The elitism is really annoying. On one hand, the price of membership is low, so it's not a big deal to pony up and support the site. OTOH, the price of membership is low, so it's not a big deal that you did pony up and support the site. This holier than thou BS is grating. I pay for membership in spite of the pressure coming from lots of long timers, definitely not because of it. I went from gold to platinum cause the difference is negligible compared to what I'm willing to spend on knives themselves.
People need a reason to pay for something, and being bullied and called a freeloader ain't a good one. Who wants to pay to hang around a place where they just got insulted? And it isn't like Spark comes out begging for money; racking up hundreds of posts while remaining oblivious to the expenses involved with running the board happens everywhere. For every pay to play message board, you'll find dozens of free ones, people aren't automatically gonna think 'gee, who keeps this place running.' Effective advertising isn't so in your face that it overrides everything else. So, if advertisers elsewhere have been effective, people barely notice that BF doesn't have much, wait, any, ad revenue coming in.
What about raffles? Say the cost of a ticket is $5, payable in membership. Basic gets you 2 ticket numbers, gold gets you 5, platinum gets you 10. I'm sure some people could donate a knife or the purchase price of one, they were spending $20 a pop to play with custom titles.
I dunno, this whole, 'buy a membership so we'll quit pissing in your face' doesn't seem very effective. Spark shut down search, that got some people paying, they became aware of the actual situation, not just the peer pressure to 'fit in.'