It is hard to believe how many people can lie with the straight face around here. Perhaps they are so deluded that they believe themselves?

Ethics take center stage but it really depends on what you want to call ethical to millions of people we make our living doing something unethical. That would be like us saying crack dealers have no ethics even if they run a solid business.. every one always gets paid.. they host events and have affiliates (er, little drug dealers).

It's all in the marketing.

Name names...and better yet, tell us how you know anything about anybody on here and what they do or don't do? Identify yourself and explain so we can avoid these alleged liars. :)

money talks, bullshit walks. nuff sed

Money talks, bullshit runs a marathon. Neno Brown "New Jack City" :pimp

I would say ethics,but that's why I'm not in this full time.I could have easily done unethical shit to manipulate surfers years ago

Ethics fo sho because I believe in Karma

One of the biggest problems that I've witnessed in 10+ years in the biz is that you always have a couple of rotten apples that ruin the bunch. For example, you'll have Company X doing $150+ in hidden bogus cross-sales and doing massive payouts. Then Company Y looks at them and says 'shit, i can't compete so I have to go to that level in order to do so' or 'hmm..thats a great way for me to make more money' and it dominos from there. I personally know of 2-3 programs following that sad, unfortunate route as we speak, much to my dismay...

My biggest complaint with the biz is that we are all in this together. For example, I cringe at those webmasters or programs who simply say they could care less what a particular company does because it does not affect them. That is the biggest fallacy in our biz. What one company does has a huge rippling affect on the entire industry.

Let's take Visa for an example. Visa is Visa, it does not matter how you process with them or what platform/backend/processor you use. If Visa ends up getting pissed and implements something radical like no more auto-rebills (one bank already initiated this for their cardholders in Europe), no more xsales or something more extreme like 'fuck the adult biz' like Amex did, we are ALL fucked, not just that one particular company. Let's face it, the next time Visa gets pissed (like they did when they lowered the cb ratio and started scrubbing sites harder), they're not gonna come in and say 'you company X are the bad guys, you go to the corner but you company Y are running a clean adult business so you get a star'. No, they're gonna come in and systematically carpet bomb the entire industry because frankly, adult dollars are not THAT important to them and they dont have time to police us if we can't police ourselves. But I can hear the pundits already saying 'that'll never happen and if it did, we'll always find another way'. But I tend to think you only get so many warnings and chances..

And for every pissed off, disgruntled and unsatisfied surfer/member out there that's been scammed or ripped off by someone in our biz, that's just one less person in our collective customer pool, which again, affects everyone of us.

And what's the saddest part of all this? You don't need to rip people off, charge $150-$200 in xsales and run scams to make good money in this biz. It's just pure greed..

:2 cents:

money, no I mean, ethics, no I mean money...ah fuck it

I'm ethically flexible...
although it would matter on who's definition of ethical is being used...

xxxjay will be kicking your ass!

Morals can be very subjective in a place like this... :/

Thank you for using logic in your post.

I would rather live on street without anything then live without ethic.Money earned on misery of others is not good money.

bingo

the moral relativism that always pops up in these type of threads never fails to make me laugh - just admit you're a scumbag and deal with it.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

that means money can really makes the world go round

It's hard to keep making money for a long time without ethics...

There is a lot to read over here so I will comment more later today. PR Fade I really appreciate your post and the time you put into it. NSCash is one of those names that comes up consistently when talking to programs about who does it right.


Tranza I wish this was true and in some ways it is. The issue is or atleast what i have heard is that many programs will admit to the right people that they are not in for long term. They want to get in make as much as they can as fast as they can not burn bridges openly however on the DL they are running shady behavior because they don't care about the people they fuck or the industry itself.

Do you guys think they guys burning CC's or who rip people off care what is said or what you think of them? However there is a group small as it may be that is fed up with this. A group that is called whiners cause we want to play a long term strategy not a short term game. People that understand that if you do it right, you build a strong base with those long term thinkers that you will make more. Not today or tomorrow but over the lifetime of a business. A lifetime that is at risk due to the scamers and the people thinking of only today.

Most of these people are the quiet ones. They don't pay big bucks on advertising (I'm not saying big advertisers are scammers). They may only read the boards or have given up on them cause often the masses seam to tend to lean towards the fuck if X is doing thein then why can't I. This shift to a time when the fast dollar is more important then your rep has been happening for years as the bar for creating a program has been made lower due to various software and cheap licensed content.

We want to take a proactive approach to tackling this issue before the gov't or visa get really pissed and before we have pissed off so many surfers that nothing is left.

If you see eye to eye with me or maybe have an idea or suggestion please let me know. I will not be in FLA but I will be in Atlanta and I want to talk to you if you have any plan of being here when we celebrate our 20 years in business in 2018.

Dude, its a dog eat dog world I am afraid. While I commend you on keeping your integrity and ethical stance, I am afraid that while you are going to to do things the right way, the unfortunate inevitably going to happen. Surfers WILL get screwed, VISA will get pissed at some point, and the Gov't is already forcing your hands. While you are willing to work hard playing by the rules, others are getting rich by fucking the rules over. Sad fact, when it all comes to an end, its ends for both, the ethical and unethical. The only difference is the unethical will have more money and more to show for their time in the adult world.

It doesnt make it right but its business. There are plenty of mom and pop shops in any industry that did things the right way only to be put out of business because they cannot compete with unethical practices. Companies like Walmart are notorious for unethical practices at a lower cost but how many niche mom and pops stores were hurt directly by Walmart? Does anyone really give a shit?

