yeah I thought about that, I used to work for a lawyer and that was on the top of the list to go to school for next. But I don't think the judge would let me work in my pjs :)

LoL :thumbsup

The iFriends/ClickCash model is truly a FREE program. No rebills or opt-out. You only pay for what you want. Either per-min or upgrade to VIP or fan clubs.

I think this is a good model for free signups, people WILL opt-in for content they want! But of course they don't get too much with the free sign up, just enough to tease them.

CECash has giving surfers/members vault points for 9 months.

For each month they rebill they receive CEVault points.

Not sure it would happen but it is a known fact the CEO of visa is totally against porn.:2 cents:

he won't be CEO of Visa all the time...
perhaps he will be replaced by someone with a "better" attitude ?

Beautifully said, CGI. Especially, "I don't see anyone who's on the level going anywhere anytime soon and if this all ends up going as I expect it will, we're all going to be better off in the long run due to this."

So true!

It takes THREE.

Webmasters, sponsors and CUSTOMERS. No porn surfers --> no porn sponsors --> no porn webmasters.

I'd like to jump on this bandwagon and applaud Marc, Mike, Lens and all of the others for taking the plunge and being upfront and honest about lowering payouts etc....

Also I send Cudos to Fantasyman and CE for being right there to say they are NOT lowering payouts at this time....

I believe the result of what is happening will be good for our industry and I welcome the change

We are still running the numbers over here at Fetish Cash, but I really don't forsee much of a change if any in store for our webmasters...
We have had our own merchant account with low chargebacks, low membership fees, no free trials, no pre-checked up sells, and we have always paid high payouts with GREAT conversions.


Interesting to watch this conversation across all of the boards...

:thumbsup

I agree

but why have paysites when surfers can get all the harcore porn they need to spank to for FREE

all I'm saying is Webmasters and sponsors need to work together to fix the problem from the ground up.

I agree with you totally Pattye! And your processor keeps it all happenin', right?

Mitch

I've been saying this for years.

Want to eradicate FREE? Stop paying for TGP traffic.

HBO and Showtime seem to do fine even with NBC, ABC, and CBS available for free.

Surfers ca not get all the porn they want for free. If they want, for example, full length name brand MILF Hunter movies, they will have to pay. If they want Jenna Jameson content they will have to pay. If they want to see a Hustler Centerfold, they will have to pay. You might be able to find that content somewhere on the web stolen, but that's irrelevant to the free vs. pay debate.

Either that, or hit KaZaa

I agree that surfers can find a lot of stolen content if they are willing to look, but that's a different issue than the free site debate.

When people talk about the free content issue, they always bring up The Hun, Sleazy, Sublime, etc. Those are not sites that promote stolen content, those are sites with legal free content. However, there is plenty of exclusive content that you cannot get from any free site (unless it's stolen.)

Agreed.

And I agree that a free business model can co-exist with a paid model, in a healthy relation.

The biggest problem with most TGP's is that many of them hit the surfer with the title/heading tag already, making sure he knows that he can find 100000000000000 free pics and movies on there. Now the amount may vary and it's not always as huge as they want to tell the surfers, but it's there. And if a surfer hits 10-20 TGP's via tradelinks, he's pretty much indoctrinated with the fact that there's shitloads of free porn out there and that he probably never have to pay for porn again. This behaviour pretty much conditions the surfer into an anti-pay mindset and makes any remotely potential sale even harder to make.

Add to that all the galleries advertising free memberships and whatnot, and you've got yourself a veritable, lean, mean, freeloader-creating machine.

Porn caters to a repeated, easy-to-satisfy need. The need to get off. It's not like watching an old movie on a free network and planning on getting HBO so you can get all the premieres. The surfer wants to get off, period. And if he's found something to get off to on ANY TGP, good luck selling him a porn membership. :Graucho

Hello everybody,

I have been following this thread for quiet some time now, I think it is time for me to comment on the subject.

First of all I would like to thank people such as FantasyMan, Mike Price, and Brad Shaw for sharing their knowledge with all of us. We all can learn from their experiences and use these to improve our industry.

Will Mainstream and the adult industry fade together over the next ten or twenty years? I say, yes it will! there will be a few ?survivors? with potential to turn their profitable business into a Powerhouse.

One can either react or respond to these recent changes. In my opinion it is best to respond.

way to go ... thefreakybeaver...
I applaud your honesty and willingness to discuss the issues.

This is a discussion thread - this is a discussion.

