Hey there!
We appreciate you very much my friend, yes, you have been a member since April 15th, 2015 and you are a Founding Member. Thank you! You helped start Overland Bound!
You should have access to the member forums here:
Member Forums
If you click that link, and you enter a forum, you have access! Non-members do not have access. As a Member, you also get access to:
- Member Forums
- Member Map
- Member Event Calendar
In part, this is a privacy issue. For example, Members put themselves on the member map, and may not want the general public to know where they are, but are fine sharing that information with other Members. Also, it's a content issue. Member related content is not always useful or relevant to the general public. Much of it is very specific to Members, and a focused area of the forums for Members Only keeps the content streamlined.
Now, this has nothing to do with, "It doesn't matter what you drive". It's not related. We do not only provide access to Land Rover owners for example. It does not matter what you drive. The information in the articles we produce, the YouTube videos, the access to locations in these forums, and all the resources provided by Overland Bound to accomplish our mission to make overlanding accessible to everyone is not hindered by Member tiers at all. We do not monetize access to information.
To be very clear, these forums would not be here, ad free, for everyone were it not for the financial support of our Members, Supporters, and Benefactors. Overland Bound would not exist. We will not make any apologies about providing additional benefits to people who have decided to spend their hard-earned cash to support us as you have. We are grateful, and because of you, we exist.
You can expect Overland Bound to get bigger, and to provide additional benefits to our Members and supporters in the future. We are dependent on this support not only for existence, but to continue to scale Overland Bound to support our growing community. You mentioned this is not what an online community should be doing, but Overland Bound is one of the only Ad-Free forums in the overland world.
I hope you can consider, financial support is essential to exist.
Sincerely and with appreciation,
Michael