I joined Bear411 back in about 2006, so I have been a member for around 7 years.​​



When I joined, all those years ago, there were very few resources online for the bear community. Bear411 was quickly becoming a great conglomeration of bears from all over, trying to connect with each other. Admittedly, the site has never been "top of the line," but it was still a very active and social network in those days.



It is 2013 now. Bear411 is still relying on design and aesthetics from the early 2000's, and so is daily falling behind the social networking trends. Not only has "BuddyBear" (the owner of Bear411) failed to anticipate the needs of its consumers, but it has consistently failed to meet even the most basic standards of social networking sites of today. At this point, it can barely even be considered a "hookup" site.



Within the last 7 years, BuddyBear has continuously handicapped the site against its free users. We can no longer view other user's photos. We can no longer change our locations. We can no longer even delete our own profiles.



But most irritatingly, there have been severe restrictions on being able to view "Who's Online". At first, access to go beyond the first page of the list was turned off only on odd days. Now he has completely shut off access to the entire site on odd days.



Unless you are a paying member.



Let's talk about this for a second. It is 2013, and you are asking your members to pay you to access the most basic features that almost every other social website offers for free? Why?



BuddyBear gives us his answer: "You may not know but the high data traffic generated from costs a lot of money. I had to find a fair solution to pay the monthly server bill and the computers hosted in a datacenter. I also wanted to bring more features for the priority members who are nice to support ."



Here is the truth: BuddyBear is lying. Please bear with me as I explain why.



He is complaining about bandwidth (this is what we call the transfer of information from a website to your computer, and back) and how much the bandwidth costs; and using it as a justification for charging an outrageous premium of $6.50 - $9.95 per month (depending on how far in advance you pay). In today's world of social networking, this pricing is offensive, especially since the site is so basic and feature-poor, even for paying members.



He has severely handicapped the site. Many application or website developers do this, if they offer a paid service but give free access. The problem is, he handicaps the site in such a way that it is almost completely unusable. Other sites do not complain about their users simply for using the site for free. They offer basic services and charge for more/better/advanced features.



What BuddyBear is not telling you, however, is that these days almost all web hosting companies offer free unlimited bandwidth. What he is also not telling you is that most of his bandwidth issues are due to the fact that Bear411 is heavy-laden with graphics and javascript and other very poorly designed and implemented elements. So basically the users of Bear411 are being forced to accept the blame and carry upon our shoulders the weight of his ineptitude. On top of which, we are being penalized simply for using the site while BuddyBear is pocketing most of the premium you pay.



Over the course of the last 4 years, I have been researching Bear411 and competitive sites, and one interesting thing I found 2 years ago is that about 10% of Bear411's members pay the premium. Until relatively recently, the color of a member's "mini profile" on the "Who's Online" page would be one color for paying members and another for free ones.



BuddyBear claims that there are over 127,000 bears on his site. Times have changed and people are not used to paying for basic social networking so let's say that only 1% of the members are paying the monthly fee (so this would be about 1,270 people paying a minimum of $6.50 per month). Hit the "=" on the calculator and we end up with $8,255 per month. This is not an unreasonable estimate - in fact, it is most likely too conservative. But at least it gives us a base.



"Yes, but what about server costs?" you say.



I am looking at GoDaddy.com - the world's most popular website hosting company. Their Ultimate Plan, which includes unlimited everything (including space and bandwidth) costs $15 per month.



Even if Bear411 went with the most expensive service that GoDaddy offers - a dedicated server - it would be less than $1,000 per month (I won't present all the math here).



The bottom line: Bear411 is costing less than $1,000 per month to operate and BuddyBear is making at least $8,300 per month. He is pocketing 88% of the paying member's subscription fee, and locking basic features, all under the lie that there is excessive bandwidth usage.



Ah, but this is only for Bear411. He runs at least 7 other web sites, including bearworld, gay411, gaydaddy, bearguide, pepsoft, bearload, and hotbear. I have removed all the "." and top-level domains like "com" and "net" to help keep this profile from being flagged by his fascist filtering system. If you do a search for those names on google you will find his sites.



(By the way, something else you should know: BuddyBear has been cloning our profiles onto his other sites to boost his numbers on those sites.)



I am not even going to speculate how much he is making on other sites. You get the picture. You have been absolutely lied to. I do not doubt this is intentional on his end, many of us have had our own experiences with BuddyBear and know he is a jerk.



Here are other things you should know: BuddyBear is using your pictures on bearload without your permission. He also censors your communications on Bear411 so if your messages contain phrases or words which he does not like, including references to competition or other social networks, they do not arrive.



He deletes people from Bear411 if they have a disagreement with him. Or if he doesn't like what you have to say in your profile. There have been cases of people emailing him to complain about something and next thing, their profiles are gone. And no, you do not get a refund if you are a paying member and he deletes you.



He discriminates against potential new members if he does not feel they are "bear enough".



I don't know about the rest of you, but I am tired of his bullshit. The only way, currently, to have a profile deleted on Bear411 if you are a free member, is to be offensive and so that is what I am doing. I do not know how long this message will be up. I will never return, and so I don't care, I am just trying to call him out on his bullshit and make you all aware.



I am leaving. And to the rest of you, there is no reason to stay here.