Stupid thread.
As was said before, contests are just an advertising expense, much like skinning GFY, buying banners on webmaster resource sites, etc.
The aims of a contest are to draw in new affiliates, get existing but inactive affiliates to send traffic again, and to get existing, active affiliates to send more traffic. A good contest (from the point of view of the affiliate program involved) is one that eventually brings in profits that are higher than the costs. Therefore, it should not have a negative impact on affiliate payouts. Quite the contrary, actually, when you take into account that overhead as a percentage generally decreases with volume .
Of course, for affiliates, the best thing would be if other affiliates never even found the sponsor, so it would never get saturated. Then again, sponsors aren't here to please affiliates, they're here to make money - like all businesses.
But hey, you go right ahead and boycot the next sponsor to start a contest. And while you're at it, boycot Coca Cola and Pepsi the next time they're giving away game consoles or whatever, because let's face it, by spending money on advertising they're driving up their prices, thus screwing you, the drinker
