I have to disagree with you as well here KK.

The two paragraphs above contradict themselves. One says sponsors have to keep up with the ever increasing demands of their affiliates. The other says they don't need their affiliates.

The only rule we have to remember in this biz is this:

He who rules the traffic, rules the playground.

Who rules the majority of adult traffic? The sponsors? or the affiliates?

Nothing really contradictory gigi, if you think about it.

Resellers have created a monster, with the help of their sponsors.

But at the end of the day, there's no real need for resellers. They could all be dropped like a hot potato and there would still be surfers looking for porn and paying for porn.

The price of a membership could become reasonable again if no one was forking out 40 bucks on a 3 buck trial.

As a matter of fact, I wonder how long 3 buck trials will continue.

Just because October 1 came and went and the sky didn't fall does not mean there won't be fallout from the Visa regulations.

As a matter of fact its impossible for their to be fallout from them before the end of this month at the earliest, since October was the first month under the new regulations. Reporting goes in to Visa during November, and then we'll see what happens.

Big companies will not continue to sustain fines and run their businesses paying out per signup, and at least one large revshare type program learned that fraud is not limited to per signup recently.

Every company that intends to remain in business is going to have to take a hard look at their practices and decide what's worth more to them, profit or number of joins a day. This isn't something I just pulled out of thin air either, I've talked to quite a few program owners about the situation and they are all looking for ways to return to greater profitability while staying under the Visa radar. And not all these companies are running on ipsp accounts either, as a side note.

Kimmy, if a sponsor has no sales force then it becomes in essence like a solitary webmaster again. And there are inherent limitations therefore in that capacity.

Is a sponsor going to be able to get 50 listings on The Hun the same way 50 of its affiliate webmasters can at one time?

Is a sponsor going to go out and buy 25,000 domains and then get those all placed to draw the same search engine traffic that 5,000 webmasters with 5 domains each can?

Sure if they have the budget to go and buy print advertising or TV that would be a viable alternative, although at the end of the day the cost to do that would probably equal or exceed the cost they pay to affiliates.

Traffic is the key to everything in this business and the affiliates are the ones who gather the traffic. I really can't see how it would be possible or more cost effective to do the same traffic volume without a sales force out there doing all the marketing work.

I agree with you on Visa 100%. Only time will tell the repercussions.....

Absolutely correct. However, it insinuates that somehow the affiliates would be cut off from the porn surfers at the same time.....my thoughts are that the surfers looking for porn would follow the affiliates, not the sponsors.....unless the sponsors decide to pump out....oh....100k sites....and also get them on the first page of the search engines...

Or there is also TGP traffic....the sponsors have already gotten their hands into this traffic though by offering hosted galleries. But, in the end it's up to the TGP owner, the affiliate, where the traffic goes...

The biggest traffic trades are made between sponsors. Where do they get their big numbers? The affiliates. If any of them cut off their affiliates, they would cut off their traffic, and in turn, their ability to trade big traffic with other sponsors.

Now, if they trimmed down, and focused on their top 10% traffic senders, cutting off the rest of their affiliates might make sense.

But, someone, somewhere, with a little program, would benefit by raking in these affiliates. And there will always be new big senders born everyday who, because they can't get an account with the big ones who've closed their doors, will head to the smaller joes....

Or, start their own paysites....

Affiliates will never run out of places to send their traffic for $$....and ultimately...it IS their traffic....

Some program owners already bought my ebook on how to trick the lie detector.

I'll call that bull shit..

Just confirmed that we will have a lie detector at our booth in Vegas. So be sure to stop by and get hooked up! I may even be asking the questions!

Kevin, gigi, you both miss one important factor in the equation.

If the sponsors don't pay the resellers then what the hell are the resellers going to do for money to pay for the bandwidth and other associated costs inherent to having this traffic follow them?

And why would they do it?

This isn't something new coming out of my mouth. If you can search back almost three years, heck, maybe three years, on the Pond board, you'll find the same math posted by me.

I've posted it on this board at least every year in the last two that I've posted here.

There are two things that must happen in order for a business to work. Distribution and collection.

Think about it.

Shit, I would love to see it too..lol

If you know how many webmasters complain to me
about Nasty $ you'd be shocked.

Let's just say, atleast 50 in the last year.

No joke, I tell no tales.

If Nasty Dollars was so "bad" how the hell did the come from nowhere and become a top 10 program? You do not get 1000's of joins a day playing games with webmasters. I have never met the guys behind nasty dollars, but we have always done well with them.

You might want to think a little more about some of the "wisdom" that you promote and in this instance your logic is even more flawed than usual.

1. You are right that traffic would not cease to flow around the 'Net if affiliates were no longer used, but it would not find its way to sponsors' sites in the same proportions as today, unless, as now, it were directed to them.

So sponsors cannot simply get rid of affiliates: they would have to replace them. For all but the very small programs, that would be a logistical and cash-flow nightmare. They would have to find an effective and economic alternative to thousands and thousands of traffic sources that between them use a myriad techniques.

I doubt there are more than a handful with management and other necessary skills to even think about doing this. You could make it a little easier by not bringing your traffic sourcing in-house: there are several alternatives: brokers, SE's, etc. But who will provide the traffic for these options? Your former affiliates of course.

So nothing has changed except that by distancing themselves from the original traffic sources to which they can pretty much dictate terms, sponsors would now be dependent on a limited number of traffic providers. And thus in a weaker position.

2. The scenario you propose isn't much more likely than free sites vanishing. It might be one with a certain appeal to a few of the less realistic operators, but if they went for it, the main effect would be to place themselves at a disadvantage relative to their competitors.

3. Even if every sponsor that mattered got on board such a program, your other major flaw (unless I missed something), is that you appear to be assuming that the ditched affiliates will simply go away. Some likely would. Others would turn to generating traffic for brokers and the like. But a very large number would simply open up their own sites. It doesn't matter that most of these would be small. There would be thousands of them, all sucking up traffic that sponsors previously enjoyed.

4. For ambitious businesses in competitive areas, the affiliate model, properly and fully utilised, is the perfect response to the "democratic" nature of the Internet. The "heroes" of our business would be much better looking at whether they maximise the effectiveness of their affiliates, before they spend a moment contemplating the path you are suggesting.

What program is it you run jayeff? For a guy that's been around more than me, I can't seem to place you when I think about all the big boys.

Which proves what? Another myth this industry could do without is that the messenger is more important than the message.

I realize you were substituting a snide personal remark for a real response, but what the hey...

I started my first business over 30 years ago. I doubt if I had $10K in capital on day one, but sales topped $4 million pa in 7 years. I can't take any credit for what has happened since I sold the business, but I get a kick from knowing it is still going strong. As a division of Securicor, 2002 sales were $650 million.

I have had a couple of failures, but I also got two other startups into 7 figures before retiring because of ill health. I got into this business only as something I could do at home as a solution to terminal boredom.

There was never more than a remote chance that this could be much more than a hobby and for over 3 years now I have been lucky when I'm able to work even half-time. Before things got that bad I hit decent six figures for a couple of years and until early 2001 I still had around 1/4 million visitors moving through my sites every day. Just shows how easy porn was doesn't it?

Next...

Just goes to show you a lot of the "big boys" are under the radar. There are a LOT of quiet lurkers out htere making bank and cashing checks.

Some of us watch for years.

Kayla, Keep on Topic Please or we are going to have to spank you. Then Hook you up to a lie detector, to see if you really enjoyed it or not :Graucho