[DavidDavidDavid]

Tayrak, thank you for reaching out before I decide to cancel my subscription. I really appreciate your offer because though it may sound otherwise I actually do leave with good memories of SBI! -- yes, good memories, of how helpful some folks on their private forums can be -- even though I believe now that on an overall basis it is not really for me.

I was very enthusiastic about SBI! before -- and I still believe that it's a good product, only very limited in "scope" and "depth," as I say, and thus something a real "web-enthusiast" will pretty quickly grow out of (the way a real health nut grows out of Jack LaLane's Juiceman, or a real fitness freak grows out of an ab-roller, etc.) -- but I want to build a website that happens to make money, whereas they're all about making money from building a website. As time went on, it became apparent that my goal was not theirs, and vice-versa. I really do want to put "value" on the web, whereas they highlight a subscriber who has a 40K Alexa ranked website (for what it's worth) that's nothing but photos of scantily-clad celebrities, a classic MFA (Made for Adsense) site. You also see a certain cookie-cutter sameness to their sites: take a look at any of the personal development sites SBIers have made, and not only do they all have the same layout, but their messages actually read pretty much the same! Holy Jehoshaphat, but it's like they all downloaded the same IM/LOA e-book and just changed the wording here and there and pasted it onto their homepages! So SBI! is all about making money, and it shows in the follow-the-trend mentality...newbies, indeed!

My comment about SBI! actually needing "work" was referring to a fact about their "system" that I'd caught early on: you still need, as they themselves say, "brains and motivation" (BAM). Well, what does SBI! actually offer, then? Someone who really had the BAM could just as well do it themselves. In fact, most such people *prefer* to do it themselves. Show me a car enthusiast who doesn't tinker with his own car, or a computer enthusiast who hasn't built his own rig, etc.

So who's SBI! actually for, then? Those who don't know any better. Yes, newbies. But the ones who are actually interested in web development (as opposed to just using the web to make some money) will find SBI! of limited utility, since their system is not very flexible. As a matter of fact, it's only this year, in 2008, that you are able -- with additional costs and technical learning curves (yes, appearances to the contrary, SBI! has its own technical learning curves; you need to learn to use their system! Well, if you must learn anyway, why not just learn web technologies from the start, instead of learning how to use a system that gives you a limited version of those technologies) -- to host a real blog on your SBI! site. Now, is a blog necessary? Not necessarily. ;-) But it's an indication of their state-of-the-art that something that was already old in 2005 is just coming on the line right now for them, and how mightily they trumpet it.

Look, please believe me when I say that I'm not complaining about SBI! -- but I truly believe that my report here in this forum is ***the only honest and complete*** SBI! review on the whole wide web. Yes, I challenge anyone to come up with a "critical" (not necessarily in the sense of "negative" but in the sense of "critical thinking") review of them. It's amazing but there's not one to be found within some 15 or so SERPs on either side. So it's really necessary that I speak out about this, about what they're really like, especially since even Steve himself is just parroting their meaningless sales pitch about "Top 3% Websites," a pseudo-claim based entirely on near-worthless Alexa rankings. That's just downright misleading, with all due respect to our host and capitalism and apple pie.

It's a good product, and I say that honestly -- however, it is far from what is claimed or suggested by their marketing. I just want to share with folks in what ways it is good, and in what ways it is limited. Really, it's like a TV informercial's product: sure it works, but no it's not what it looks like on TV....

They have a good refund policy, though, so I do still encourage people to give it a shot if they are interested; nothing to lose, so far as I can tell (certainly not if you approach it with an open mind as a learning experience) -- and y'all can count on me to give a full and honest "debriefing" when my cancellation request goes through. But don't turn off your brains and drink all the Kool Aid...if you would be a businessman, you need to keep in mind a businessman's perspective, not a customer's, if you take my meaning.