I'm sorry that i look at this from my perspective, if i am totally wrong, delete my post.
From the other side, 4000$ for a one year license is a huge chunk of the money that has been donated by today if you consider that there are like 1500 donors with an average 5$ each. (just an example to give a perspective)
To keep this site running it requires a decent amount of money, not even talking about improving which is all we want right?
Not saying that UGX is in money problems (isn't even my bussiness), but i understand they try to come up with ideas like these to finance the costs because you always need to be in terms of money one step ahead. And every little bit helps.
The paid betas idea unfortunately has a lot of mixed feelings, if you want to know my opinion: i'm the guy that has the patience and no problem with waiting for the actual release. So i read the post, had no problem with it and thought: "I'll just wait".
Some ideas that i would like to share:- That the beta (In this case Oil Rig) is also included in the UGX donorship like the UGX-mod. It could give with moments a raise in the amount of new donors, mapper will get something in return (what fits the best);
- I see the mapping contest has a nice amount of maps to look forward to, so same idea like this, but a pre released map pack, a % of the profit goes to the 1st, 2nd and 3th place and so on ... (denies the stevie-haters and the people who say this idea was not good because it is just 1 map).
And ofcourse most of the amount of people with the mixed feelings here are the actual mappers, so it could be that people who just play the maps have absolutely no problem with paying for good beta maps. So if you would disagree as a mapper, well then you just don't do it. Simple.
Again if i mishit the ball, please correct me