Well not to make everyone hate me but I say give the man a break. You don't have to pay if you don't want access. It's only $50/year which is like less than $5/month and you get extra features that thousands of other users don't get. This is similar to my site except I only accept donations I don't have upgrade options really, but I guess you can consider it that way since I give my donators a couple of extra features.

The bottom line is you don't have to have cafe access, in fact like he said one reason for $50 charge is so that not everyone becomes a member. How would you feel special if it was so cheap everyone paid and got access?

How about some new extra features for those of us who are crappy old non-paying members? Are there any U.S. laws against your site allowing 'wantads'?