Industry Threat Thread
 

I've made a list of everything I could think of that is supposed to destroy this industry a million times over.

The deal with this thread is you need to copy the list below, add you threats to it, and post it again. I love to see how long this wil get. Starting now...

>>>>>> BEGIN COPY <<<<<<

2257
Acacia
Visa Pulling Online Porn Transactions
.xxx
8 years of Republicans in the Whitehouse
Child Protection Act
TGPs
Tube Sites
Xsales
Limited Members Areas
1% Chargeback
iBill
Meatholes
No Cookie Browsers
The Bad Economy
Online Porn Tax
AIDS Performer Breakout
ISPs Blocking Porn

>>>>>> END COPY <<<<<<

I'm sure there are more. That's all that came to mind quickly.

Now I ask...

Why am I still here?

Because it was all drama. I stopped being "scared" that the "industry" was ending back in the late 90's. There were only so many "catastrophes" that came and went that I could bear. After a while you start realizing that.

People who have been in business for a while know that all industries have these things. It is normal.

the industry is killing itself :2 cents:

That's what those 18 threats above us all said too.

Why are we still here? Some of these go back 6-7 years.

So what you are saying is that all the fuzz lately is basically nothing to worry about?

didn't you say you're earnimg like 2 times less now than 1-2 years ago?

or was that only your affiliate income?

Because for a long time there was balance in the supreme court. Next year there wont be and then you can start a thread on your desktop about what happened because you wont be posting on this board when Mccnube wins.

Here are a few more:
1. The never ending pop-ups that used to shut down the surfers machine when it ate up all the RAM in your computer and you couldn't stop it. 90+&#37; of sponsors were using them. And in 2000 the average "bad ass" computer had a max of about 500 megs of RAM Basically destroyed banner advertising for years.

2. Geo-redirection of affiliate links. Boy that one was tricky! European webmasters are just now starting to really come into their own. But back then, most U.S. webmasters didn't have a way to know what was going on. Fortunately for me at the time, I had European link trade partners who clued me in on what was happening with my traffic when I sent it to one program...they would geo-ip direct it to another program in different countries WITHOUT me getting any credit of course.

3. Dialers... THE biggest and hardest hitting scam of all times. Nothing comes close. Surfer merely opened up a website and BOOM! An installer loaded on their machine without their knowledge, and disconnected them from their dial up. Then it reconnected them to a NEW dial up. And the new one was charging them 5 to 10 dollars a MINUTE to surf! They didn't have to buy anything, and had NO chance to "cancel" anything. And didn't even know it was happening until the end of the month and after they had lost THOUSANDS of dollars.

And the funny thing is? Everybody that was around at that time either knowingly or unknowingly promoted and/or sent traffic to all of the above.

And the industry is still here. And many of us still make more money each year.

I have been in the biz for about 8-9 years and I haven't seen it this bad as it is right now.

My personal income has never been altered by 90&#37; of the threats you listed, tubes and bad economy are fucknig killing me, I'm aiming at launching at least 50 blogs per day + 50 mainstream blogs a week + legal tubes + whatever else comes to mind just to come back to my last year's income and then grow. BTW there's now ay I'm ever going to quit, I've learned a lot in these past few years and throwing all that work and experience away wouldn't be too wise.

I, just like most of the people here will have to cut expenses though, letting go some of the sites that never grew, closing some of my hosting accounts etc

Good thread! Been around since January 1998.

Meatholes? what's that

Meatcash's flagship site that everyone thought was "too rough" :1orglaugh

:2 cents:

it's even more funny that these people are still here and you (in general - not just you personally) hang out and party with them at every show

So you don't think anyone should hang with any of the top freesites in the world simply because they purposely OR inadvertantly did any of those things? Or we shouldn't hang out with any of the biggest programs in the world because they did that stuff back then? I think you might be too general in what you're saying. Think back to the companies that are old school and were around, and think back to the freesites that are old school and still around. We ALL do business with them in one way or another right now. And every one of them has changed their business models to keep up with the changing times. I happen to be friends with the people I see at the shows. And in most cases have made a lot of money with them.

