Unacceptable Limitations on Non-Paid Members

Open Support Ticket to Lush Management,

Can you please allow us, paid-members, to have a VERY CONVENIENT option to communicate with ALL members of platform WITHIN THIS PLATFORM?

It is obvious that you are trying to make life harder for non-paid members but you are making paid-members life even harder. I'm very angry and disappointed right now. Who gave you this idea?

This is what you are expecting: non-paid members will buy membership.

This is what you will get in the end: NO. They will hate you, and they will leave the platform.

+ Plus paid-members will hate you as well for spoiling our communication.

+ Paid-members and non-paid members will be forced to communicate on alternative platforms like trillian, google, and whatsoever.

You SHOULD find ways to enchance interaction of people WITHIN Lush, not push them away from here to communicate somewhere else.

When they are new, people first get to know others, they communicate, they want to enhance interaction later on, and then later they buy for membership for enriched interaction with their online friends. This is how it works, at least how it worked for me. Naturally. Noone will pay for a prohibitionist service right from the start. If I were you I would limit non-paid members mailbox daily messages to 50. And their private chat messages daily limit in chatroom to 200. To meaningful limits, not absurd 8 messages daily limit, you cannot even say hi and bye. So that they can communicate comfortably with their beloved friends, and willingly buy membership for further communication without any constraints.

Please fix this as soon as possible. As this change serves no purpose other than causing harm for ALL affected parties including yourselves.

Thank you in advance. Best wishes.

I agree 100%. I am curious though, can non-paid members still communicate in Private PW protected rooms set up by paid members?

Thank you for your enquiry which I will address very soon. In the meantime, Domme_Zoe, please kindly read the AUP (the very last bullet point under the first heading is the relevant one):

https://www.lushstories.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy

Hi John,

Any idea why the AUP has the laws of England, Wales and Ireland? It seems an unusual combination.

"Anything illegal and contrary to the laws of England, Wales and Ireland, including (but not limited to!) the promotion, suggestion or allusion to ********** ***, **** or any non consensual acts, hard drugs or any other kind of illegal activity."

If the AUP means UK law, I believe England and Wales share a common legal system. Scotland has its own laws and Northern Irish law is different again.

Ireland however has an entirely separate legal system as it hasnt been part of the UK for over 100 years.

Dear John,

Your Bullet point "Members with a paid membership (as Susie, Cassie, and Me,) are using the paid features we have to circumvent the restrictions of non paying members." Cassy's point is not of circumventing but helping others to see the advantages of a paid membership, yet also as importantly to allowing paid members to correspond with other members. I am not in your business model..just a member who appreciates the opportunity to express to all, and yes privately to not only paid members.

To use the AUP, against us is really not not what Cassy addressed, and I wish I knew more about Susie's reference to UK law to respond properly. All I can say, is I have never intended to abuse any bullet,

Thank you Cassy,,,,Thank you Susie, and I hope Lush reconsiders their new policy...and I hope others respond. We are a community, I do hope so.

Respectfully, Zoe

Quote by deviantsusie

Hi John,

Any idea why the AUP has the laws of England, Wales and Ireland? It seems an unusual combination.

"Anything illegal and contrary to the laws of England, Wales and Ireland, including (but not limited to!) the promotion, suggestion or allusion to ********** ***, **** or any non consensual acts, hard drugs or any other kind of illegal activity."

If the AUP means UK law, I believe England and Wales share a common legal system. Scotland has its own laws and Northern Irish law is different again.

Ireland however has an entirely separate legal system as it hasnt been part of the UK for over 100 years.

I do not know the reason for this but will ask the question and come back to you.

Edit - Apparently the AUP was written by a UK solicitor but yes it does need updating to reflect local laws of the user's jurisdiction. On the 'to do' list.

Quote by Domme_Zoe
Cassy's point is not of circumventing but helping others to see the advantages of a paid membership

While your intentions may be honourable, not everyone's are, sadly. It was widely (ab)used.

Whether the underlying cause of many members exploiting this bug is because of the very low daily message limit is unclear. Some might argue a slightly higher limit for non-subscribers would reduce the need for people to find ways round it.

I suspect, however, given a few extra inches, some will still try and take the mile. Balancing things is a business decision.

I have a different view. I wish dating sites gave me 8 messages before I pay, but they don’t. I think the non-paying members get a lot here. Lush is a business. As a software developer, I have an idea what it costs to keep this site up and running. I, too, have conversations cut off due to msg limits. So, I say, “I hope you buy a membership.” I’m frustrated with the non-paying member, not Lush. Like dating sites, my paid membership gives me the most access to other paid members. No one would pay if non-paid members had benefits that would provide the same fulfillment. I don’t hate on the dating sites or Lush for what is a reasonable business decision to me.

Btw, the cost of a Gold Membership on Lush for a year is similar to only a couple of months on dating sites, and I get way more on Lush!

It has always been the intention that private messaging, in the chat rooms, would be restricted to members with a paid subscription. However, when we migrated here from Lush V1 that was not the case. Circa one year later that restriction was implemented but it only addressed PM’s and not access to member created private rooms. That was seen as a bug.

So, for clarification, the update that was implemented to the rooms just two days ago was a bug fix essentially and not a change.

Non-paying members can enjoy the rooms. Message publicly, post images and videos, use the emoji’s etc. etc. To be fair, if they could also PM and enter member created private rooms, paying members could reasonably ask what in addition they get. Beyond the rooms, non-paying members have the story side of the site (read/write/publish), forum access, a limited number of mail messages over a rolling 24-hour period, the Help Desk, Support Desk, gallery, activity feed etc. etc. The business model has always been to allow reasonable limited access to free members.