind of thing before. Once a site is sold, some things will change. Don't know which changes and doubt that we'll be told ahead of time. Whether we will have any input at all...no way to know that either.