it depends on whether the foreword sounds interesting, if it's not, then i won't bother continue reading it, so i won't subscribe it anyway, if it is interesting, then i will subscribe it to continue to read the story. hope this is of help and btw, please go vote in my poll too so that i can quickly decide who to write about before my school term starts again!! thank youuuuuuu!!!

for me it depends, because (as you know) i only write stories, and as you said, i dont want just anybody to accidently come across these stories. Another (kinda stupid reason) why I do it is as a personal control reason. My friends and I (irl) who all read on AFF and write have this "pact" i should say where we dont read each other's stories. Having subs only allows me to see if they subscribe to my story or not.
also, i like seeing who is reading my stories. I like to see how many people upvote or comment based on how many subs there are and how popular or well the story is doing. In the past ive had just open stories with views and not many subs, so I made them drafted. I wasn't sure how well I was doing, and not getting subscribers as a new author on aff is kinda...like not a motivation? kinda like what people below me commented.

for me it depends, because (as you know) i only write stories, and as you said, i dont want just anybody to accidently come across these stories. Another (kinda stupid reason) why I do it is as a personal control reason. My friends and I (irl) who all read on AFF and write have this "pact" i should say where we dont read each other's stories. Having subs only allows me to see if they subscribe to my story or not.
also, i like seeing who is reading my stories. I like to see how many people upvote or comment based on how many subs there are and how popular or well the story is doing. In the past ive had just open stories with views and not many subs, so I made them drafted. I wasn't sure how well I was doing, and not getting subscribers as a new author on aff is kinda...like not a motivation? kinda like what people below me commented.

As a reader, I like subscribing to stories to show authors my support and to keep up with their future work. However, I don't like subscribing to stories when I just want to read a bit to see if I like it because I feel bad about unsubscribing later.
As an author, I prefer to make my stories subscriber only so that I can gather data on what my audience likes to see, how many people I am reaching, and what stories are the most successful. It helps me gather ideas about what to do in the future.

Subscribers only stories are sort of like saying I believe in this story and I want to know that you guys believe in it too. What makes subscribing even more special is when you believe so much in a story that isn't even subbie only that you subscribe. That has to make the author feel special

To be honest, I don't really get the subscriber only fics. If I find a story interesting, I subscribe, if not then not. But normally I don't subscribe to one shots (only if I want to read them later) so when I see a subs only one shot I'm often too lazy to subscribe and so I won't read it. And since usually I always comment or at least upvote it's just bad for the writers :D
And I don't know why but subs only fics are sometimes much less appealing. You simply can't try and read the first chapter and then decide whether or not to go on what can be quite annoying. So for me, it really depends on how interesting the story is.