I don't see enough benefit to USCF

After paying dues to USCF, it is still not enough to get into tournanents. I don't see any USCF sponsored tournaments anywhere. All the tournanents seem to be local and require joining the local association and paying additional dues to them to play in their tournament. So if I go around the country playing in tournaments, I'd have to join 50 different associations. All USCF does is keep a database of ratings, which the local clubs already do and already can share.

So why do local clubs require USCF membership, and what else does USCF offer? The magazine is paid for separately. 

FIDE only charges $10 per month or per tournament to record ratings.

Most people live and play in one place, so they only pay one state association in addition to the USCF.

If you travel every weekend to a different tournament in a different state, I don't think that USCF dues will be a big part of your expenses.

Well, I would not just be traveling for the chess. I'd stay a while and do site seeing that I planned to do even without the chess.

I guess it is fair if they only do 1 tournament per year. But if they do 4 per year, the dues should be prorated for out of staters, 1 tournament = 3 months dues.

I agree that for most people making a special trip out there just for chess and staying in hotels, the dues are a small fraction of the cost. But for me staying with a friend and being there for the site seeing regardless, it is a little annoying.

Maybe they just do 1 per year. They really should just include it in the tournament fees.

Whatever. That's my rant. I'll be going to fewer out of state tournaments as a result.

If a local tournament requires a local membership, in addition to entry,  they are likely also rating via US Chess, so you'll need both. For state organizations, many of them only require state memberships for entrants that have that state in their US Chess member record, as well as a current US Chess membership.

If course, your local are may be different.

I was a member of USCF a few years ago. I enjoyed parts of "Chess Life" magazine, but I thought it focused too much on child geniuses and elite level players. There was little content that I thought was relevant to me: a lifelong player of average skill who is interested more in the great players of the past than 10 year old prodigies.

Another thing I did not like was that there seemed to be little activity in the forum. I wanted to be part of a mature chess community, but little was going on at the USCF forum. 

Then, some troll introduced a thread tying together the US chess champion and then-president Donald Trump . I objected strongly on the grounds that such a discussion would be divisive and was not relevant to chess. I asked that the thread be deleted. The director of the USCF refused, saying she did not see a problem with the thread. So, I canceled my USCF membership. Even though I had to forfeit my membership fee, I refused to be a paying member of an organization that required me to scroll past Trump threads on its forum in order to read about chess. 

If you are the United States Chess Federation, the organization and its forum should be about chess--especially if they charge people money to be a part of the organization and have access to the forum. I don't want to pay money to be part of a "chess" organization that is not exclusively about chess. 

So what they're saying (translated) is that the uscf is a bunch of blood sucking parasites that do nothing beneficial.  I think I read that right.

In my experience, you do not have to join another state's federation if you are traveling to play.  For example, before the pandemic, I had to travel to TX and found a local club to play in while I was there (unfortunately, the pandemic hit and that trip got cancelled).  I had talked to the club and the only thing I was going to have to pay is the entry fee for the event.

If you are playing in the CCA events, I believe the entry fee is the only thing you have to pay.  You would only have to pay for state federation dues if you were to try to compete in a state open tournament.  For example, if you lived in CA and wanted to play in OR's open state tournament, I would imagine they might want to collect dues for OR.

I agree with the OP that the uscf isn't worth much if anything at all.  In the USA, things are so spread out, and chess clubs so rare, a uscf membership is largely a waste of money.  

I traveled to the closest rated tournament I could last year.  3 hours drive one way, and had to attend multiple nights.  Add 6 hours driving to a chess outing, and I'm not sure how many people have time for that, but I do not.  

Then, I paid extra for chess life magazine....   Don't even get me started on that.  If I wanted to see a bunch of communists endlessly beating on the mask-wearing drum, I'd turn on the news.  At a time where anyone with a IQ > 1 had lonnnggg given up on the mask wearing charade, they had pics of maskers plastered all through that magazine.  I threw them away and won't be renewing my membership when it comes due next month. 

Not only is there no organization whatsoever, and no marketing, no help for clubs.  But there's virtually no events in the country other than a few in the very largest cities.  The USA is about 2800 miles across (4500KM) give or take.  It would be nice if more than a dozen places had organized events. 

Not necessarily the USCF. Could be the locals. I just got sold on joining USCF to play in tournaments, and then found out that still does not get me in. One tournament I looked into was part of 3 different associations, not counting FIDE.

Also, at the department of motor vehicles, I paid $10 for anual access to state parks, at least as a day pass. I then drove to many camp sites within 60 miles of home and found out they are not state parks. Look like they should be, but they are local owned or part of the department of something or other. What did I buy the state park pass for?

