The sky isn't falling? Bullshit!
 

Having sent out hosting invoices for September I've already got 5 clients that are going out of business. Mark my words, it's only just begun!

If anyone wants a dedicated server I'll be making some crazy offers.

Cheers,

Brad

Sorry to hear that


:(

paysite owners ?

Damn, I am noticing a similar trend with my north american clients in the past few months.

we sorta got the opposite effect, more sales this month than the last 3 :thumbsup

Brad unless they're major sponsors I wouldn't call 5 a major loss... hell I'd guess that 5 go out of business every day around these parts.

Actually most seem to have been people that were either promoting through their own networks of free sites or on TGPs.

Brad

IMO it's hard to blaim VISA for TGP's going down at this time.

The more paysites that go out of biz, the better in the long-run :2 cents:

Same here!! Looks like the industry is doin a good job weeding out the bad apples.

Brad,

hey bro I know it seems like a struggle and a bitch right now lossing Any customers, but like others said it will be fine down the road.

Weeding out is a good thing. I started on the net in 94, and have seen this happen before.

All will be good :)

It is the smaller honest quality paysites that helped to stimulate this industry, IMHO. It would be a shame if the adult industry monopolizes and we have a choice of only a handful of paysites.

Very true. Most folks that go out of business...it's for a reason. Usually they run a half-assed site and/or poor customer service.

Define crazy

Brad - People that use your hosting seem to be very happy with it. Think it over before you lower your prices, you probably don't have to. You have a quality product that demands a price reflecting that. :2 cents:

I don't disagree that weeding out the competition isn't a positive thing. Additionally, I've not said that sales are down.. I'm just saying that never before have I had more than one client during any calandar month just fold up shop. With two affiliate programs, a content business and a hosting company I'm fortunate enough grow in size every month. You can bet I'll be one of the last men standing when the chips are down.

Brad

TeenGodFather - OK, maybe not too crazy. The reality is, as Twisty has suggested, I deliver a quality product. However, when I've got an inventory of maybe 20 surplus servers I'm more likely to wheel and deal on some of my excess capacity. I'm never going to offer rack shack type prices or try to compete with some of the piss-ant nobody resellers that float around GFY. However, I do aim to offer a consistently better value.

Cheers,

Brad

Brad,

I am not going out of business! ;-)
I sent you an email a few days ago, did you get it?

Unless it's you.

Brad, sorry to hear about your loss of clients. I would not say the sky is falling, but for those who are not on top of their shit, its game over. This will include a few bigger boys who VISA/MC will put an end to shortly. Could be sooner than later for a few.

That's a double edged sword. On one hand less competition may mean each company that's left will get a bigger share of the pie, but there will be secondary effects that might not be so good.

With fewer paysites, there'll be fewer content producers meaning higher prices and less choice.

With fewer paysites, there'll be fewer billing companies. Meaning you won't be able to spread your eggs around to as many baskets.

With fewer paysites, there'll be fewer hosting companies. Bandwidth may get cheaper but service will get worse as companies cut costs to compete for the few paysites left.

With fewer paysites, there'll be fewer freesites. The less money flowing out of paysites to affiliates means many small timers will close up shop. Surfers will spend more time on search engines or established tgp's making it more expensive to advertise to them.

Do you really want an industry with less choice?

Wow, almost 3000 posts and finally Brad Shaw's responded to something I've posted! Cool. :winkwink:

Well, things are definitely going to get interesting. I'm expecting some of the larger players to go out of business in addition to slews of smaller companies. I think much of this is just an evolution of our industry, just as phone sex evolved many years ago.

What will be fascinating to watch is how everything changes...

I think the first thing that we noticed here on GFY was the changes in the content business... there's a reason everyone is blowing out their content, very few people are buying any more.

Realize that some hosting companies are viable mostly because of a few large clients that pay all their bills.

I think we'd all agree that we're in store for a few more IPSP's going out of business too.

All these changes just make the business more challenging and I'm game for some heated competition. It's fun having my finger on the pulse of what's going on... I suppose that's a result of having my hands in several cookie jars.

:glugglug

Brad

Dude.. get your hands off my cookies....

:Graucho

I cant wait until all the driveby scam artists and fly by night ops are gone.

On another note, hosting business is still climbing... I have just been noticing more clients closing shop or reducing their business.

I wonder how long till some of the hosting companies who thrive on GFY spamming will die out. Should be an interesting ride.

:glugglug

I intent to pay my bill this month.

I don't think we'll ever see them go away because they'll just get replaced by a new set of hosting retards. All you have to do is visit webhostingtalk.com and you'll discover that real hosting companies are few and far in between. LOL

Brad

good to lose some of the hobby people