jayeff

I apologize for not replying sooner. Thank you for your responses and for showing your usual class by being the only sponsor on that list to take the trouble.

Putting Twisty's aside and looking at that list as a whole, discounts on that scale are somewhat like switching a vanilla engine out of a car and replacing it with a racing lump: hey, the car goes faster! In other words, although I'm sure you did put more thought into this than most others, weren't the results entirely predictable?

And I'm not sure I follow the leap from discounted prices to fraudulent foreign affiliates. Unless you discount surfer price without reducing payouts, why should discounted rates be any more a magnet than regular ones? If, for example, I were offered the option of a $30 sale with a 60% cut or one-time $35 and the option of a $25 sale with a 50% cut or one-time $20, wouldn't fraudulent webmasters actually be likely to stick with the higher rates? And if not, why should frauds increase?

I look at that list and see many sites which badly need to reduce their prices across the board and some probably should use discounts. But it is premature for the few quality sites such as Twisty's to be doing so now. Fighting on price should always be one of the last weapons to use and it's particularly dangerous for quality products and services because low price has other implications in consumers minds.

That apart, discounts, whether applied broadly to the product/service or to specific sellers, should be discounts and not effectively permanent price cuts. That again devalues what is being sold and when only specific sellers are rewarded through the front end, instead of by higher payouts, it places all other sellers at a permanent disadvantage. The impact on them is obvious and some are bound to react negatively. There are many more affiliates disadvantaged by these discounts, so in the long run how can they possibly benefit the sponsor?

I forget which sponsor it was and he is still currently offering the same rates regardless of the sales method used, but a couple of days ago I noticed someone with a code for "regular" sales and a different code for sales via hosted galleries. I thought this was quite smart because why shouldn't there be a lower payout for sales which cost more? Sponsors also have the option of removing people from PPS programs if the "quality" of their sales is sub-standard. Etc.

I suspect that the "serious porn consumer" from review sites is another engine-swap thing: of course they are if they read about sites instead of skipping through some free pics. But then why on earth offer special low prices to them (on a permanent basis)? Isn't the point of discounts to maximise sales increases, so if you do not want to offer them globally, wouldn't it make more sense to target the borderline customer rather than the ones most likely to buy?

Then I suggest you stick a sign on your forehead saying "mug me".

I have lost track of the number of battles I have lost over the years and some abandoned half way or never fought because the best outcome wouldn't have made the exercise worthwhile. But I have also had many apologies, lots of practical compensation and just once in a while actually effected change. My greatest "triumph" was fighting my way all the way up to Michael Dell, getting a color monitor free and now I have the name and number of a Dell exec in case of any future problems.

Standards, market conditions and the like will always tend downwards. The only reason that happens is because of people who say "I've accepted it".