Cutback prediction

by slimboyfat 204 Replies latest members private

• 

  OnTheWayOut

  _Morpheus
  Otwo, no disagreement from me that wt book sales are not profitable and therefore being curtailed and or cut out altogether... thats smart buissnes not immenent collapse

  I was on the fence about "imminent collapse" and still don't see it as fast as some like SBF. But I have come around to realizing they have passed their tipping point. They offer nothing. They are a printing company whose business model was selling magazines and literature. Giving it away was their first major move toward collapse.
  
  Moving to the internet finally, it just won't work with the mentality of their members. These are people in their 40's and up, very few below that- who know Watchtower as a place of "giving service" and paying for literature. If current members are not paying for literature, they won't drop more money in the box just because Watchtower asks for it. Oh, some will. But the majority of members feel they give to the "preaching" work, they give to cleaning the hall, keeping the lights on, they pay their own way at assemblies. But if Mother asks for extra money for circuit overseer cars or worldwide Kingdom Hall building projects, most just take some of the money they were going to give to one JW box and put it in the other.
  
  It is, granted, a slow spiral of death....but I don't see them coming out of it. I think they will be around for several decades to come, but it would not surprise me if they get to be so insignificant as they sell off Kingdom Halls and Assembly Halls and see an ever-dwindling membership. It's not that people will leave in droves, it's just that they will dribble out and nobody will replace those who leave and those who die. Driving dozens of miles to a Kingdom Hall will make many either stop going or stop donating or both. Sending money to Watchtower based on the internet just won't work. If people sit at home and "tune in" for their meetings, they won't see the need to contribute much. And at the conventions, when they hear that they need to anonymously donate $100 per person, they just won't do it.
  
  But Morpheus, there is still tithing that can slow this down. But that virtually guarantees that the adults who agree to the tithing will be the last adult group of any size within the membership. Young people without a college education will not give 10% of their salary and will simply stop going to meetings to avoid it.
• 

  Diogenesister

  Nic Kopernicus If it is / becomes true about 200,000 or so Philippinos will be disappointed not to receive their silver sword in Tagalog

  Nicolas Do they have the old translation in Tagalog?

  200,000 Philipino jw's eh? Wow I remember as a very young girl when it was announced they we're going to start producing Watchtowers and/or tracts in Tagalog....it was seen as a pretty huge deal back then and cause for celebration. It really stayed in my memory.

  Wonder if most of that 200,000 were baptised since then. I expect so.
  
  
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  sir82

  I agree that an "imminent collapse" is unlikely (but not impossible).

  But they are clearly running out of ideas and, it seems more and more certain, money.

  I think within the next 2-3 years, the growth rate will finally hit 0. Once it gets there, I can't imagine anything turning it around other than (1) a new "end date" prediction or (2) some sort of terrifying event occurs that scares inactives back into the Kingdom Hall.

  By 2025, 2030 at most, the decline will be inexorable and impossible to ignore. They'll stop publishing membership numbers somewhere in that time frame.
  
• 

  OrphanCrow

  neverajw: Orphan crow: "The org wants to lose membership in the Western countries."
  What would be the point of that?

  To keep the cream.

  Get rid of those whose membership costs the org money and keep/recruit those who make money for the org.

  Re-structuring
• 

  Magnum

  slimboyfat: "When they produced the new Bible in 2013 they were apparently in a better financial position, and events have taken a turn for the worse, above and beyond what they anticipated. So they may have planned to produce the new NWT in a hundred languages or more."

  Just a thought/guess on that: I'm wondering whether when they produced the new silver Bible, they actually did it because they thought it would make them money - not cost them money. Perhaps they thought all (or most) who got one would contribute a lot for it, but they then found out otherwise - that the contributions didn't cover the cost.

  So, perhaps, now they've decided not to produce any more. It's all about the money.
  
• 

  sir82

  Re: 2013 RNWT...
  

  Didn't they announce something like "a new, deluxe bible of this quality in a bookshop would cost $40 or more"?

  Or am I thinking of something else?
  
• 

  Crazyguy

  Pulling their missionaries and closing branches in Africa where the majority of their growth has been is more telling then gowing away from print to me. They are loosing members and I think they realized for the first time just a couple of years ago that their numbers were bunk. Real numbers are far less then 8 million and falling. The USA is their base county with their richest members yet their selling Kingdom Halls all over the place.

  Places like Dallas area are condensing congregations and selling halls this is the big tell.

  Their stopping as much money bleed as they can because they don't have the members and they can't get worldly people to join their cult.

  I too think their done , now their just going to try and hold on to what they have until an event helps them get their numbers back up. If that's ever possible.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Just a thought/guess on that: I'm wondering whether when they produced the new silver Bible, they actually did it because they thought it would make them money - not cost them money. Perhaps they thought all (or most) who got one would contribute a lot for it, but they then found out otherwise - that the contributions didn't cover the cost.
  So, perhaps, now they've decided not to produce any more. It's all about the money.

  I fully agree. They had this big announcement at their Annual meeting. Heck, of course every last member is going to contribute $10 for their own new Bible, aren't they?
  

  NO! NO! NO!

  Here's a typical thought they hoped to avoid: "Not only do I want one in my bag, one in my car, and one on my bedside, I also want my children to each have one or two and my grandmother to have one. When all is said and done, I need 7 of them. Here's 5 bucks."
  
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  redvip2000

  I'm not sure if they are running out of money, perhaps they are, but i'm not entirely convinced.

  I really do think it's not unreasonable if their model shifts from printing materials into digital content. This is basically what every media company has done.

  We can be somewhat charitable here and just say that even the Watchtower is realizing that nobody reads paper materials anymore, and so of course they are going to stop printing stuff, but this is not to say that they are going to stop "producing" articles. Of course they will continue to produce them, just not printing them.

  And to be fair, this will help their bottom line, because it's less costly.
• 

  OrphanCrow

  And about that Silver Sword...

  What a wa$te of resources to have over 2000 of the those bibbles confiscated back in 2105:

  Russian customs agencies at the border with Finland confiscated 2,016 copies of the Bible that Jehovah's Witnesses were importing for free distribution among Russian citizens.

  And now those same bibles are on the extremist literature list in Russia.

  A reduction in literature printing and distribution? Of course...the new and improved religion that will eventually emerge from this "mess" will be other country friendly. So that the WTS' global real estate interests can be protected.