John Cook just wrote about the new
shared membership fee between NWEN and WTIA. As a good impartial person John writes from a neutral point-of-view, leaving me to give an opinion on the topic.
First, from NWEN and WTIA point of view they have very little to lose. There is little overlap between their members and a shared membership is like an two-way affiliate program. NWEN will be able to tap into a pool of new members that wouldn't get otherwise, although they will get a less than $125 per member (think of bulk-membership discount) -- same thing for WTIA.
Now, from an entrepreneur point-of-view, if you are not member of either organizations, this won't persuade you to join. A key
complaint I received when asking fellow entrepreneurs about NWEN was the price to join was not justified by the benefits they would be getting. Increasing the price, even if adding new benefits, is probably not what would change these entrepreneurs decision not to join. Yes, I understand you'll be able to get "discounted services", but if you don't need those services in the first place, who cares?
Finally, from a Seattle community point of view, my concern is that WTIA and NWEN are becoming too similar to each other and from a branding perspective, that might be the wrong move since it all becomes noise. People will read about WTIA and think about NWEN, and vice-versa and at one point they will start asking why there are two organizations doing exactly the same thing. WTIA is the strongest one since it's backed by the big tech companies (Microsoft, Google, RealNetworks, etc.) and NWEN will fight to be kept independent.