HackWilson1930: When someone is able to point to membership roles and tell advertisers that their message will reach millions of WGT golfers you can guess that these companies will spend large sums to reach those members.
Not really, they could boast as much as they want regarding how many players there are, but advertisers want to see how many unique visitors they have - that will largely determine the price.
Add to that, with so many players blocking ads, I do wonder how lucrative the advertisers are for the game and the dependence is on both advertisers revenue and players spend rather than one or the other.
As for paying or not paying - I have no choice but to pay if I want to continue playing with decent balls. All I can get is 7 carousel views per day (when it works - I don't even bother trying), and on a good day an additional 1-2 credit video to watch. Needless to say, to earn enough credits for a sleeve of Nikes is just not viable. No surveys......and I will not sell my soul or risk spam or virus in the supposedly free credit offers.
Therefore I am happy to pay for my credits, as the game brings enjoyment, and is pretty cheap compared to most forms of entertainment.
But then again, I can afford to and add to that, I simply do not have an hour I can fritter away to earn those "free" credits, and IMO it is certainly not worth it for the return on that time as expressed in a rate per hour. Therefore if I was eligible to earn credits in this manner, I still wouldn't. If I suddenly had more free time, then I probably would...well maybe.
The great thing is we do have choices, and depending on where we live this will be playing with lower level equipment or top equipment. No doubt players in the US and parts of Europe can do much better in terms of the credit offers but anyone can play and still derive enjoyment from the game.