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The litmus test on the "fairness" of these billing procedures is if you can hold the merchant account and not blow up the bank with chargebacks...I think people in the know are familiar with the answer to this question...
Where is Colin when we need him?
Colin, please explain the "The Nash Equilibrium" better than I can...
Here is an example -
The Prisoner's Dilemma
In Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22, allied victory in World War II is a foregone conclusion, and Yossarian does not want to be among the last ones to die. His commanding officer points out, "But suppose everyone on our side felt that way?" Yossarian replies, "Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"
Every general reader has heard of the prisoner's dilemma. The police interrogate two suspects separately, and suggest to each that he or she should fink on the other and turn state's evidence. "If the other does not fink, then you can cut a good deal for yourself by giving evidence against the other; if the other finks and you hold out, the court will treat you especially harshly. Thus no matter what the other does, it is better for you to fink than not to fink -- finking is your uniformly best or 'dominant' strategy." This is the case whether the two are actually guilty, as in some episodes of NYPD Blue, or innocent, as in the film LA Confidential. Of course, when both fink, they both fare worse than they would have if both had held out; but that outcome, though jointly desirable for them, collapses in the face of their separate temptations to fink.
Yossarian's dilemma is just a multi-person version of this. His death is not going to make any significant difference to the prospects of victory, and he is personally better off alive than dead. So avoiding death is his dominant strategy.
In essence...look out for numero uno. The Nash Equilibrium forces people to consider what other people are THINKING before making their choices also...ie, thinking about thinking...and if you are in an industry where you think numerous people are thinking we're on a runaway train towards the abyss, do you hop on the train to get what you can...or do you stand on the tracks watching as it runs you over...
I dunno....I just wonder how many people have saved for a rainy day..cuz it's starting to sprinkle...
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Someone who is well respected but does not want to put their name sent me this in ICQ, I guess they do not want to be put in the catagory troublemaker, like the rest of us!
Quote:
I'm not going to post this, but sorry, a 40 buck payout on an mlm program has to be shaved to hell. The business model simply doesn't work.
I tend to agree, I do not understand how a reseller for Babenet can make enough money to pay out $40. What is babenet paying out per sale? $45 cannot be much more...
So the program would have to do a lot of work, have servers, tours, customer support people, all for $5 a signup or so? I am not buying it.
Of course there is money to be made in exit consoles, I am sure they control that... and probably where the real money is in this business model.
And Shann, while I am not new to the business, I am new to the MLM business model that babenet is running with....
I have been working hard past month, and will continue to for the future business model I want to move HiRise towards. My business model which I stumbled into in 1996 is not doing as well in todays enviroment, so I am looking around and seeing what I need to do to posistion my company to be around the next 5 years....
Like Jim said, it is starting to rain....
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Mike Babenet has always had their own merchant accounts, i can't think of any other company doing the amount of dollars they do that has been able to do this, no idea how they keep them but i got an email from a video biz person who said Babenet is ......... hmmmmmmmmmmmm...........well let's just say they're well connected in many places. Meaning they have carte blanche to do whatever they want with somebody's credit card once they have it, a sign up is worth more to them than to a company that plays by most of the rules and has major costs.
Nobody seems to exactly know who Babenet is. I always thought it was owned by VCA, one of the largest adult video companies whose roots go way back, but there are more people involved in Babenet than Russ Hampshire who owns VCA. I don't think he probably has anything to do with Babenet's operations.
Also dont forget that Babenet pays nothing for content, what little they do have in the members areas is probably from VCA.
If you go into a Babenet members area take a look at which big boy gets the traffic. No customer is going to stay a member of that shithole website, there are ads lots of ads pushing them to other websites.
So your friend might be wrong, they might be paying out enough to these 'front' operators who are heavy heavy into spamming to be able to afford paying them $50 maybe even $60 per signup. So they can turn around and pay out $40 to their affilliates.