My point being that a lot worse things have happened in the past and not only was it survived but the business grew. The last two years have seen ONE thing come in that didn't exist before: Tubes and Torrents stealing entire members areas and posting them for free.

That's the one thing I have seen really hurt the business. It's killing the generic sites. And it's killing my tgp's ability to make sales to all those big generic mega sites. And like I always do, I adapt to the situations. I've had to shift my emphasis to more niched sites and preferrably solo sites with member interaction.

Yes, but it's all the false panic that got things stirred up where people took action and
prepared for these things.

So panic is good sometimes.

Shaving, content theft, double billing.

There didn't used to be a "GFY" and people didn't use to have "false panic". Yet, here we are. Somehow we made it through some things that should have shut us down according to the experts here. Not sure how we somehow emerged and made it into the new millennium. Or how we ever got past 2000, or the beginning of 01 without people fixing things here on a message board. And I'm being very sarcastic about that by the way.

I do agree that GFY is a great place for info. And I have seen some cool things done here, just showing what can happen when people work together. I've also seen women bashed to the ground, Battus use this forum as his personal playground to amuse himself, surfers fill the memberlist, witch hunts that damaged people's businesses. and of course the seemingly endless "sport" of trying to damage someone's business because it's "fun" or the guy getting persecuted is a "jerk"

The way I remember the beginning of GFY it was a place for industry discussion. A place where you could make money by making fresh new contacts that you later would see in person at internext that year and cement relationships.

Now it seems to be a lot of "GOTCHA" going on. Nobody gets raised up. Every other thread is attack, attack, attack. And the threads that aren't started to attack ALL turn to shit because the replies all attack.

The world will always need porn.

lol, i remember promoting dialers back in 99, made 10k off one link but nothing was automactic like that. people had to agree to install and saw the per minute charges. Anyone who auto downloaded like that is a total scammer.

We all promoted "good" dialers. But yeah, there were plenty that did exactly what I described. Thank God broadband came along. Or else it would still be going on to this day.

Also even the ones we all promoted that were "good" were totally misleading. They said shit like: "Speed up your internet" or "You need to optimize your internet connection to view this page" REAL shady stuff even with those...and I can't remember one that actually showed the per minute charges...but I tried to stay away from those links and not click them. One time we set up a proxy server in Germany to be able to find all this shit on links...it was a nightmare out there.

Amazing how quickly sales stealing spyware was forgotten... there were 50 threads about them per day, not even 6 months ago...

spot on Robbie :thumbsup looks like Antonio is employing methods to stay ahead of the curve as well.

the strong will survive, it's the law of nature. porn and prostitution have existed for hundreds of years and will thrive for hundreds more. companies that hire innovators will evolve as the internet does and stay in business. not saying times ahead are going to be easy but definitely doable. :2 cents:

Damn you're right! I scanned over Jay's list and coulda swore zango was in there. Good catch.

You just described my sex life :1orglaugh

I would have never heard of zango if it wasn't for all the screaming going on here.
I think all the panic here (and else where) about zango is what led to p1mpdog
filing the lawsuit.

You're right. And that was definitely a case of the people of GFY alerting us all to something we never, ever would have caught. After I read it on here, I installed VM Ware and created a virtual box, installed ZANGO and started surfing everyone of my "bros" sites and reporting to them if they were getting nailed or not. I definitely used that info to take action and try to help. Good case in point sortie.

actually i was referring mostly to the dialer stuff - you have lots of people on here and at shows that have been making millions with dialers. and i don't mean webmasters or freesite owners - i mean those people who invented, programmed and distributed them. i have especially 3 companies in mind that are on here mostly everyday, top notch stand up people if you'd ask around but nevertheless made millions by fucking surfers over with self-installing dialers.

now the dialer is dead, the drama is forgotten and nowadays with a slightly changed business model they are well accepted by everyone.

same will probably happen to tube site owners, x-sell pushers or whatever is invented next: some will try to get a piece of the cake, others will complain and in 2 years no one knows anymore what we have been discussing about today

Got ya. But actually the guy who was really the brains behind the dialers was in Germany, and I've never seen him at any show and haven't even heard of him since back in 2003 So if I'm hanging with a dialer king at the shows, it's inadvertent.

