Why would anyone pay for membership on chess.com?

Why would anyone pay for membership on chess.com when there exists great alternatives that are free?

Everyone likely has different reasons but there are a lot materials/resources, all available in one place, along with a large number of active players/members as well. That said, a larger percentage of players here don't have premium memberships.

@Martin_Stahl: A large number of active players makes sense, that is very true! However, I always felt that the important thing was always finding someone to play quickly. Whether there were 1000 or 100 willing to play at any point in time was not too important. And having other material/resources in one place is surely true for other sites as well?

Also, I have heard quite a lot of players complaining that there is a lot of lag on this site. For me this is not so important since I rarely play bullet here, but still...

What is the the primary reason you chose to pay?

@MRM2112: Titles players get the diamond membership automatically. I would never pay for it and am confused as to why others would 

It stops ads!

Nuff said!

@MRM2112: So your  membership here is to support the operation of the site or the founders, rather than the specific extra content you are getting?

To support the site, no adds, and for more tactics and lessons. Also stronger computer I suspect.

It stops advertisements and allows unlimited tactics. Also, it's not exactly expensive even for diamond membership; if chess is your hobby then it's a pretty good deal. The alternatives you speak of, although I do rate one in particular highly, are not of the same standard in terms of overall content. 

Ingrate

I really liked what the site had to offer, and initially I went gold to get access to more tactics and auto-vacation for daily. I increased it to Diamond for unlimited everything, though I haven't used as many resources I should be; at least not as much as I should. I also wanted to support a site that I found to be a very valuable resource to see it keep getting better.

Stars are pretty. Who would pass up the opportunity to adorn themselves with stars? It's a shame they give titled players diamond membership rather than gold.

I think you're exactly right. The guy is bragging that he gets a benefit for free and wonders why suckers would pay for it. The site should have the following policy against titled players bragging about their free premium memberships: brag about it and lose it. What's he going to do? Leave the site in a huff? Big deal if some unknown FM leaves. Nobody would notice.

Troll of the Month material here.

Statute wrote:
You are an arrogant punk bragging about your title is the underlying motive of why youre "asking" a question to which you can imagine an infinite number of cliched and obvious answer. Classic humble brag...get going.

...and this is reason why the really good players don't contribute much to the forums. Comments from "Mr. I've been here 5 days now" contribute nothing but useless vitriole.

Cheaper than coffee and more satisfying . . .

Preposterous. The only thing more satisfying than coffee is more coffee. It is the one commodity to which the law of diminishing returns doesn't apply.

Both!