Originally Posted by jayeff

You may be right about the loading/bugs, but I suspect a lot of the recent decline is that since the appearance of the geo ads, everyone and his brother is promoting AFF. It was always a high-profile sponsor and my join ratio has slipped steadily over the years because of that, but the geo bandwagon has made the situation many times worse. Not only are many more people promoting AFF, but the ads are effective, so there is less chance of grabbing people who don't already know what you are selling.

You are also right about the competition. AFF may not be very convincing to any but newbies, but other sponsors really don't seem to understand the appeal of dating/personals sites and design their sites accordingly. As an example, IWantU was good back in the day and long overdue for its overhaul, but the new front end - IMO - hasn't got it right at all.