The way I look to it members can only support by one of the three premiummembership options, which are expensive if I compare it to the content which youtube offers for free. Furthermore only the diamond membership offers real chess education and seems to me the only option to choose. However people who work dont have the time to fully use all of the benefits. For me, one hour chess education (videolesson here or on youtube) a week is already a lot. So paying 12 dollars a month for lessons I can receive for free at youtube is not going to happen. However I'm more than willing to pay 1 dollar a month to support chess.com, because I like it. Don't need anything in return. So maybe you can add a sort of donation/support function?
Just want to jump in on this.
On its own, YouTube.com is not yet making money. It survives because Google itself is making huge gobs of money.
And... as someone who operates a user-generated content site with millions of pages and thousands of daily member users, I can confirm that dollar-a-month and/or donation systems never provide more than a fraction of what's needed to keep a site up and operational.
Pay and support Chess.com; the site is a very good thing for chess, and you get a better account anyways. If you disagree, then leave; because you either are so badly informed you know nothing about the chess community, or you don't care about chess beyond your own unimportant games. And don't tell me everyone in this thread is so poor that they can't afford, $25, $49, or $99 per year! And as for TWF, he seems to have never gotten around to acquiring a paid membership.