Originally Posted by Nautilus

In theory - yes. But in practice, if not reminded constantly about your product (which only affiliates can do), even the most loyal customers will not frequent you as often as you wish.

Also, where it is a core of fans that will find you no matter what, there's always much broader base of casual customers that are not obsessed that much with your stuff or even niche, but they still like it and subscribe and their money smell the same. To reach those casual customers, you need broader advertising network, which only affiliates can provide.

Also, there's a category of curious surfers who do not understand your niche but they will subscribe just to look wtf is going on there. To reach them, you need broader advertising network.

If you're invite only, you deny yourself of a revenue stream from review sites for example, that can sell about anything they promote. If you have open registration form - some one will post galleries with your stuff to the Hun and other tgps. Ratios may not be great, but still those are sales that would't be there if you're invite only. Etc etc.