You are so right! Things are going down the drain and some companies out there are too stupid to stop hurting the industry. I forsee us all working at Burger King in a year or so.

Stop letting the noobs in.


They just steal everyones ideas.

No matter how much bullshit is thrown. the economy has definitely hit this industry hard. Why do you think everyone is going precheck crazy and sponsors are offering to give away the house because sales are so good?
Now the cracks are going to show in our industry, the successful inspite of ourselves days are coming to a close.
Also 1&#37; may of not have been the end of the world but where can it go from there not up?
The republicans made changes to 2257, another 8 yrs it can become worse.If 911 didnt happen you would of felt real pain.
I have no doubt some people went under from ibill.
To be in business and to not look beyond today will eventually become a recipe for failure.

Still nobody has done this right in this whole thread, so I will do it. Here is the new list:

2257
Acacia
Visa Pulling Online Porn Transactions
.xxx
8 years of Republicans in the Whitehouse
Child Protection Act
TGPs
Tube Sites
Xsales
Limited Members Areas
1% Chargeback
iBill
Meatholes
No Cookie Browsers
The Bad Economy
Online Porn Tax
AIDS Performer Breakout
ISPs Blocking Porn
Popups Shuting Down Everything
Geo-Redirection
Forced Dialers
Torrents

The only thing I see being a legitmate threat is sites like pornhub, that are basiclly members areas flipped inside out. These are becoming more and more popular with younger surfers, so pretty soon it will seem like a ludicrous idea to pay for porn and without which some of these more aggressive tactics wouldn't be needed because a porn consumer actually knew you have to pay for content.

We update filthfreaks with 2 fresh exclusive episodes every single day. Where is that money supposed to come from?

if you list iBill please also put Globill, Globosale, PSW Billing, Lancelot, My Virtual Card and the 10 others I forgot on the list

We are here because we are fulfilling a basic human need. A primal urge that is far greater than anything on that list.

I think you meant AMEX pulling porn transactions not visa :)

Thank heavens! I was hoping that wasn't real! :winkwink:

there was a huge worry that visa was going to pull adult transactions 2 or 3 years ago .. to much fraud for the less than 1% of sales in their business model .

Fair enough.

I will admit I was crying about the tubes and torrents, but I hiked up my skirt.

I'm making more money than ever! No real complaints here.

Fucking A Right!

The need to release sperm trumps ALL OF THAT SHIT!!!

One thing that WILL severely wound if not kill the industry is giving away FREE PRODUCT.

Free product removes a potential customer it also trains customers to view your product as something with no value.

I agree 100%

Isn't Visa a public company now with shareholders to answer to?

Things to do about tube sites.


1) prove that they do in fact monitor their networks, thus closing the 2257/copyright protection loophole that they hide behind.

2) repeal the dmca at the congressional level and have it rewritten to make sense with the times and technology.

3) successfully prosecute one of the advertisers for contributory infringement, thus shutting off their revenues, which i am still not convinced are that high.


other than that, no one is gonna do shit about tubes. NOTHING!

no sense in anyone ever posting anything about them if you can't do one of the three things above.

chhhhuuuuuuccchhhhhhh!!!!

After much research, I've reached the same conclusion. You could waste a bunch of money with a lawyer, but that's all you will do is: waste money.

yo, i just sent you email with that info.

The industry is perfectly fine, except for the fact that it takes a lot more of everything to do anything these days. In other words, 8 hours of work accomplishes what 4 hours of work did 5 years ago. 10,000 uniques generates as much revenue as 5000 uniques did 5 years ago and so on.

All things being equal, webmasters can expect to continue seeing their conversions decline further and further as the years progress. If your average conversion ratio right now is 1:1000, it is likely 5 years ago, it was around 1:500 or better. Five years from now, it will likely be 1:5000.

As long as one keeps generating more traffic to compensate for worsening ratios, they'll be fine.