Jel

tbh it's not about any losses (I have none), I have sent very little traffic there all the while I've had an account, and only a handful of sales. It's more about the dumbfuck short-sightedness of programs who have quite obviously never had any experience as affilates, thinking that demanding traffic or accounts will be closed is good long-term thinking.

Affiliates who sign up but send not even a single click are zero maintenance (different ballgame obviously for surfmasters who demand a box full of tools and send 4 clicks a month), and you can't tell which of those will switch their heavier traffic over to you at a point in future, especially these days with programs closing all over the place, under performing, have heavy saturation levels, and so on.

Demanding clicks is a surefire way to ensure that traffic never gets switched over at any time, and all in the name of lightening a database which let's be truthful, accomplishes what? Nada. It also doesn't free up 'resources' to 'help active webmasters make more money' (a horseshit line I've seen before over the years). Weeding out guys who email every week for this,that, and the other tools but sends fuck all clicks/sales is one thing, annoying those who have an account as a secondary/tertiary back up who takes precisely 0 seconds of time, and 0kJ of effort is pretty short-sighted, or lazy at best.

I totally get the 80/20 rule, and apply it myself continually - problem is, most people don't understand WHERE the 80/20 rule applies.... something that is zero effort, and zero time, doesn't have an 80 or a 20.... you leave those until such time as it does apply, and then see if it's a good or a bad ROI.

sponsor A: gets affiliates traffic in the xx,xxx upwards a month figure.... then goes bust/to shit
sponsor B: now gets that traffic... except they demanded it when it cost them zero of anything, so hey presto:
Sponsor C: now gets that traffic

How this isn't basic shit for programs is beyond me.

And again, because I know for a fact on past reading this is gonna be a response, this is different to:

sponsor A: has affiliates x,y,z who all demand creatives, special shit, and send 4 clicks a month between them, bringing in 0 sales.... sorry, when you have made 50,100 sales... we'll make some stuff, until then, have fun