You just described the "mega porn sites" back in 1997 The more things change, the more they stay the same. Just a new batch of people figuring it out for the first time.
Paysites are FAR superior to what they were back then. I can't say that I've seen many bad members areas these days. Back then, we had to buy content discs (I was one of the first ones going to shows and asking for hosted galleries from all the big boys) make our own content and host everything ourselves to make a sale.
And then when you actually went into the members areas of the paysites...Wooo, it was bad. Really bad. There would be about 20 links (text) to different photo sets of real old zmaster pic content. And then a link to the old pornholio feeds. And that was it.
Most times the picture content was just the same 20 sets spread across all the paysites (No, the member didn't get a "pass" to all the sites back then) So if you bought a membership to "Major Melons" it was the same content as on "Karas"
That is, if you want to call 20 picture sets "content" lol
The whole feature of the sites back then was the pornholio feeds. And the x-sells went like hotcakes...but not as fast as the multi-million pop-ups that would shut your poor 400 mhz cpu computer down into a hard boot.
That was the business model back then. Create a "network" of 50 paysites with the same content and then retain by use of pornholio feeds (nobody had movies on their sites back then, except for Blacks On Blondes who were awesome), and then pop up to your "competitors" sites and sell clicks back and forth.
And no, it wasn't 10 k a week. I make that as an affiliate for Gods' sake. It was...and IS a helluva lot more than that bro.
It's just amazing to me how many people who are supposed to be in this business don't really know very much about how it works and who made and makes money and who didn't and doesn't and why.