Perhaps. But I've not seen any that are USCF run. In fact, USCF does not even list my USFC rated local tournaments on their website. I only know about them from word of mouth. But the director requires USCF membership and says he will send in the scores.

When I do a google search for chess tournaments, all I see are state tournaments. There are also local ones, but you have to know enough key words, such as the exact location, to even bring them up in a search.

In PA they list a zillion clubs.  Many of which have been defunct for decades, some if I recall correctly, as long as 30 years without activity.  If I were someone meaningful in such an organization, I would probably spend my time to promote the organization and help local clubs to proliferate.  There is virtually none of that as far as I see.  

I heard that USCF often fronts minimum prize money for tournaments, so they can advertise a guaranteed amount. People traveling to the tournament then have assurances it will be larger or at least have that prize money. They act like an insurance company for tournaments. Maybe that is what the dues are for, in addition to the ratings.

Local dues must then cover the facilities. I still think out of staters should pay some kind of prorated dues, or better yet just include facility costs in the cost of the tournament.

But if they only do 1 tournament per year, then the local dues likely are already fair, unless dues are also for club meetings. 

I guess they have a right to make more money off out of staters. I also guess my state has enough tournaments already.

That is on your local club, not on USCF.  They will publish an TLA if they are provided the details of the events, but your local club has to send in those details.  Many times, the clubs do not do so because it limits their flexibility.  For example, if you publish you are having a quick quad event, you are stuck with that.  If you do not publish it, you could switch it to blitz, or move your classical games to that night, etc.  You will often see the bigger events with a TLA, but the weekly events rarely do - but again, that is not because of USCF, but because of the local club not communicating their events to them.

You can get titles which is pogchamp

Well, nobody has time for this all the time. But occasionally? Why not? Especially in the summer, or during breaks from school/work. 

I agree with you, most USCF run tournaments are in big cities and, even then, happen once to twice a year. If the organization is seeking to grow chess organically within the US, there has to be a more grassroots movement to host events across the country especially for those who do not live close to metropolitan areas and/or suburbs.

Well in the case where it's closest for me, any multi-night tournament would be held on consecutive Friday nights. Sometimes also Saturday but that is unusual. Typically there will be a round or two on Friday night then some more rounds the next Friday night. 6 hours drive this week. Another 6 hours drive next week... I could also Drive 4 hours one way to New York City. Now there they definitely do have events, and regularly. But it would be nice to not have to invest so much in time and money just to play a couple OTB games.

Maybe I expect too much, but it seems reasonable to me that an organization which has been around since 1939 could make a little more effort to organize things. We have a local organization right here in my hometown. Little league baseball. Ever heard of it? You'd be hard-pressed to find a town in the United States that doesn't have little league baseball. All organized by a bunch of people right here in Williamsport Pennsylvania. There's little league all around the globe. It gets televised on ESPN and ESPN2. I bet if you covered my same 3-hour radius drive, you could find 500 Little League Baseball teams. It makes me wonder how the USCF could drop the ball that bad on chess.

USCF does not run local clubs.  If there isn't one in your area, you can start one.  The same goes for little league and pop Warner - those are all run by local chapters.

There used to be 2 non-collegiate clubs in my area.  One of them had very few people showing up, so it shut down.  The other typically has 15-20 players in an upper division and another 10-15 in a lower division for every event.

If your complaint is that there are no clubs in your area, find other players in your area and start one.  That is literally how both of the clubs mentioned above started (and how virtually every other club in the country started).  You are putting the blame where it does not belong.

My point is that the USCF does absolutely nothing to help anyone to start a local chapter. If anything they set up hurdles to stop it.

As a matter of fact, I did all the leg work to resurrect the dead Club in my local area. Procured an area to play at a local College. Then proceeded to have 6 months worth of Saturday OTB events. That came to an end when the college mandated that we provide insurance in order to continue using the campus as a meeting place. We discussed going through with it but decided against it. In part because I had actually procured yet another venue to play at where we did not require insurance, but might not have been as family-friendly as it was a banquet room in a local bar restaurant. Be that as it may, something as simple as the USCF providing a way for somebody like us to easily procure insurance seems like something a governing body ought to be on top of. But they are not.

Now again maybe I expect too much. But precisely what do they do for the membership money? That is the point of this thread. I'd be curious to know what even one benefit is. I'm all ears.

You can't host a rated event without a TD. You can't become a TD without an incredible amount of travel and attendance at qualifying events, the very few of which there are, are a gazillion miles away. Mostly due to lack of organization.

I'm pretty sure I'm not laying the blame at the wrong feet.