Originally Posted by Robbie

I agree with you 100% fuzebox. The stupidity started with programs offering webmaster referral fees. Of course the original idea back then was to get guys like me to get guys like Pierre to sign up and for him to get guys like Patrick...you know the real tgp and traffic guys at the time.
And of course, it went completely nuts from there. I can remember practically begging program owners to stop putting their cash program links on freakin' hosted galleries. That's just insane.
It didn't take long for surfers to start signing up for programs just to get lists of hosted galleries (which I also thought shouldn't be given out to every "affiliate", but only the ones that could actually work them) and content.
I personally think that all those big dollar signs and letting everybody and their brother become "affiliates" and think they are part of the "industry" was and is a huge mistake.
I always told people that all of the guys who work traffic look at each others sites. I am always curious as to what the good tgp's are promoting for instance. And when I surf through and see something I like....I don't need to have the affiliate program link on the hosted gallery page.
I'm in this business. If I want to promote a program, I'm more than intelligent enough to find the affiliate program and sign up for it. And if someone doesn't already know how to do that, and/or already know who owns the program anyway...then they probably don't have any business signing up in the first place.
This is definitely something that I have bitched about for the last several years. It's just bad business to pull back the curtain and reveal the entire business to the customers.
You don't see car dealerships, for instance, advertising in big letters that they run a floor plan and basically whack every person that buys a car.
Sure we all know that retail is always at least a 100% mark up, but Walmart doesn't point that out to us everytime we go in the store.
Sure makes it just another bit more difficult to succesfully promote and sell memberships...and that's without the added b.s. of the torrent and stolen content. It's almost a damn miracle that anybody can make money promoting anymore.
Of course some of us do. But not many.