Originally Posted by jayeff

Bullshit. If that were anything but an urban legend for all but a tiny minority, everyone would have great rebill ratios and no-one would need all the rest of the crap. There wouldn't be sites which retain members for months and others which are lucky to get them to stay past a trial.

No-one in their right mind "cares" about surfers beyond giving them reasons to spend and keep spending their money. The difference is between those who act as if they will only get one shot at him (and then do everything to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy) and those who know that our customers are exactly like us, exactly like the customers of any industry. They will willingly spend again and again: if they are not taken for a ride.

I'm sick of the cowboy sponsors who talk as if their approach to business is a reasoned one. When someone puts up a hosted gallery and the thumbs are almost black, or includes a closeup of an empty staircase, or uses pics from a "content club" that went out of business 4 years ago, there is a sponsor who, sure as eggs are eggs, will be using cross-sells to screw his customers and xboxes to pull affiliates.

Such sponsors aren't smart. If they were smart, they would make more effort to get as many customers as possible to the door to be fleeced. But their operations are shoddy from end to end because that's how they work and they are stuck with all the tricks because that's all they have going for them.