An honest update about the future of RPLS.com

I've been away for awhile. Seems like facebook groups took the wind out of a lot of website based forums and now, many of my facebook groups have slowed down. I blame it on the young-uns with all their tik-toking, snapchatting and whatnot. (Wait, is whatnot an app or an idiom?)

I'll check the kitty after I pay the first of the month bills. I don't think I've contributed since the beer leg days.

Wendell, I'm sure you labored over this profusely. Just be sure we all appreciate your efforts and understand your position, regardless of the ultimate outcome. I'll stand by hoping for the best.

Posted by: @wendell

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If you think a membership model is the right move, tell me. If you think I'm making a mistake, tell me that too.

I don't think it really matters what we think.  At some point you gotta make it worth your time and that's all there is to say about it.

Like you said if it sustains itself then great and if not then that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

I suspect the time cost involved runs well beyond breaking even in any year if you kept track of every minute spent running the site.  Sixteen years is a long time to spend doing that.  Make sure that whatever the membership rate is will be worth your while in the long run.

One request - have an annual option so that it can be a one and done each year.

I appreciate all the hard work you've done to keep this website going. I'm all for an annual membership.

My perception is that the internet has gone from a place where people who actually know what they were talking about had conversations and shared their know how with fake names, to people with much less expertise using their real names to algorithm driven "content" designed to shorten your attention span and sell, sell, sell, along with maybe some surveillance to sell some more.

I appreciate the forum, the work you do, and the contributions of others.

Since you asked for input, I have a hard time seeing any room for growth if you put up a paywall, the classic riddle of monetizing.

The contribution you have made to the profession by organizing and hosting this place for discussion is a worthy accomplishment.

I support the decision to change -- there's no good reason for you to bear the cost of maintaining this site.  The market will decide if the site survives.

Thanks, everyone. I posted this braced for pitchforks and instead got encouragement and some genuinely useful input. That tells me a lot.

To @jon-payne, @field-dog, and anyone else wondering: yes, there will be both. An annual option for the "one and done" crowd who'd rather set it and forget it once a year, and a monthly option for anyone who'd rather spread it out. You won't be boxed into one or the other.

I'm reading every reply, including the honest doubts, and weighing all of it as I build this out. Keep it coming. I'll post the full details, pricing and all, when the system's ready in August.

@party-chef: thank you for taking the time to write your honest response. I truly appreciate it.

You're dead right about the bigger picture: the web really has drifted from people who knew their stuff into an attention-seeking machine built to sell you something. I hate it too.

Our advertisers have done as much to keep this place alive as anyone, and they aren't going anywhere -- they're not faceless trackers, they're folks from our own corner of the industry, and I've always worked to keep their ads tasteful and out of your way. The kind you notice but that don't drive you nuts. What member subscriptions would mean is that I'll never be forced into the bad kind of monetization just to survive -- cramming the pages with junk, or harvesting your behavior to keep the lights on. With members behind it, I can keep this place clean and answerable to the people who actually use it. Which is a lot closer to the old internet you miss than where most of the web went.

You're also right that I'm probably trading away some growth, and I've made my peace with that. I'm not trying to build an empire -- just to keep a good thing alive without working myself into the ground for free. I'll take a smaller, sustainable community of folks who actually want to be here over a bigger free one that quietly bleeds out. Look what happened when POB took over RPLS.com many years ago -- they let pretty much anyone in the door, then touted their huge membership numbers that were actually mostly spammers.

With the archive staying open, the front door is still wide open for the next surveyor to find us and decide we're worth it. The "riddle of monetizing" is real and I won't pretend I've cracked it -- but I'd rather find out whether this place values itself enough to sustain itself than keep guessing. Either way, it's a fair point, and I'm glad you made it. Thank you.

I assume most of those who have become of this site in only the past few years do not realize that this is a privately-operated business.  Wendell and his charming wife, Angel, are RPLS.com.

There is no bg corporation or gubmit subsidized entity behnid keeping the lights on for us.  Participant donations, not subscriptions are the heart of this site's ability to operate.  Some advertising income helps but there is not anywhere near enough of that.  Thise site provides more continuing education than attending a formal surveying conference every month of the year and you don't have to leave home to attend.  Take a look at the number of posts that have been made over the years to discover why this site has survived.  New posts are the life blood of this great site.  Anyone can post, so start speaking up.  Recognize how you personally can help keep this outstanding resource available.

like many here, I am a holdover from Mark Deal days.  I have learned a lot from RPLS.com in these 30 yrs - agree w/cow is better education than most ce courses.  I am like many who are slowing down/not fully retiring. I still find value in RPLS.com and will continue to support on an annual basis.  

I stayed away from facebook professionally but took a peek at some pages out there yesterday - mostly junked up with advertisements, what appear to be scams and little professional content - there may be some with the professional content of this site but I did not find any.  

Wendell, what you did a few years ago when trying to have site pay for itself (social media) and then after hearing from us, moving back to what RPSL is now (in my opinion), likely saved RPLS.  Same issue now but going to a paid subscription makes sense if enough of us step up to support.