I am still trying to figure out where this is an MLM, Michael? I don't really see it as that intrinsically different than an AVS or another build your own tour type of set up. Of course the big difference is that they are paying the intermediary (PieCash, etc) who is then paying their own resellers, which is once again not the way an MLM works -- the parent company would have to be making the payouts to everyone, not paying the intermediary the entire amount and letting them pay their resellers...
I thought Slav mentioned they were paying out 40 bucks on a 40 buck join, well that isnt rocket science and is easily doable, especially in light of people who pay 35 bucks on a 4 dollar signup...
Obviously if Babenet is controlling the exit traffic and the rebills on joins, it's an entirely doable business model, and from the paying on joins perspective, it's a lot less risky than the traditional setup for both the backend and the intermediary providers.
Is everyone getting 40 dollars per join? Could it be that some are getting more than that? Or less than that? I think there are probably quite a few program owners who would be happy to take a flat 5 or 10 dollars per join and not have the hassle of dealing with member areas, retention, that sort of thing.
What it boils down to when I look at it is that the intermediaries are basically just brokering joins. Not a traditional method no, but they dont have the liability of the unproductive members or traffic on their heads or in their cash flow either...
I have done alot of email marketing for quite some time. And I send to whatever program that makes the most money, I send to http://www.sexpromote.com everyday , I make much more sending to my own sites then any other program I have ever tried. I have done test signups and guess what??? Every single one has been accounted for.
Another thing , believe me , there is alot of money to be made in this business model.
KK I do not know the details, so I am as confused as you are.
Does babenet control the exit or does the program?
I mention it as a MLM program because babenet does more then process for them, and provie authentication ( which is what an AVS does). It appears babenet provides the entire back end, the entire members area. So in essence you are selling babenet members access. There are more then one company doing it, and there seems to be levels... so that is how I come up with the MULTI - LEVEL MARKETING.
It could be a wonderful business model, I am just trying to understand it 100%. If I wanted to be a reseller for babenet, where would I go to find out the details? Who has the information?
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Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 06:21 PM There are more then one company doing it, and there seems to be levels... so that is how I come up with the MULTI - LEVEL MARKETING.
come on Mike, if thats what you call an MLM anything could be considered an MLM
crossbilling would be an MLM
i dont really see any levels here but as Toolz said the set up is roughly the same as ARS BYOT. Would ARS be an MLM as well ?
By this thinking Your House Mortgage is an MLM. Your bank always sells your mortage to another bank.
Maybe if I do a diagram it would be easier to understand how I am talking about this as a MLM.
BABENET
( (
piecash sexpromote etc. etc. etc.
{{{{ {{{{{{{ {{{ {{{ {{{
Webmasters Webmasters Webmasters
Sure this is not the same as some huge MLM programs, it still is MLM to me.
The issue is whose customer is the signup? If customer has complaint, or needs something who does he contact? Who is ultimiately responsible?
Also another big difference, as it appears to me, is that babenet is hiding behind these fronts. With the ARS product you must go to ARS to deal with the codes, and support and such. With this, there is no contact with babenet....
This can be seen in 2 ways... 1 babenet does not want to interfere with their resellers. Or 2 babenet is hiding behind their resellers because they have a bad name in the business and webmasters who have been burned by them, would not do business....
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Make big money on your Domains! Why wait 40 days to get paid with the other guys? Parked.com pays the most for your traffic, and cuts checks twice a month!
I dunno about weirder but he does look to be getting wider and wider...
Michael, if you have a point to make then come out and make it, you're starting to beat a dead horse with this MLM stuff.
I am sure you know where the Babenet site is, and if you wanted to talk to someone there you'd find a contact email on the site to use...
Hell if you get the exit traffic, *I* might have to look into this. It's been awhile since I've heard about it, so I'm sure it has streamlined and evolved.
By your definition you've made every AVS, ahem, into an MLM setup...
