Quote by AppleByBoom
I know that this change was unexpected. Silver, Gold, and Platinum members can PM, however, if you are sending PMs to a free member, they will not be able to respond.
I believe this to be the problem to most people and why they will be hesitant to pick up a membership to begin with. It's not much of an incentive to pay for a service that you can't even use 100% because it's restricted to whether or not he people you look to private with are paying members as well. Sure we can still chat in the main rooms but there's a reason private messaging exists. If your hope is for silver/gold members to persuade others to get a membership, I doubt how successful that will be. I believe in the long run, more people are willing to pick up memberships if the users contacted can still reply, i.e. only the one initiating the private chat has to be silver/gold. I know money is necessary to keep this place running but there's gotta be a better way than this.