Especially popular with young users, Ylilauta hides more and more content behind a paywall.
Many young people have found the Ylilauta discussion forum and use it actively. Elle Laitila
The popular discussion board Ylilauta aims to get more paid users with its new operating model.
With the reform, almost all threads are locked behind the gold account.
Ylilauta says on its website that it reaches up to 1.5 million users per month. According to the website, most of them are in Finnish. Some of the services are already used to see under the gold membership, whose monthly fee is 6.9 euros.
Many users have asked the forum where the active and fresh threads have gone. Many conversations are obscured, and you can’t view the content without paying. Users have wondered whether it is a passing phase or an appropriate means of financing.
The administrator, known as the username Sopsy, says in the message thread that the situation has been considered, and it will not change.
– This time it’s here to stay, and I can’t do anything. I follow orders to raise immediate income by any means, and I don’t have enough say in the company to fight back.
Many users have also speculated about the forum’s ownership changes and its complete closure.
With the new policies, old discussion threads are visible only to paid users. The expiration date is at most 24 hours.
Judging by the posts, users are unhappy with the changes. Many have said that they will stop using the service.
– Thank you and goodbye, writes one user.
– An active thread that is more than a day old and blurred, writes another.
Many are also worried about the situation if the membership has been paid for far into the future. However, based on the answers of the administrators, the service is not about to be closed, even though content and paywall changes are being made.
– As stated in the terms of use, gold accounts will only be lost if Ylilauta is closed permanently. And that’s not happening at Takuu. So no worries, nothing will happen and it won’t be a waste to buy them. And after taxes and expenses, I get a third of them for my own cash fund, that is, just under a couple of euros per cultis, writes Sopsy.
Ylilauta is a so-called image forum where the discussion takes place in threads sent to different subsections.
A user writing feedback on new practices summarizes his thoughts.
– I guess that’s not it, a good reason to close this site and go do something more sensible.
Overboard
Ylilauta is a platform where you can discuss anonymously. The site has an average of about 2.5 million page downloads per day and 100,000–110,000 active users per day. The site receives tens of thousands of messages every day.
There is a lot of discussion on the site. According to the Ministry of Justice, Ylilauta is Finland’s most significant hate speech publication platform and there are 96 percent of all hate speech messages in Finland.
Discussions contain a lot of over-the-top trolling and inappropriate content. For example, there are racist and chauvinistic comments in several threads.