Generating content for your site? Can you afford it

[Tracy]

If so, you realize that, especially in todays economy, that many may not be able to afford to participate in it?
For my niche, I'm WELL aware of the costs of even the base level of the astrophotography aspect... albeit those interested in simple live viewing can get in at a much reduced costs by using simple binoculars... and many for astrophotography have good luck with base DSLR and cellular phones.
Even the "game" niches can get expensive with needing the "latest" consoles and games.
Now, let's not even talk about the costs associated with creating "specific" niche content!
How exactly do you finance your "niche" for obtaining new content (usually involving hardware)? I personally finance it all out of my pocketbook (which is retirement income) and don't really want to have to work "extra" jobs for the toys...that's one reason my current "upgrade" of $2.5K filters are being saved for... not to mention the $1.5K for the Dobsonian for evaluation and then use with the local astronomy groups. I'm not big on "chasing" donations for it... I figure i if it's important enough to do, it's important enough for me to pay for.

 

[Ravenfreak]

My forum is currently a general discussion forum, however it started off as a gaming one. I don't have many triple A games, since most of the games I play are retro games or platformers. Sure games are not cheap, and there are some free to play ones. The hobby can become expensive if you're wanting to collect games. I've thankfully kept a lot of games I had as a kid, and all my game consoles still work. Needless to say even if I didn't have the latest game console, I could still make posts about the thousands of other games that I can afford or even own. Other hobbies like photography is going to cost you money too, sure you could take photos with your phone's camera but will they turn out to be as good as the ones from a high end camera? Certain niches will definitely require the site owner to invest in money not just on the website of course, but on the tools to get your content. Not all niches are like that though.

 

[Jason]

The drum lessons are easy to create and I only pay around $5 a month I think (The price is in Euros.) to access the pattern creator. Now, for the discussion topics, that's a tough one cause I don't have a large income to hire posters at the moment. However, in the future I'd like to hire drummers, musicians, and others to create content on a large scale. Of course, the ultimate dream is to have self-generated content on the forum by people who just love drums.