[julp]

This is a difficult time for BBO as everybody around the world is playing online and the system is under stress.
BBO is doing a great job in giving all of us the possibility to keep playing and to clubs and federations to continue to organize tournaments.
My question is:
Is it morally correct to charge players for a resource that is provided for free?
Some clubs are charging their members a participation fee outside of BBO and creating free tournaments. That is a club/person is making profit by using the stretched resources of BBO and in this way is creating a load on the system that is forcing BBO to create limitations for everyone.
I don't think this is fair to the thousands of Bridge players that just want to be able to play.

[hrothgar]

julp, on 2020-April-26, 06:47, said:

My question is:
Is it morally correct to charge players for a resource that is provided for free?

Yes

BBO offers a variety of services

Some of these services are related to billing (charging for tournaments) and recording masterpoints.
If people can find third parties that are able to provide the same servives for less money (Go-Fund-Me, Patreon, Kickstarter, what have you), more power to them.

Back when Fred and Uday were running the site, I had much more of a personal relationship with the BBO management and, as such, felt much more of personal obligation to support the site and use their services. However, since the FunBridge merge, I eally do feel the same way about BBO management. I've seen enormous price hikes and not much emphasis on adding services that I find valuable. Moreover, I think that the current emphasis on trying to bail out brick and mortar ACBL clubs at the expensive of long standing members of the BBO ecosystem is sorely misguided.

[julp]

hrothgar, on 2020-April-26, 08:03, said:

Yes

BBO offers a variety of services

Some of these services are related to billing (charging for tournaments) and recording masterpoints.
If people can find third parties that are able to provide the same servives for less money (Go-Fund-Me, Patreon, Kickstarter, what have you), more power to them.

Back when Fred and Uday were running the site, I had much more of a personal relationship with the BBO management and, as such, felt much more of personal obligation to support the site and use their services. However, since the FunBridge merge, I eally do feel the same way about BBO management. I've seen enormous price hikes and not much emphasis on adding services that I find valuable. Moreover, I think that the current emphasis on trying to bail out brick and mortar ACBL clubs at the expensive of long standing members of the BBO ecosystem is sorely misguided.

Maybe I haven't put the question correctly. My point was exactly what you are saying about the bail out of brick and mortar clubs.
I don't think that it is correct for clubs and ppl to charge OUTSIDE of BBO for participating in free tournaments and in this way making the long standing members to suffer.

[hrothgar]

julp, on 2020-April-26, 08:17, said:

Maybe I haven't put the question correctly. My point was exactly what you are saying about the bail out of brick and mortar clubs.
I don't think that it is correct for clubs and ppl to charge OUTSIDE of BBO for participating in free tournaments and in this way making the long standing members to suffer.

I don't see how charging for a "free" tournament is causing long standing BBO members to suffer.

If anything, the decision to allow all sorts of refugees from ACBL F2F clubs to show up and then running fee based tournaments on BBO is what is causing the real issues.

I would very much prefer to see a system in which BBO prioritized capacity for people based on how long they have been a member.

The ACBL F2F club owners have been actively hostile to online bridge for years.
The ACBL ruined the F2F game in North America

Now they're here and screwing things up for the rest of us.

Let them burn...

[julp]

hrothgar, on 2020-April-26, 09:29, said:

I don't see how charging for a "free" tournament is causing long standing BBO members to suffer.

If anything, the decision to allow all sorts of refugees from ACBL F2F clubs to show up and then running fee based tournaments on BBO is what is causing the real issues.

I would very much prefer to see a system in which BBO prioritized capacity for people based on how long they have been a member.

The ACBL F2F club owners have been actively hostile to online bridge for years.
The ACBL ruined the F2F game in North America

Now they're here and screwing things up for the rest of us.

Let them burn...

I think we are talking about the same thing.
Making ppl pay for free tournaments is increasing the number of players on the system and this making is more crowded and forcing BBO to limit free tournaments for the rest of us.
The brick and mortar (I like your definition)clubs have been hostile until now and now they are using BBO to survive by charging ppl to play online.

[Sir John D]

hrothgar, on 2020-April-26, 09:29, said:

I don't see how charging for a "free" tournament is causing long standing BBO members to suffer.

It would be interesting to see if there is any tax involved in all this. I would have thought that any UK citizen who is paying $ may be able to get a refund for the tax paid. But, if bricks and mortar clubs are also getting the tax refund but not passing it on, then this becomes a tad awkward. If the case, then they are getting paid twice.

Surely, I am mistaken. Please tell me I am mistaken.

This post has been edited by barmar: 2020-May-19, 16:39
Reason for edit: fix quote

[hrothgar]

Sir John D, on 2020-May-17, 04:14, said:

It would be interesting to see if there is any tax involved in all this. I would have thought that any UK citizen who is paying $ may be able to get a refund for the tax paid. But, if bricks and mortar clubs are also getting the tax refund but not passing it on, then this becomes a tad awkward. If the case, then they are getting paid twice.

Surely, I am mistaken. Please tell me I am mistaken.

I know that BBO collects state taxes when you purchase BBO $$$.
As I understand, this is done on a geo specific basis.
I would be surprised if users who are purchasing BBO $$$ from IP addresses in the UK would be paying US taxes

Most ecommerce platforms do as well, including well known ones like Patreon and the like

[barmar]

We collect taxes in Massachusetts, New York, and Washington State, because those are the states where we have a "tax nexus" (we have employees living there).