Remember when we had a fund raiser for a land surveyor in Lawton, Oklahoma who had a very serious cancer diagnosis that led to two or three decorated volleyballs literally circling the globe from one participant to another to another to another?  Remember the photos from a surveying conference held in the northwestn U.S. where many of our participants got togerher for their own party?  I remember some were accused of looking like Eastern European cab drivers.  It was great to put a name to a face that we all knew.  Remember when we nominated a Survey of the Week, who was expected to tell of how they got into land surveying and how they had grown to their current employment leverl?  Remember the hundreds of photos posted by Scott Zelenak of the construction of the tower to replace the twin towers that went down on 9-11?  Heck, I still have two tee-shirts that were sold to support the surveyors working on that project.  Remember Noodles (Angel) and her herd of pet rats?

Let me start with the most important part: Thanks for the many years of service running this great community!

Personally, I don’t like being logged in.  I read a lot and only login and comment when I have something worthwhile to add. Having to login will probably make me slightly less likely to read. I’m not sure that me and the other readers are necessarily an important concern.

I’ve support this site when opportunities came by. I think this labor of love is a great place that gives me benefit and if I can help you lose less money, that’s great. I suspect the number of people who do that is a small percent.

Ads, subscriptions, etc. I think it will all help. I think it will still be a labor of love (or entirely justifiably shutdown). Without a full court press on subscriptions and annual renewals (see also public radio), I don’t think this has a chance of viability. Knowing land surveyors, I don’t see you or others advancing that full court press. Even doing that, it might only just barely succeed and the annual membership drive can become a burden itself.

As others have said, the internet has changed.

Do what you want. I think you’ll do the subscription attempt because you want the site to thrive on its own. I think you probably already know the answer to that, this is going to be a labor of love. And the time may have come for that to end. You’ve done it for many years and put in so much. We all have different phases in life and you may be leaving the “staying up late on weekends to migrate a server” phase.

Some plan-specific commentary: to continue to entice new users to join, instead of making two halves (archive before 8/1/2026 is freely available and all new content to members only), It may be a good teaser to offer all content free (eventually). That lets people see, “this is a good and current community that I want to join (not just a bunch of old stuff and no active community).” Whether that delay is 1 week, month, or year, I don’t know.

If you want to save yourself the time and effort of the migration, you could undertake this effort only if over 100 (or whatever number) people start memberships before 7/1/2026 (or sometime).  Or maybe more appropriately, measure in dollars.  All the people who want to support can do so currently without a big migration, https://rpls.com/join/.   

I sure appreciate all that you’ve done for this place over the years and all that I’ve gotten here.

For anyone on the fence, this place has value.  It is worth continuing.  Wendell, whichever course you decide to take, I support you 100%.  I already contribute monthly.  I am increasing that right after this post.  I know it is a very small part of what it costs to run this site and that not enough people may make that same call.  I hope it survives and that it becomes a better financial entity to preserve it for the future.  I used to be active in many other forums and most are still there but shells of their former selves.  This place is different.  We all know that a big part of that comes from Wendell and Angel and they deserve our support to keep this going.

Wendell, I greatly appreciate your message and as a vendor for the industry and an advertiser on RPLS.com I can understand your thoughts. I realize this post generally is meant for the non-advertisers but do want to put my two cents in for what it is worth.

We want to support you and the entire RPLS.com community and the industry in general as much as we can. There is tremendous value in RPLS.com.

If there is a way for advertisers to help take more of the load, especially if that helps keep the membership cost lower for individual surveyors, I would be very open to that conversation. We obviously cannot make up what the larger community could contribute collectively, but we do value what you have built here and want to see it continue.

Posted by: @protracted

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Some plan-specific commentary: to continue to entice new users to join, instead of making two halves (archive before 8/1/2026 is freely available and all new content to members only), It may be a good teaser to offer all content free (eventually). That lets people see, “this is a good and current community that I want to join (not just a bunch of old stuff and no active community).” Whether that delay is 1 week, month, or year, I don’t know.

The plan, as of right now anyway, is to have a rolling 90 day delay. This way, we will continue to have the benefit of Google indexing and bringing users here.

Thank you Wendell and Angel for all the years! Regardless on what you decide, count me in!  My posts have decreased some but only due to life. I still rely on real answers from real folks here that know what they are talking about!  

Wendell, whatever the outcome, I just have to say how valuable this forum has been to me. I stumbled upon it too long a go when I was still a wet behind the ears newly minted licensee with a lot of questions and stuck in a bubble and this forum gave me a window to the wider world. If that window needs to close because it just doesn't pan out keeping it open, just need to give a heartfelt thank you for all you and Angel have put into this and if that window should stay open, I'll do my part to keep supporting it so that other up and coming surveyors have the same opportunities I've had here to see a bigger picture. 

Thank you to everyone who has read and/or replied so far. I appreciate the feedback and the support! As I get older and start thinking more about retirement in the coming years, I find myself wanting to cut back on the amount of time I spend on, well, anything not family or QOL related.

I'm still incredibly busy with web development work, and I'm trying to find ways to make it more efficient -- I'm not done with it, and honestly I don't want to be done with any of this yet -- I just need to make it more efficient and worthy of my attention so I can spend more time with my girls (wife, daughter, mom and Mustang 😉).

My wife and I have been on a health journey to lose weight. We've both lost about 100 pounds -- she's at her ideal weight now and I have about 30 pounds to go. I was over 330 pounds not too long ago! My mom has been living with us for the last few years -- she's 81 and has mild Parkinson's, but she's doing very well considering all of that. Our move to Idaho was the best thing we've done for ourselves in a long time. We have all of our old friends as well as some awesome new friends. Life is good. I just want to be less busy with work stuff because my personal life is better than it's ever been.