Originally posted by Serge_Oprano@Feb 11 2003, 03:54 PM I dunno....I just wonder how many people have saved for a rainy day..cuz it's starting to sprinkle...
********************************
I was taking penis enlargement pills for rainy day...
I am ready for content photoshoots,
anybody knows a good and respectable fluffer?
OMG I finally get to see Tony's tattooed dick, and yours too Serge.... though you win size wise, Tony wins for artistic merit! rofl
And we control our exits. And yes, we do exit trades, we send traffic to other programs, and when we mail other programs (some who have slammed us in this thread) guess what? We get more sign ups then they do.
Example: Send to ourselves, 75 joins, send to pay sites get 50 joins, send to someone who slammed us in this thread, get a total of 34 joins and wait over a month and still waiting for the recip traffic.
SO if anyone wants to talk trading traffic hit me up, it's much easier than getting distracted by looking at cocks! Hubba hubba!
funny how everyone here that doesnt understand what's wrong with the babenet model of business, and who are comparing it to the ARS BYOT doesnt appear to have ever looked at a babenet signup form...
please do... come back and talk afterward...
That means you KK
Last edited by DrGuile at Feb 12 2003, 08:49 AM
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Mike,
from babenet's perspective, this is a beneficial and safe move because
a) there are 20 programs contributing to the babenet member base of rebills. i know some of the webmasters who run these programs and the traffic volume's they are capable of. Babenet would be doing signups in the 4 figures per day using this system and at a rough rate of 30% staying first month and 30% staying 2nd month the volume will be enough to sustain a profit.
by giving a webmaster who can generate 200+ signups per day an affiliate program of their own, you guarantee their 200 signups are going to stay with you everyday plus a few referrals of the same size MINIMUM.
c) at no time is babenet allowing the affiliate program access to the areas of information that will bring babenet potential risk, such as processing. according to visa, visa has a deal with babenet and is responsible for all risks associated with the 20 'agents' running programs. therefore, you don't just let anybody run a program.
mutt, you are bitching about a different issue - the signup process with its upsells. THIS is what visa will have a problem with once the daily signups reach a point that creates the magic number of chargebacks for visa to say 'bye bye'.
in the case of piecash and any other program running on this system, the risk to them is obvious and the operators are staking their reputation on the success of the program.
it is not as dramatic as this thread has made it seem.
CJ I think you are right on the numbers... as always.
KK I really am not beating a dead horse, trying to find out the details. No one still has given them out. It seems like it is a quick easy way to build a program.
I was just curious how the dynamics work, guess I will have to contact Babenet and get the details.....
__________________
Make big money on your Domains! Why wait 40 days to get paid with the other guys? Parked.com pays the most for your traffic, and cuts checks twice a month!
Make big money on your Domains! Why wait 40 days to get paid with the other guys? Parked.com pays the most for your traffic, and cuts checks twice a month!
Originally posted by DrGuile@Feb 12 2003, 05:49 AM funny how everyone here that doesnt understand what's wrong with the babenet model of business, and who are comparing it to the ARS BYOT doesnt appear to have ever looked at a babenet signup form...
please do... come back and talk afterward...
That means you KK
So sorry Guile, apparently sarcasm and ridicule went right over your head.
I don't see a problem with it. If people want to use this as their backend then you know what, it's a free country and they are welcome to do it.
Is it the be all end all to having a program? Probably not.
Is it going to put us all out of business singlehandedly? Hell no.
Is it any more 'liberal' in its' practices than about half the AVS out there? Ding ding ding, nope, it's not, unless things have changed drastically since I looked at it in August.
I don't see Babenet hiding anything, heck they openly approach and discuss with people on a regular basis... of course that's how they get clients for it...
Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 12 2003, 10:03 AM CJ I think you are right on the numbers... as always.
KK I really am not beating a dead horse, trying to find out the details. No one still has given them out. It seems like it is a quick easy way to build a program.
