[Vampyr]

Is there a BBO Prime member who can explain to me what a “bridge lifestyle magazine” is? I am envisioning interviews or articles about top bridge players and travel articles about upcoming tournaments.but I really have no idea.

I would also appreciate someone in the know answering whether BBO Prime is intended as a transition to making BBO a paid site.

[pilowsky]

OK, I just had a quick look. That's exactly what it is a magazine full of articles about bridge players that have been aggregated from other places as well as some originals. Just like a Club newsletter but - well - just like a Club newsletter. I don't think I'll be reading it again. I'm not really fond of static magazines I gave them up about 30 years ago.
As for what Prime is at the moment Prime allows you to have at least four things that I find valuable. At any time:

• You have unlimited use of a table with advanced robots that play GIB. This means that if you are South and North is Declarer, North will play the contract and you can see how the contract is played by the robot. This can be useful. I have asked if there could be an option to allow for me to always be declarer as occurs in daylong tournaments, but there was no reply to my post on the Forum.
• You can invite a friend to play with you and fill the other seats with robots. This is clearly more convenient than the main club where you would annoy other people while you chat about your system.
• You get to compare your play with the play of about 12 other players that also played the hands. All of the hands can be easily exported, or recovered later, by copying them (including the movie and traveller) from http://www.bridgebas...p?&from_login=0 this site when you put in your user name.
• FWIW you get free entry into a weekly masterpoints group challenge format tournament. This tournament is run on the same principle as the Forum challenge that we have talked about elsewhere.

Effectively you are playing a 'group challenge' when you play in the prime club since every hand is played about 12 times. If like me you want to check a particular hand you can see what everyone else did and you can also see the effect of the bidding on the robots play.
These are the reasons I continue to renew my membership. When I want to learn a new method or see how the robots respond to something I try it out in Prime. Obviously, you can only try out a different bidding system if you bring a partner. The robots only play GIB as outlined on their card.
Whether or not BBO becomes a paid site is entirely up to BBO. It is a company, they employ people, they have to make money somehow. What would you like them to do?

[hrothgar]

Consider "The Bridge World". This magazine focuses on technical aspects regarding the game of bridge. For example,

• Results of major matches
  
• Bidding conventions
  
• Interesting aspects regarding the play of the hand
  
• Rules and Regulations
  
• Proprieties regarding play

In contrast, a life style magazine will have a focus on

• Personalities who play the game
  
• Travel and recreation opportunities afforded by the game
  
• Social properties around dress and behaviour

Many of these lifestyle plays are an attempt to create an aspirational lifestyle for the membership (and then sell clothes, vacations, etc) to these individuals.

If you want a practical example, look at the login screens for the HTML version of the application.

Does anyone believe that that images like the following represent the BBO user base?
https://www.bridgeba...mg-win-acbl.jpg
https://www.bridgeba...g-community.jpg

Hardly

However, the current owners of BBO want to chase a wealthy demographic

[Vampyr]

pilowsky, on 2020-June-18, 04:31, said:

Whether or not BBO becomes a paid site is entirely up to BBO. It is a company, they employ people, they have to make money somehow. What would you like them to do?

Well, the lockdown amounts to a license to print money, and if the ACBL or EBU maintain a presence afterwards, and they still have other players as well, they will be doing fine.

[pilowsky]

Is there any indication that there will ever be a charge to play casual bridge?