(removed by moderator - please keep it polite) Where do I even begin.

The Scratch Team recently revealed their new Scratch Subscription service. You've probably heard of it by now. The Scratch Membership is a $35 per year subscription service that gets you a Documentary series, small benefits on the Scratch store, extra tutorials, a newsletter, and some exclusive sprites. The membership has received a lot of pushback from the community (both on and off Scratch), and as a Scratch user I might as well tell people how I feel about this waste of $150.

The Content and the Price
The price for the membership is abysmal. When you look at everything that's included, the membership is just a bad deal. Story Xperimental, for an Xample, is free for 7 days. Free. What's stopping you from just using OBS or Xbox Game Bar to record it or just binge the whole thing in a week? The exclusive sprites? Not even exclusive. I was able to find rips of them uploaded to Scratch within 30 seconds of searching. Scratch Shop discounts? How often are you using the Scratch store to buy multiple year old sticker packs. The exclusive tutorials? Judging from the quality of the official Scratch tutorials, you will 100% find better quality tutorials on YouTube for free. Members-only merch? Yeah, I can't wait to spend more money on pins and stickers.
also I don't want to sound overly mean with the “And more!” remark that's on the perks page but every single time I've heard someone say “and more” or “etcetera” when they talk about things it means that there's nothing else to share.

No one is going to use this thing
Ah great. Another subscription. This is clearly geared towards parents who want their kids to be educated when it comes to coding, but I don't think that they're $150 lifetime membership interested, especially when a lot of people have to work multiple jobs just to keep a roof over their heads. Think about how much actual creative stuff you can get for $35 compared to this junk. You could get them colored pencils, pens, maybe even a cheap drawing tablet, or you could get them bad exclusive sprites and a documentary they won't be interested in.

The dangerous precedent this sets for the future of Scratch
The Scratch Membership is Scratch's first foray into paywalling things, and this sets a dangerous precedent for the future. Paywalling creative tools on a site that's meant to be free is scummy, and it'll only get worse. Next it's gonna be paywalled sounds. Than backdrops. And maybe in the future paywalled blocks. Paywalling the stupid Zepto and Milli sprites and the Yooka-Laylee sprites is setting showing to your users that you have no problem locking things behind a $150 paywall, and ultimately stifles creativity on this creative, educational platform.

Also Zepto and Milli are not part of the team

what is this suggesting?

It's not a subscription, it's a donation tier to save scratch

WigglyJoey wrote:

It's not a subscription, it's a donation tier to save scratch

Scratch got an 8 million dollar grant from Lego last year, while also raking in $20,000,000 in the 2024 fiscal year

I think they're doing fine

dizzyboy42 wrote:

what is this suggesting?

To either lower the price or cancel the membership and refund people's purchases

Comix_2 wrote:

WigglyJoey wrote:

It's not a subscription, it's a donation tier to save scratch

Scratch got an 8 million dollar grant from Lego last year, while also raking in $20,000,000 in the 2024 fiscal year

The donors may stop donating so they need a long term solution.

cheddargirl wrote:

Please remember that membership is a donation tier with sprite early access, and that access content associated with Membership will be accessible to everyone anyways (just obviously not early for non-members).

And this post from cheddargirl rejecting canceling the membership in favor of something less consistent.
You're engaging in the slippery slope fallacy, which posits that if one thing happens, it will lead to other things happening, too. It's a fallacy because that is not necessarily the case. While Scratch's membership program could lead to additional features being paywalled, that doesn't mean it will happen. They have also expressed their desire to keep the site as free as it is now, which is part of the reason why they added the membership program in the first place.

Comix_2 wrote:

WigglyJoey wrote:

It's not a subscription, it's a donation tier to save scratch

Scratch got an 8 million dollar grant from Lego last year, while also raking in $20,000,000 in the 2024 fiscal year

I think they're doing fine

dizzyboy42 wrote:

what is this suggesting?

To either lower the price or cancel the membership and refund people's purchases

I think we will leave that up to the business team to decide.

I'm just a moderator - but I tend to agree more with the opinion that it's more of a donation perk, kind of like Public Radio uses. If you are inclined to want to support Scratch more, this is maybe an incentive and a framework for you to do so. It's not a paywall to exclusive content - since that isn't really a thing on Scratch because of the remix culture.