Member Counts: What's In a Number?
I tend to question the bold membership proclamations of some of the more popular websites because they don't take into account the number of users that actually participate in or provide a meaningful contribution to whatever service they are a part of. Most of the time, these sites make users sign up just to "see the goods." For example, when IMDb disabled many of its features so that only members could view them, this struck me as a rather stupid move since there isn't much to do there, unless one likes providing reviews or getting into mud-fights on the querulous message boards. But if someone tries to contribute things like trivia, taglines, etc. you have to go through a moderation process. Sometime after I registered, I tried this out a few years ago for the X-Files. I tried posting some of the show's famous alternate taglines. I checked my spelling, the accuracy of what I was quoting, and made sure my contribution wasn't already posted, but I never got a response, not so much as a "Sorry, but your post was rejected…". Nada. Nothin'. From that moment on I've been pretty fucking disillusioned with IMDb's user contribution system and haven't done anything beyond post my ratings, and a comment or review here and there.
So what was the whole point of this diatribe? Well, that basically IMDb offers little of value to its members other than access to the site's content (like trivia, reviews, etc.) which was previously unrestricted, oh so many moons ago — and by members, I don't mean the IMDbPro crowd, who have to fork over cash for their membership, which seems to offer justifiably valuable, professionally oriented content for people in the film industry. Sites that make people sign up just to access their primary content are creating a swarm of lurkers because they provide little value in active membership.
Some reasons websites do this is to get better statistical data on their users or to promote themselves or the products/services of their affiliates via "newsletters" or "special offers" — more technically known as user-selected (or non-unchecked) spam. But forcing users to undergo a pointless registration process works against these goals because if someone gets no value in membership or just wants access to a given website's content, then that person is less likely to provide honest personal information during the sign-up procedure, thereby working against the whole reason for making registration mandatory in the first place. Unwanted ads can be easily directed to a dummy email account the user provides along with that person's fake name, fake birth date, and fake address during the bullshit registration process. The user wastes a bit of time and effort going through the whole rigmarole, while the content provider gets unread promos, unreliable data, and the added headache of managing all these ghost accounts. All this for the dubious benefit of softer than marshmallow numbers.