Memberships VS Pay Per View
 

Why is the membership model still so popular? Are (mostly) forgotten rebills the only way to make bank?

With all the p2p going on, why are so many sites still giving away the store, where users can download current updates and old updates, paying only one price to basically get access to all, etc?

Is it not lucrative enough to charge by update , or view, whether old or new?

Good question. However, it's working well enough that it's still the model. When economic reality pushes to another model, then we'll see a change. I guess the factors you mentioned (tons of free content, etc) still hasn't changed the equation enough for many operators to make the switch to another business model.