Well I am of the opinion, as I stated somewhere else today if not here, that I would like to have some vendors here, but not at the expense of the community and its members. Any vendor that comes here, I think, should be willing to accept some competition even if it means from what I call Garage Vendors.
That said, I also think that anyone offering a service or product that is not offered by the vendors should have free reign to do so without fear of being banned. This is our vision behind the Shade Tree Vendor section, get in there and use it. Within reason, I'll let the community sort out who offers the better service or product with the better customer support and so on. If someone comes up with a service or product that isnt offered by a national vendor Im not going to shove them out just because the national vendor didnt come up with it first but now wants to capitalize on it.
To me that is how you spur on innovation and ideas. How many of the vendors are reselling items like transmission parts, or electrical parts, brake parts compared to how many parts they have come up with on their own?
In the end though, to be honest I think this place, as long as the community and its members are taken care of, treated with respect and given just a little room to operate, can keep this site going with donations and such.
My personal vision for the place was to see member donations and at some point advertising fees supporting this site and any extra that didnt go towards keeping the site running would go towards events and such like BGPM. Take the extra money and have get togethers and stuff like that, put on events. Mind you that definitely takes the involvement of the community and its people to pull off and organize, but I think we have the tallent and commitment already here.
Im not here for the money, this site doesnt exist for the money. I am here, Chance is here, Chris is here and this site is here to support the community, to spur on enthusiasm and involvement and commitment and, as I have said before, to make this such an enjoyable and happening place that people go out and look to buy Grand Prix's, Rega's, Monte Carlos, etc. because they cannot stand NOT being a part of what is happening here.
