Thoughts On The Pay Sites

*Sorry for format! Using Android app* Stopped paying for premium Scout a long while back due to the mentality there, exactly as you explain. Then I just left totally after about 4k posts over years there. They have this insane tier system where you have the leader of each schools site on top and always a douchebag. Then, the contributors who are varied in power and personality (UM's are cool in Sam, etc). Worst are the "mods" as every single one I encountered there as a free board and pay board member was a complete clown. All sites! You have these morons who have no lives (none) and decide that the ability to moderate makes them king. Disagree with them at your own peril. They will insult members at the drop of a hat but edit/delete or even ban you for an honest opinion that they don't like, etc. The cycle is always: a longtime member becomes a mod after the last quits or gets booted after so many complaints (and writes the inevitable "goodbye speech" like people give a shit, further cementing his ego), new mod cool for a while, new mod gets superiority complex after a while, new mod becomes ex-mod, rinse and repeat. Watched that happen easily 8+ times in my time on Scout, free and premium. Finally, the true scum are the weak minded "teacher's pet" posters who agree with the mods no matter what to attain some online friendship bond (or something?!?) and also always go with the overwhelming majority/safe opinion. No chance they ever truly talk football for fear of being disagreed with. They become protected posters as loyal subjects of the mod and shit on new people, free thinkers, etc. All of this with MAYBE 1% knowing anything about football. It is now to the point where I check the free Scout board about once a month and am reminded why I left each time. I was the guy who stuck up for the people being shit on and I refused to bow down to an internet mod so I clashed with almost every mod there. Not always but when we did we really did. Yet, what really made me leave was that I'd say or predict something and said bias always had the mods hate on it only for it to happen and never get so much as an apology or "hey, you do know what you're talking about". In fact, they would just delete the thread/post when they insulted your opinion or answer and you were right rather than look stupid. One mod started an argument one time (really insulted me personally after an innocent reply to a "guess the score" post where I only had us beating nd by 4 in 2011) and went so far as to edit what he and I said to make him seem level headed and me a lunatic. Luckily, others saved/capped it and dude had to write me an apology and I got like 2 months free, lol. Dude then "stepped down" as mod a week later. Aaaaaanyway, all are kind of lame and worthless now. The info is out there for free these days and the egos are not worth dealing with. Scout was my only membership and point of reference, though. Couldn't vouch for the others if I wanted to. Heck, there are dicks here but not in the way the pay sites have them. Couldn't even tell you who the mods are here and I like that. I know who Brian is and that is enough for me, lol. Good dude and only dislike here is the pos/neg system but I don't see it on my phone app anyway so I don't care or know. Scout is a decent site but is ran by absolute chimps.

Anyone that pays for a pay recruiting site is a moron. The sam information is on mgoblog within minutes if not before rivals, scout, and 247. 

Think about the business model for a second.  These guys have "sources" in the athletic department who feed them info...and then they turn it around and "sell" it for a profit.  When the same information will be available for free shortly thereafter should it be noteworthy.  Ethical?  Maybe.  Worthwhile to invest in?  No.

Not to mention almost everyone who runs these sites think they are, to put it simply, "the shit."

Personally I don't think you can get much more value from them - If you stay up to date with this site and listed to Sam Webb you should be good.

 

I agree with the smugness - not a fan of really any paysite contributor. I was a member of Rivals during the coaching search and found that most of their info regarding the search was very wrong.

If you really are interested in the information that doesn't makes it here, open up an account to each and share it with a group of friends.  There are a dozen of us who share a Rivals and Scout login.  We don't post on those boards though.

I'm subscribed to Rivals, 247 and Scout right now. They don't really give you anything you can't get here. They break info before it shows up on here, but only by a hour or two it seems. I got all three because I'm in Afghanistan and have a lot of down time to kill. Once I get back to the states I will cancel all three and stick to MGOBLOG. FWIW I would rank them Scout, Rivals then 247. Thats based on the boards and mods. Scout and Rivals are close, 247 lags way behind imo.

I currently subscribe to Scout and Rivals, and I used to subscribe to 24/7.  I'd rank the as follows:

1.  Scout

2.  Rivals

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3.  24/7

 

I think Scout gets the best information and gets it the quickest.  Also, despite the forum software's age, it's still better than Rivals.   You can follow the conversations better, and as a result, the conversations are better. 

Both Scout and Rivals certianly have their own majority mindset.  Frankly, it can be annoying on both, but that's just how message boards are.  If there is a perfect one, I've never seen it. 

The lead dog on Scout's Michigan site is pretty sensitive about bringing in other material that is sourced from 247,Rivals, or TomVH, which I can understand that I guess. They all have the same business format, so it makes sense that they would not like their traffic directed to other sites with the same business model.

What I think is quite petty is that anything that comes from valuable free sites such as MGOBLOG, UMHoops,or Tremendous also gets bombed off of the site immediately. The pay sites have their own little niche market, so someone posting something from one of the free sites isn't going hurt anything in the grand sceme of things. Most Michigan fans are familiar with the valuable free sites anyway and check on them regardless, so deleting any content from them is an exercise in futility to begin with.

Hell anything Sam posts on that bored, he mentions on his recruiting roundup segments on the radio anyway, and I don't see him firing Sam for giving it away for free.

If you're considering a membership, I'd recommend evaluating the article content and not the boards. They're a mess everywhere. This is the only one where you'll find a community mostly dedicated to discussion based in relevant data. Also I've never seen anyone banned here for expressing an unpopular opinion with class.

And have a grand total of zero discussion thread posts to my credit.  I never read them, period.  I like Rivals for the straight news, and for the fact they separate out their speculation/whispers/rumors (usually in the "Inside the Fort" segments) about recruiting and such from their "straight" columns.    I find the discussion threads here to be much more fun, have a better sense of humor and esprit-de-corps, and generally agree with the consensus views more often than not.

Rivals does tend to be a bit more of a company line and never really questions the wisdom of the establishment the way Brian does-- and I think there's a place for both.  I guess you could say I read one for the party line, and one for dissent, and feel I've gotten a balanced picture at the end of the day.

I wish they'd get a better copy checker for the articles as they're often typo-ridden, but other than that, I'm pretty happy with it as a compliment to the content on MGoBlog, enough to keep paying the not-insubstantial price tag.

I don't understand people who actually pay for those sites. To know in advance where a kid will recruit, when that information will be posted on this blog eventually, is not a big deal to me. I don't need inside information (and we don't even know if that "inside information" on those sites is legit or not) on this team because MGoBlog provides all the information I need...for free.

I didn't renew my ESPN membership because everything gets posted on this site hours after it's released on ESPN.  I'm starting to greatly dislike these paysites and their 'schocking' headlines to get clicks.  I'm beginning to see the darkside in all of these paysites; hounding 16 and 17 year old boys and generating profits off their statements.  These kids can't even see what's being written about them!  I remember one recruit having to ask a writer on Twitter permission to see an article written about him.  These pay sites are just another hugely unethical part of college football.

 

Now that my rant is over, when is Larue visiting?