Premium membership

[Raven Cooper]

I live in Ocotillo, CA, and there are several caches near me. But I can't afford the premium membership that most of them require you have to find them. That doesn't seem fair to me. I am disabled and have a hard enough time finding the free ones. Most I can't because of terrain. Most people who hide caches and are premium members have both premium and free to find caches. That's great and I'm sure others like me also greatly appreciate that. But some cachers have nothing but premium only caches, and that seems incredibly unfair. It took me months to save up the money to buy a trackable and the items for my first cache. If I could afford premium membership I would, but I can't

[+K13]

I find your accusation slightly offensive.

 

The 8-cents-per-day I spend on a Premium Membership has nothing to do with being elitist. I cached for several years before becoming a paid member.

[+ChileHead]

Unfortunately for you it does look like there are a lot of premium member caches in your area. In my area it's much, much lower, and the ratio varies quite a bit.

 

Remember that these listings are owned by the geocachers. They make their caches premium for many reasons. The most common reason I've seen is that they believe (true or not) that doing so will make cache maintenance easier. They will have less visits for sure, but they will also have visits from more committed geocachers. Don't take that the wrong way - you can be a committed geocacher without being a premium member, but it's much less likely that a premium member would pay the fee without being committed to the game.

 

With the advent of smart phones, the barrier to entry is much smaller than it used to be. In years past if you wanted to find a cache, you had to invest in a hand held GPS that most people didn't have. That was a $200 or more investment just for geocaching. Now that so many people have a smart phone, all you need to do is download an app to get started.

 

I have made some of my caches premium as I've seen caches not replaced properly by newbie cachers who downloaded the app, found a couple caches, and left the game. I'd rather not keep replacing caches, so I make some of my easier ones premium. I keep the harder ones open to all, as that will weed out the cacher just starting.

[+Manville Possum]

I live in Ocotillo, CA, and there are several caches near me. But I can't afford the premium membership that most of them require you have to find them. That doesn't seem fair to me. I am disabled and have a hard enough time finding the free ones. Most I can't because of terrain. Most people who hide caches and are premium members have both premium and free to find caches. That's great and I'm sure others like me also greatly appreciate that. But some cachers have nothing but premium only caches, and that seems incredibly unfair. It took me months to save up the money to buy a trackable and the items for my first cache. If I could afford premium membership I would, but I can't

 

I used to feel the same way about PMO caches, until the intro phone app came out and the noobs started trashing GZ and my caches went missing.

Now all of my listings are PMO, and most of the better caches in the area are PMO.

 

I disagree that I am being unfair by listing my caches as PMO. Only owning one cache to maintain... well maybe if you owned more you would understand why some of us only list PMO. You don't have to save up money to hide a geocache either.

[Raven Cooper]

When you don't have the money, you don't have it. I'm glad the one person above can afford the '8 cents a day' but I can't. I recently looked up 'caches near you' and saw one person had over 21 hid, premium only. This is supposed to be enjoyable and fun. When a person has problems getting around at all due to being disabled, the fact that there are so many caches so close by, but unavailable to me or anyone else too poor to afford it, it does feel unfair. Sorry it offended anyone

[+Touchstone]

When you don't have the money, you don't have it. I'm glad the one person above can afford the '8 cents a day' but I can't. I recently looked up 'caches near you' and saw one person had over 21 hid, premium only. This is supposed to be enjoyable and fun. When a person has problems getting around at all due to being disabled, the fact that there are so many caches so close by, but unavailable to me or anyone else too poor to afford it, it does feel unfair. Sorry it offended anyone

No offense taken. Related post an another thread:

 

Try before you buy?

[Raven Cooper]

Didn't know about that, thanks

[Raven Cooper]

Thank you for the gift, whomever gave it.

[+T.D.M.22]

Well, you don't need a premium membership to find the caches. You dont even need one to log them. Just to view the cache page.

 

And as for fairness? Well it is what it is. Things cost money. I can't afford to go on as cruise. I can't afford a brand new vehicle. So is the cruise line and car dealership going to cut their prices by 90% so I can go? Not likely. So I either have to save up for a long time, or just not do it.

 

You're disabled, and have a hard time finding caches as it is? Then it's more work for you, and the ones you find should be more rewarding. And it really has nothing to do with this.

[Pup Patrol]

Thank you for the gift, whomever gave it.

 

Always great to see that people can be really nice.

 

Log out of the forum, and then back in, to update your forum profile to show that you are now PM.

 

Don't get your hopes up that PMO caches are going to be "better" than non-PMO caches.

 

There are more useful benefits to being PM than being able to see those PMO listings.

 

Premium Membership

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.book&id=5

 

B.

[+Bear and Ragged]

Thank you for the gift, whomever gave it.

 

Welcome to the world of Elitism!

 

You seem to be suffering as with a large number of PM caches in your area. Not every area is like that.

 

You don't HAVE to be a Premium Member to log a PMO cache*.

Should you be caching with another cacher who is a Premium Member, you can still log the cache as Found.

Groudspeak accepts that there are cachers out there who can/will/do find PMO caches and would like to log them. (Mainly families, where the youngsters have their own accounts, but only the parents are PM)

 

* OK, actually finding the coordinates may be a problem, as basic members cant see the cache page!

[+L0ne.R]

For any non-PMO cachers out there reading this, here's one of the back door ways of logging a PMO cache. Go to http://www.geocachingadmin.com/, put in the GC code and click the Log button.

[+AKStafford]

I'm a cache owner and awhile back my caches starting disappearing. I changed them all to "Premium Members Only" and the thefts stopped. My caches are ammo cans or pelican cases, my log books are "Rite in the Rain" notepads and I launch them with swag in them. So I've got at least $20 into each cache. I got tired of spending $20 each time some newbie decided to walk away with my cache.

[+Cachez]

I originally had two premium and two non-premium caches. The two non-premium have gone missing 2-3 times each in the last eight months or so. The two premium ones have not. I've now made the original two premium as well to see if it makes any difference. I've also recently adopted two non-premium caches in a rural area but I'm less concerned about those as they're a bit harder to get to.

 

It's not about elitism for me - in fact, that wasn't even something that crossed my mind. It was more that I made the assumption (rightly or wrongly) that premium members would have more of a commitment to caching and be less likely to be careless about searching, finding and re-hiding because they had a better understanding of the game having spent £25 on it before doing anything. Obviously, I accept that there are some premium members who might also be careless, but the risk in my mind was less.

[+Pinballwiz]

Whoever gave you a free premium membership is an awesome person.

 

Well, I'm just getting started in geocaching myself. I noticed there were several caches in my area that were premium only. That, and the fact that I wanted to view them on my Etrex 30X I decided to get premium. $30 isn't that much really. So, I am very sorry to hear you are in such a tight spot OP. Maybe there is some time of disability or food stamps you can go on? Just a thought.

[Rock Chalk]

Closing thread at OP's request.