I apologize in advance for my upcoming rant.
I respectfully disagree with Mntundrarat about the number of new trailers being the cause of this forums decline. While I'm not in the market I still go to all the RV shows and they are nearly all trailers. I see only a few motorhomes. It's crazy how many people are daily driving a $100k 12k pound (empty) crew cab 4x4 diesel back and forth to work or to drop the kids off at school. Trailers and tow rigs are everywhere. In the past 5-10 years I believe there are more not less.
The market for this forum (in its old form) is there. The reason people are leaving this forum is because the format is terrible. In my opinion.
The gas vs diesel; Ford vs Chevy; bumper pull vs 5th; Honda vs Yamaha; dually vs 19.5"; GMRS vs Ham; V10 vs Godzilla; Goodyear vs Michelin; lithium vs lead acid; and all the other arguments are as common as ever. The potential for the lively discussion that entertained us all for so many years is still there. The pool of intelligent, educated, experienced RVers willing to volunteer their time and help a stranger online or debate A vs B is still there. Yet somehow this forum withers away by the day.
The operators of this forum took something that worked very well and was popular and useful and entertaining; and changed it to something that works very poorly and is bleeding users. There are a few of us old timers hanging on because of our past positive experience but I can't imagine new people realizing value of the forum and joining like I did nearly 20 years ago.
I joined around 2005 (I think) and at that time I had a truck camper. I then went to a used class C and eventually to a brand new off-the-showroom-floor Thor ("Freedom Elite") Class C from Camping World (my understanding is they are related to Good Sam.) My current RV will not be my last. Like many of us, I spend big $ every year on RV gadgets. I AM Good Sam's target audience. I AM the type of consumer Good Sam should want to keep engaged. Instead, as a reward for my past contributions to RV.net and being a loyal customer of Good Sam, I was forced to jump through stupid hoops to reactivate/maintain my existing functional password and account to use the forum. And their stupid hoops did not work correctly which was very frustrating. Once I was through that frustration I'm back to this forum which is just a shell of the old RV.net experience. Again in my experience. The new forum does automatically hyperlink products which I'm sure is helpful for those that have never heard of Google.
I apologize again for my rant. But yes I miss the old forum. This is not the same.
