Ah well if there were only one way to make money in this business we'd have one program owner, one board owner, one tgp owner, etc...
Anything can be turned into money if it's handled correctly in this business. Saying that mailing is the only or the best way to make money is like saying blue is the best color car to drive. It's one way yes, but not the one that works for everyone or the one that everyone likes to do. And as more people get into mailing, it becomes less profitable all the way around, just like anything else.
Why do sponsors have hosted galleries? Well, having instituted them at one program I can tell you why we did it. It wasn't really about doing sales from them, same as having a freehost or offering free content to the resellers... it's about giving resellers enough tools to feel that your program is doing the most for them, and thus grabbing their other traffic that they could send to other programs as well. If they break even that's great, if you get more resellers sending more traffic and therefore creating more joins in the overall program then it should be worth it if you've set yourself up correctly with hosting and hardware etc.
If the competition isn't doing hosted galleries and you are, there is an edge. If the competition is doing hosted galleries and you aren't, then you've just handed the edge to your competitor.
And as anyone who plays the big dick game -- oh wait I think that's called the volume sales model lol -- you are only as good as what you can get ahead of the competition with today and you have to keep thinking for tomorrow.
Personally I can't wait to see people just paying resellers, forget the sending traffic or making sales. It's bound to be coming at this rate.
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