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Yes tube traffic is surprisingly good for paysites (I mean traffic coming from a banner that is under the clip featuring this paysite's stuff, not from a random ad spot), but CTRs are low (0.3-0.5%), spots are limited and there's only a handful of major tubes that hold onto 80% of traffic. Because of that tubes aren't a viable replacement for an army of affiliates of the past.
Good tube ratios for some paysites is not an argument in their favor, as many posters portray them tubes in this thread as nearly saviors of our industry. That's far from truth. Yes ratios can be good but there isn't enough traffic at tubes to support our industry's ecosystem as it was in the past.
It doesn't even matter that much if a tube is legit or not - they all have low CTRs. Average TGP gallery of the past had about 3% CTR, and an average tube page of nowadays about 0.3%, that's 10 times less traffic going back to paysites, meaning less income for everybody, and what's more important less money going back into new production that fuels the entire system.
An average affiliate would contribute to the problem, by adding more and more links to many either relevant or irrelevant products to monetize their traffic better. Following strict TGP rules of the past, affiliates could have only 1 banner on a gallery, and that was of a paysite. FHGs provided by sponsors of course didnt have any AFF and LJ banners at them. Those two were the main source of promotion and 100% of the traffic went back to paysites. But nowadays, with more and more promotion going under direct control of affiliates (and that includes tubes, no matter legit or not), most galleries or tube pages are heavily spammed with dating, cams, pills, traffic brokers links and ad network banners, meaning only a fraction of traffic generated by paysite's content is going back to this paysite. The rest is for parasites.
I wouldn't blame affiliates because it's natural for people to search for more opportunities, but by doing so they contribute to their own demise, by undermining the very reason of their existence. The reason why small affiliate still exists is that there are still paysites that update, provide promo materials and keep their stuff off major illegal tubes - which results in affiliates having something fresh and different from what major tubes post, and thus still clinging to some traffic. But by not feeding your partner paysites well with traffic, you're shooting yourself in the foot. When those updates will stop you'll no longer be able to offer your surfers something different from what they can get and major tubes, and most of your traffic will naturally flock to xvideos and xhamster.
I wouldn't even go into the piracy factor, which is indeed an even bigger problem. I'm merely pointing out the fact that just a natural shift in advertising priorities that is happening right now in the remaining legit part of our joke of an "industry" is enough to cripple our ecosystem beyond repair. My estimation is that when the shift is finally over, there will be about 10 times less traffic going back to paysites than it was in pre tube era. Go figure.
Check Alexa data for most programs, you'll see that their traffic is on steady decline for the past 2 years. My prediction is that if the current trends will not reverse, our industry will desintegrate in about 2 years from now. About 80% of programs that still update will stop posting new materials, with them about 80% of current affiliates disappear. Programs that still update will rely more on brand loyalty and member retention, rather than affiliate traffic.
I disagree with what Robbie said in some minor details, but big picture wise, he's 100% correct. Our industry is speeding full throttle to it's own demise because of piracy and this new shift in advertising priorities pushed by sales managers from ad network etc. If you're not seeing it, your blind. Tube traffic, however good, isn't going to save anybody, there's simply not enough of it.
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