The fuckers will ALWAYS trump the fuckees every time, especially in the adult industry. Personally, I do not think this business will be here in this form in 20 years. Honestly, I dont see VISA or MasterCard lasting another five years....then where will you be?

I operate under my own ethics and care not a wit for operating under someone else's.
My business partners all seem to like it.

did you cut and paste this from 1997?
The sky is always falling for some.

Ethics x 5

That's the problem with these kind of posts...they draw surfers like mattsbeachhouse and further expose how our business works.

You know, I have no idea how the banking industry REALLY works, or the auto industry, or ANY industry. We all have generalizations. And most of them are public companies so there are stock meetings.

But NONE of them reveal the true inner workings of their business...as in what goes on in the office of the top people. It would make them weak and open to failure once competitors or (in our case) people who want them eliminated...want to go after them.

If there's one thing I think that is a big mistake it's people coming on this message board talking about HOW things work.

10 years ago a surfer didn't even know there was such a thing as an affiliate program. They visited a website and it was presented to them as a person shooting porn and sharing it with them for a price.

But now thanks to GFY and others...they know every goddamn thing about affiliate programs, how they work, business tricks, etc. ,etc.

As I said earlier...car salesmen sure don't go out of their way to tell you how you are going to end up spending $100,000 on a $30,000 vehicle before they get done with you.

But for some reason...some people in adult just can't wait to reveal everything to our customers. I'm sorry, but that is just not good business.

Back to the manifesto, an educated adult customer is a customer no longer. And America is getting smarter by the minute.

Show me where I am wrong? Visa raising its start up costs was only the first shot across the bow. VISA has the adult industry EXACTLY where it wants them. If they came out tomorrow and said that it would only cost $5k to start, how many would that eliminate? How many would or could afford to continue?

Adult is such a small part on VISA's business side. VISA controls online adult. And mark my words, the government is about to put pressure on Visa for processing adult in the USA.

The only people who have to make the ethics vs. money decision are those incapable of producing ethical money.

Let's face it, the typical adult industry worker be it anyone from models to designers to paysite owners didn't exactly come here from the upper echelons of society. The people who work in adult usually "ended up here" from a less than ideal situation. That in itself is responsible for the environment where an above average number of webmasters are willing to profit at the unjust expense of others.

I have much more respect for the guy flipping burgers at McDonalds to feed his kid than the "successful" webmaster who skirts the law to make his money.

If you deal in stolen content or rely on cross sale deception (or affiliate with this behavior), you are not making an honest living. You are not a real man. You deserve the respect of nobody regardless of how much money you make.

But whatever is said in this thread probably doesn't matter to the snakes. They have already made the decision to do whatever it takes to make their money.

Have you ever paid your rent with honesty? Bought a steak dinner with honesty? I hate to say it, honesty is an intrinsic value and a nice one but it doesnt pay shit!

True and I could not agree more with this part. Just know the one thing that gives me solace. We can not change the snakes but maybe we can change the stakes. What matters is that people like you are starting to be heard and maybe just maybe the few voices of legitimate business can join together and work to identify and deal with those that actually do care about long term legitimate money making.

You have made your point. You don't even work in the adult industry your just another clingon. Do us all a favor and go back to your kiddy table while the adults talk.

ironic nic for the op. lol

Dude, are you fucking Alice in Wonderland? Cuz what you are envisioning is a fucking fairytale.

I was waiting to see if someone caught on to that. Perhaps if he learned to market better and work his ass off to maximize his profits, he wouldn't come begging for people with ethics. You want ethics, go be a school teacher.

:1orglaugh your right let me go back to my moms basement and change before I have to go get in my 99 honda accord and drive to my day job thanks for showing me. :thumbsup

As for the nic the comp name is Karups hence the Karupted Charles name. It is no indication of our morals or ethics.

always ethics and good karma will bring results I want

For me it is always about ethics. If I was at all concerned about cake I'd not be working 3-5 hour/days, 4, sometimes 5 days a week!

As for ""the company""/bosses..


Money, money money mo_ney..

..MAH_NEH (of course).

Karups got to where he is with Good Ethics and a Strong Moral Standing, He's a community leader, a big brother and donates his free time to the sick and elderly...

Infact he doesn't even drive a sports car or own a nice house.. He donated all of his profits to charity!
(and not just for taxes)

ethics? it's all perspective.

mattsbeachhouse....Charles and Karups have been a huge player in online adult since I started in the mid 90's

You really are talking smack to a guy who can buy and sell you a thousand times over. When the teen and amateur niches were king in the late 90's up 'til around '02 there was nobody bigger.

And Charles is right...you're not in this industry and you don't know who you're talking to or what you're talking about. Nothing wrong in and of itself...BUT, you should show some respect and stop making all these definitive statements about things you don't know.

Please accept that as friendly advice. I wouldn't walk into the boardroom of GE and start trying to tell them how to run their shit. And you shouldn't come on here and join in with the other surfers trying to "fix" multi-million dollar businesses.

The successful people on here don't need to be fixed. We kinda know what we're doing. And Charles wasn't whining or crying...he simply is expressing a view (a wrong-headed one in my opinion). Believe me, Karups doesn't need to whine or cry about anything.

Karups needs to learn to market better???
Wait, you are new to the industry, right?

Edit: nm cartoon is too large

charles has been a player in adult since the mid 90s?

karups was a powerhouse long before charles was there.