Originally Posted by Brad Mitchell

Guys, I love you both, and you know it! But let's be honest, you're both business owners stretching the definition on "affiliate" and giving it a higher weight than the fullness of what you actually are in order to justify getting a free badge under norms that were acceptable 18 years ago. By your desired definition, everyone that is receiving affiliate checks should qualify for an affiliate badge... and that would be everyone, wouldn't it? It would, because everyone is getting affiliate checks.

The whole idea of a free affiliate badge is outdated, I think. Even offering a free affiliate badge is clinging on to the past because the numbers have changed. This was relevant when there were hundreds of programs spending millions in sponsorship and thousands of affiliates that those sponsors wanted to meet - but that was 2005.

They just shouldn't do it anymore in my opinion because it results in the general unhappiness I'm seeing in this thread. When really, everyone needs some skin in the game, no different than every other kind of business conference, to take their event expectations and contributions more seriously.