Unless you are going to camp here and really immerse, paid membership doesn't make a lot of sense. Some folks here spend a lot of time here and have developed personal friendships and many are professionals or just seem to smoke anything that doesn't move...like every day.
I was obsessed with smoking at first, but I got over it. I still use the smoker here and there, but maybe 3-4 times a year. I simply cant get pastrami as good as mine anywhere retail, so there are some things I'm forced to smoke myself if I want it. My pulled pork is as good as anyone's I've tasted anywhere, but I burned-out on it. Hard to believe, but for now I've had my life-dose of PP!
Look in to add-ons for your browser. I run Duck Duck Go on Firefox and have 15 add-ons for different stuff, including blockers that stop those annoying flash and HTML jumpers that make a site feel like walking through a carnival midway. Sometimes they will affect the operation of a site and I have to drop them, but I only go through that for the sites I really need. If a site gives me the "talk to the hand" screen detecting my blockers, I simply move on unless its a site I need. Today, there are plenty of sources for information, including smoking and cooking in general, although this site has been around a long time and has years of content to find, so there's a lot in one place.
Every time you click-in here, the site is still getting clicks registered which goes toward the value of the ad money, so its not like you are starving anyone by not buying something specific.
If I wanted to totally immerse and become part of the family here, and by that, I mean some of these folks are good friends personally, almost to the level of family; I would have those OTBS and SMF Premier Member badges. But I swing through as part of my morning coffee light reading sometimes and that's about it and only recently returned to doing that after years of not visiting at all having grown somewhat disillusioned with my participation here. I kind of dont give a rip anymore, so I take it all very lightly these days.