How popular is ozbargain these days/what interesting changes has it undergone over the years? How many people actually visit it these days compared to 5 years ago etc?
Anyone got any info on if media attention spiked interest/numbers?
I just read the short history, cool. Nice one Scotty.
Any interesting tangents anyone?
I have no marketing agenda lol, just curious, as I've been a member for a decent while, and it's been fun & helpful.
Nice thanks :)
A heap more <10% discounts posted and people consider them a bargain. Years ago, I would constantly be buying stuff from bargains on here. Nowadays the last thing i got was the LG v30 deal.
You've been here for 7 years and haven't submitted any deal? Why don't you find some bargains and make this site better?
Ozb#1
I would say that it's expanded in lots of different directions over time. When I first started frequenting OzB (which is before I even became a member), most of the deals were technology and/or phone related. There were less deals, but the average savings per deal would be higher and overall, I think it was more of a community - the ratio of posters to lurkers was significantly higher.
Over time, deals have expanded out to other categories, though I think technology is still generally dominant. Also, we've seen the rise of much more common repeat deals like the typical 20% off eBay deals. The forums have really expanded, I think it's now become more of a hotbed for random non-bargain related questions. In that sense it's become more like Whirlpool with plenty of dumb and self-centered questions.
The major problem for me now is that OzB has become too mainstream. It used to be more underground - a community where we'd share bargains with each other. However, these days, it's like most of the deals are posted by 0.01% of the community, then you have a chunk who contribute deals here and there and post in the forum now and then (I'd consider myself one of these), but then you have a large army of leechers who never contribute a thing but are just here to snipe deals so they're out-of-stock before most have a chance to even look at them.
Any interesting tangents anyone?
How about when PJC, Watchnerd, Mathnerd, and Scab got banned at around the same time? How about savas delighting us with his Woolworths posts and then flies away like a single-use plastic bag caught in the wind and never to return?
I miss PJC :-(
I really liked those supermarket tables
ozb is a bit like reddit now. lots of circlejerk.
Yeah, popularity contest of the same trends instead of anything original.
did you call?
It's never been the same since my fave ozbargainer left 😥
am still here
Watchnerd's nightly sugar report?
The girl with the ice-cream…
Came for the bargains, stayed for the comedy.
I like Ozbargainers, they are my kind of people.
McDonald's and friends started to get free advertising for their toxic filth.
Hehe yeah…
It's become thoroughly pissed off as a whole; a succinct reflection of the state of most middle-class citizens being bled dry by a thousand cuts.
The days of amazing, once-in-a-decade deals every other week are long gone (which peaked around AUD parity with the USD). As are all of the grey-area, borderline deals we used to see like famous pricing mistakes that were honoured, posters accessing business-only pricing channels for regular consumers and bizarre localised clearances/closing-down sales with never-again seen discounts.
I would say OzBargain's best days in terms of pure bargain-hunting metrics are long behind it.
It's now a repository for run-of-the-mil specials you can find in mail catalogues or via a quick StaticICE/Camel/GetPrice search and cheap, Chinese crap that nobody wants.
It's utility as a bargain-sharing community is probably at its lowest, but on the other hand, its utility as a gauge or litmus test of the Australian public's consciousness is ridiculously astute given this is a site dedicated to nothing more than linking to other sites, at the very heart of it. The anecdotes, the polls and the multi-level indented, run-on debates do unintentionally sum up the zeitgeist of an entire nation and from an anthropological and sociological point of view, that kind of information is invaluable.
What I do appreciate the most about OzBargain's evolution is that the discussion has become invariably savvy and nuanced, regardless of the topic at hand and quite often on many topics completely unrelated to bargain-hunting, and the average intellect of the member base has elevated itself to a level I don't think you can find most anywhere else on the Internet. Reddit is too Americanised to be uniformly intellectual and given the endless universe of Subreddits, you can find everything from autist's paradises to peer-reviewed academic think-thanks and everything in between. There are other OzBargain members on this site that I genuinely respect and admire for their insights and knowledge, in a way I do with very few other online forums/communities, perhaps heightened by the realisation and sense of camaraderie that many of them could be your neighbour or co-worker.
OzBargain has come along way since 2009 when I joined but now its the discussion that keeps me coming back, as well as the humour; that constant has definitely remained unchanged since the beginning. The fairly evenly-handed moderation by the staff (minus a few exceptions such as blanket bans on certain categories of products) has also been admirable.
Wow yeah cool thanks!
Don't forget the countless merchant takedown requests that scotty received, as well as the legal threats over free samples and forum posts. We hardly see them anymore.
There are other OzBargain members on this site that I genuinely respect and admire for their insights and knowledge
I found one here
Thank you for posting this indepth post. It's too late for me to upvote the comment but not too late to comment.
Would you or anyone else like to see this? Data Visualization of Badges Growth over Time - OzBargain Forums
I'm posting it around because I know I miss posts in the site discussion forum but don't miss notifications from interesting posts. Does anyone know of a less intrusive way to get views since I will/have posted it in a few relevant threads but then the same person might get multiple notifications or read the same post twice.
Hehe awesome. same old typos.
I definately don't miss the "I earn 200k a year, what should I do with it" threads.
There was a is $180k a good wage in the last couple weeks
Fortunately I must have missed that.
That gives me an idea for a thread… 🤔
What happened to HighAndDry?
got banned and said fk it im out, im guessing
He's still around. Just doesn't comment anymore.
Well yeah I wouldn't blame him, some of the ban reasons could feel like personal attack(s) to him….and no longer wish to contribute, whether helpful or not…kinda depressing knowing you have no power here even if you were right or and trying to be helpful but no one cares about you because everyone these days are offended easily.
What happened to HighAndDry?
Trolled self with pointless nonsense -> existential erasure paradox.
i miss HighAndDry too.
Great user, always provided a good read
less freebies for sure
use to get freebies each week!
And they used to be good freebies too!
What was the best freebie?
Someone met their SO here.For free!
I see a lot more questions these days asking for legal advice and traffic infringement disputing. (Which I cannot understand why.)
I really miss the Officeworks V Dick Smith deals.
And then there was the Bunnings V Masters aragy barga
Fond memories
I saw a facebook page of ozbargain.
Is it from this website?
Very curious
See the post just underneath this one. May Stats