You made this thread a valuable source of information and it truly is revealing who's who ...

I believe there is a huge silent majority that is not speaking up because they do not want to bite the hand that feeds them - HUGE!

There are many people who have worked very hard to build a respectable quality online business that just keep getting screwed over by their suppliers.

For one of the biggest names in the industry (not mentioning names) ... I joined their affiliate program for their pay-site because they advertised on their website that "you keep your traffic for pop-ups, pop-unders and exit" etc ... etc..

When I tracked the affiliate ID in the first pop-up it wasn't mine.
I emailed their tech and they fixed it.

Then when the first pop-up popped another pop-up ...and the second pop-up had someone elses affilate ID I emailed them again ... and they fixed that one too ...

Then when the second pop-up went to the sign-up page ... it was someone elses affilate ID again ...

After the course of a months worth of constant emails ... and telling them about this "tech" problem of other peoples affiliate IDs showing up on the traffic I was sending them ... their reply was ... that's just the way it is in the industry ... get used to it.
Just one of many suppliers wasting HUNDREDS of hours of my time.

The supplier was one of the original founding members of ASACP.

These new VISA regulations I am not sure about yet.
But this has been an interesting thread for sure and you made it.
hats off to ...
thefreakybeaver ... for being willing to discuss the issues openly.

Dad@

Validus - that is a pretty damn good assumption :) In fact, I'd say I'm ahead of the curve. Watch the ARS closely in the coming weeks :)

React = you DO something
Respond = you SAY something

Wanna motivate your choice? :Graucho

I totally agree:thumbsup

We don't need to remove the Free stuff just censor it and not show pink. maybe the TGP owners and paysite owners need to get together and work it out.

it would just mean better conversions and more sales if we put a squeeze on the free hardcore

This is the most flawed analogy I've heard in a while. The business model NBC and major networks have been using since the 50's is based on product advertising. They make money from advertising, not the shows themselves. HBO makes money from advertising, but mostly from memberships.

The difference with the porn industry is that within mainstream television, an advertiser can promote ANY product. While within the porn industry, we can promote only porn related products. If NBC was trying to make money by promoting it's OWN shows, while still airing them free of charge, they would have been out of business a long time ago.

I'd like to issue a request to any sponsor who has the data available on tgp traffic. What are your average conversions as compared to other types of non-free traffic? What are your Chargeback rates as compared to non-free traffic? If tgp traffic is playing a role in high chargeback ratios, I'd certainly be interested to hear it. I think many of us don't want to be thrown into the same boat as webmasters that give it away for free. If the data proves this traffic source to be a contribution to the problem, I'd definately agree with damage: Stop paying out for this type of traffic, because at the same time you are penalizing those webmasters with quality traffic.

This was the original post on this tread... or at least the majority of it...

This is from the ARS website members area:

I'm confused....

I thought the $39.95 Monthly was supposed to drop to help with this issue

I'm sure I'm missing something.. so figured I'd ask....

I asked elsewhere, but got no response.. figured someone around here could help me with it...

:helpme

I don't see this as much of a big problem....build your own processing system instead of using a 3rd-party (as you'll have to follow whatever rules they put in place).

Now obviously this means more hassles for you, but in the long-run even without the fact you can pretty much do as you wish (long as you keep those cb % down), most processors/gateways charge quite a bit less % than 3rd-party billing.

Something to think about ;p

This is not to bash any 3rd-party processors out there, as you do your jobs well as a "service". I'm just wondering why more people (especially who have the money), just don't invest a little in their future.

People pay for HBO when a free advertising supported version of the same thing (with different content) already exists. That is not an analogy, it's a fact. Your argument actually would seem to be that free sites should exist, but that they should be advertising a wider variety of products. Nowhere do you make any argument that takes away from the idea that free and pay versions of the same service can (and do) co-exist successfully.

Would you also argue that HBO should never buy ads on broadcast TV because they would supporting the free version of themselves?

As far as free sites selling other products or services, Sleazy Dream made plenty of money without selling porn site memberships for a long time. He sold personals memberships. The reason he changed his system was because there was (obviously) more money in selling the advertising to the highest bidder. That highest bidder today appears to mostly be porn sites.

The fact that cable TV and broadcast TV co-exist shows that free and pay entertainment content can make money simultaneously. Perhaps free sites need to expand what the promote and pay sites need to make sure that their content is, like HBO, of such high quality, that people are willing to pay for it.