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Scientology IAS membership reduced from $500 to $250 per year

CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
Scientology IAS membership reduced from $500 to $250 per year.

Mike Rinder has now twice reported about the cost of IAS membership being reduced from $500 to $250 per year. The goal is to double the current IAS membership. The cost of a Lifetime Memership remains $5,000.

https://www.mikerindersblog.org/flag-otc-news-2/

https://www.mikerindersblog.org/desperate-times-call-for/

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ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron
When I was in the cult I remember people who only had an annual membership being treated as dilettantes - "So you are only going to be a Scientologist for a year are you?".

The minimum requirement to be accepted by the group was a lifetime membership.
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
This must be a depressing program to run. A year really isn't that long, and all the hard work results in the mostly-unwilling "new" members dropping off the other end after membership expiry. Unless they keep some kind of statpush cumulative tally of #newmembershipssold rather than #members.

Paul
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
$250. annual vs $5000. lifetime - so up front you have to figure that you will be into this for 20 years to net out.

And if you get declared with all certs and awards and membership cancelled - and you do your A to E to get back in then does it get reinstated or do you have to pony up another 5k?

I guess just going for the $250. can be interpreted as doubt that it will even be around in 20 years so that's kind of an annual lower condition thing right there.
 

Teanntás

Silver Meritorious Patron

screamer2

Idiot Bastardson
What's $250 per year over a billion years?

$250,000,000,000

Compare that to $5,000.

We need some clarification on the definition of 'lifetime' here.



The logic is astounding.
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
I remember when my first kid was born, I got kid a yearly IAS membership. Wife and I were already lifetimers. The following year, money was tight so I let kid's IAS membership lapse. I got a really nasty letter addressed to the kid, expressing unhappiness over letting membership lapse. I decided I wasn't in the mood for this, and did not renew kid's membership.

One more step on the long road out.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
I remember when my first kid was born, I got kid a yearly IAS membership. Wife and I were already lifetimers. The following year, money was tight so I let kid's IAS membership lapse. I got a really nasty letter addressed to the kid, expressing unhappiness over letting membership lapse. I decided I wasn't in the mood for this, and did not renew kid's membership.

One more step on the long road out.
Should have bought the kid a Lifetime HASI Membership - only about 50 bucks.
 

renegade

Silver Meritorious Patron
Way back when the IAS was formed, annual memberships were 300.00, Lifetime was 2000.00 and Patron was 40,000.

The Patron could give away 20 Lifetime memberships to family and friends while maintaining their Patron status (Big whoopee bonus, you got reserved front row seats to every org event that you didn't want to go to anyway).

I can see the IAS, regging the whales for big bucks, then gifting the annual memberships away, counting them as new members, and bragging how much expansion is going on in scn in the next events.
 

Gizmo

Rabble Rouser
Here's the question : is my ias membership still valid after all these years ?

In any event, I'd not give a 3 dollar bill for a trillion year 'membership'.

Oh, give money to criminals & get nothing back but hassled forever - what a deal !
 

lotus

stubborn rebel sheep!
What's $250 per year over a billion years?

$250,000,000,000

Compare that to $5,000.

We need some clarification on the definition of 'lifetime' here.



The logic is astounding.
Actually you make a good point!

How come they never set a whole time track membership?????
That would be great to save such amount of $$$$ instead of buying lifetime memberships!

WANT!

:D:p
 

Gizmo

Rabble Rouser
Actually you make a good point!

How come they never set a whole time track membership?????
That would be great to save such amount of $$$$ instead of buying lifetime memberships!

WANT!

:D:p
Ah, even a "Forever Membership" ! That would include pledging to the SO your firstborn child & the firstborn child of all your descendants forever.
 

Helena Handbasket

Gold Meritorious Patron
Actually you make a good point!

How come they never set a whole time track membership?????
That would be great to save such amount of $$$$ instead of buying lifetime memberships!

WANT!

:D:p
This is true -- before IAS, in the days of HASI memberships, they had Permanent Memberships.

I was so mad when they replaced HASI Permanent Memberships with IAS Lifetime Memberships; now I'm going to have to get a new membership each and every lifetime? (Not that I'm interested any more in P.T.)


I kid you not!

Helena
 

Gizmo

Rabble Rouser
And when HASI got replaced by IAS, uh, did we get our HASI " donation" back or even applied to IAS ? Nope.
 

lotus

stubborn rebel sheep!
And when HASI got replaced by IAS, uh, did we get our HASI " donation" back or even applied to IAS ? Nope.
If memorey serve, they were quite decent in my org we got a nice credit for HASI membership paid... Nice hey!

We saved a few dozen bucs (credit) and paid a few hundreds more to secure $cientologists eternity in hell....

On s'est encore fait baiser :eek: :D


By the way Gizmo, I am very sorry about the misunderstood that occured between you and me tfew weeks ago.
I have been overreacting and gross. Apologies to you and members who noticed the event
Not my usual conduct...and not proud of it.
 

Wilbur

Patron Meritorious
$250. annual vs $5000. lifetime - so up front you have to figure that you will be into this for 20 years to net out.

And if you get declared with all certs and awards and membership cancelled - and you do your A to E to get back in then does it get reinstated or do you have to pony up another 5k?

I guess just going for the $250. can be interpreted as doubt that it will even be around in 20 years so that's kind of an annual lower condition thing right there.
I remember in the late eighties/early nineties, you got discounts on services if you were a member. I think it was 20%, and IIRC the percentage was the same for annual and lifetime membership (or it might have been a bit lower for annual membership). Then they announced that you would no longer get a discount on the price of services for annual memberships, but it was retained for lifetime members. Not sure what has happened since.

Anyway, it used to mean that if you were paying in for a couple of intensives of auditing, or a training package, then it was cheaper to get the annual membership at the same time, and then get the discount. Many memberships were sold on that basis. I suspect annual membership sales slumped heavily when they got rid of the discount.

It also used to be the case that when you paid your £3500 for your wheatstone bridge (er, I mean, Mark VII e-meter), you actually OWNED it. Then at some point they changed that, so that it's still the property of the org. So if you leave, you technically have to hand the e-meter back to the org. Presumably that gave an added impetus to indies to start making their own brands of e-meter, and selling them at a fraction of the price. That market might not have existed if they'd just allow anybody, indies included, to walk into an org and buy an e-meter. If they had any business sense, they'd have done a secret deal with Ron's Org etc where they supplied them with e-meters in a different-looking case. The gross margin on e-meters must be 3500%. They could have done the same with course packs. Instead, course packs are essentially provided for free in places like Ron's Org.

When S.O.B takes his trip to Bulgravia, I might apply for the position....

I've occasionally heard people say they think he is a business genius. I don't think he is. If I was in charge of Scientology, it would be booming. That smoke-and-mirrors package is easy enough to sell, and could be re-packaged in a way that people would not complain about. People spend decades doing yoga or meditation or tai chi and paying for it. They don't usually leave after two decades and denounce it as a cult. There's a whole wealth of books and lectures etc to keep people busy and interested for decades. It's really not necessary to have disconnection and loony prices and basics and golden age of tech VI and Idle Morgues and sending letters to ADDUNKs (address unknowns) to make that place turn a buck. Anyone at the helm of that who can't make membership expand doesn't know what they are doing.

W.
 
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CommunicatorIC

@IndieScieNews on Twitter
It also used to be the case that when you paid your £3500 for your wheatstone bridge (er, I mean, Mark VII e-meter), you actually OWNED it. Then at some point they changed that, so that it's still the property of the org. So if you leave, you technically have to hand the e-meter back to the org. Presumably that gave an added impetus to indies to start making their own brands of e-meter, and selling them at a fraction of the price. That market might not have existed if they'd just allow anybody, indies included, to walk into an org and buy an e-meter. If they had any business sense, they'd have done a secret deal with Ron's Org etc where they supplied them with e-meters in a different-looking case. The gross margin on e-meters must be 3500%. They could have done the same with course packs. Instead, course packs are essentially provided for free in places like Ron's Org.

When S.O.B takes his trip to Bulgravia, I might apply for the position....

W.

The change occurred with the most recent edition of the E-Meter, the Mark VIII, and is well-documented in the following threads in order of importance:

http://www.forum.exscn.net/threads/scientology-mark-ultra-viii-e-meter-contract-leaked.34627/

http://www.forum.exscn.net/threads/mark-ultra-viii-e-meter-updater-brick-command.34230/

http://www.forum.exscn.net/threads/dissecting-the-new-mark-8-e-meter-updater-software.34102/

/
 

Wilbur

Patron Meritorious
Thanks. But I'm sure that the ownership issue occurred much earlier, during the era of the Quantum VII. I remember hearing about this years ago....
 
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