I was just curious how the dynamics work, guess I will have to contact Babenet and get the details.....
Mike, the important factor to success of a project like this is not allowing it to be an 'open application' where anyone can run a program. From my limited knowledge of their specifics, I believe that all program 'operators' have been hand selected up to a point.
I had an almost completed project like this for 6 months before i gave up trying to co-ordinate the number of elements needed to make this scale of project work. I can see the benefits to both babenet and the program operators ... the logistics are simple, provided you can always pay the program owners at least $5 - $10 per member more than they are paying their webmasters.
Personally, i'd like to be in the position of the program operators ... a guaranteed $5 - $15 per signup (depending on what you payout), with no risk of chargebacks, no members area costs, nothing but traffic and marketing. Being able to do what you do best for the most amount of money ... isn't that why we are here?
lets see what happens come april when visa launches PART II of LETS END THE ADULT INTERNET!
I am amazed at the incopmetance of the people at VISA. How hard is it to crack down on frauds, and those who are abusing the system?
I could come up with a 5 step program that would eliminate a majority of the fraud from large programs and companies. VISA has absolute power on credit card processing, yet is as ignorant to the real problems.... and rather solving the real issues with a scapel, then would rather use a meat cleaver.
__________________
Make big money on your Domains! Why wait 40 days to get paid with the other guys? Parked.com pays the most for your traffic, and cuts checks twice a month!
And CJ you are right, I have been looking around the babenet program and it appears it may be an invite only... which is good, at least they are not letting every twit in....
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Make big money on your Domains! Why wait 40 days to get paid with the other guys? Parked.com pays the most for your traffic, and cuts checks twice a month!
Originally posted by cj@Feb 13 2003, 03:00 AM
Mike, the important factor to success of a project like this is not allowing it to be an 'open application' where anyone can run a program. From my limited knowledge of their specifics, I believe that all program 'operators' have been hand selected up to a point.
Bingo cj. Can you imagine what would happen if this was open to everyone and their dog? It could very well turn into a nightmare. All the foreign spammers with their rape tours would be filling our inboxes with babenet stuff.
I, myself, considered this a good "temporary" idea for starting a couple paysites with cheap overhead with the intent of changing to your own members area once a good amount of money was accumulated. The problem with that is your affiliates would have to change all their codes. Then again, it could still work if your operation was "controlled". We all know a program can survive with a handful of good traffic senders vs. hundreds of smaller webmasters anyway.
The program owner is in a killer position with not only control over the designs of their sites, their own consoles, AND correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe they can keep the email list that is gathered. God I love emails.
Anyway, it IS very important to know exactly who is following this model so we don't end up unintentionally put all our eggs in one basket. The joins we have accumulated through babenet backend sites have been better than the programs without. So, it's very important to pay close attention "just in case" something happens.
I'm shocked that no one is mentioning the other company/companies that are doing this same thing. Everyone keeps talking about ARS but that isn't the same because they are not letting their webmasters run entire affiliate programs, just individual sites.
You know, for some reason this reminds me of being on the Netpond newbie board when I started out and the big thing was to mass produce as many free sites, avs, and tgps all pointing to the same program. Now I guess mass producing front ends with little thought or care for what happens after the sale is the "thing to do".
I'm not necessarily for or against. Just intrigued
Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 14 2003, 02:13 PM I am amazed at the incopmetance of the people at VISA. How hard is it to crack down on frauds, and those who are abusing the system?
But don't the CC companies make money each time there's a transaction? So if there are 10,000 fraudulent transaction, they make fees. Then they make fees on the chargebacks. Then they get to charge 29% interest and say it's because the fraud rates are so high, when in reality, in most cases, they aren't out a dime - the merchant is. They have no real incentive to stop fraud, do they?
Originally posted by Diamond Jim@Feb 11 2003, 04:12 PM The litmus test on the "fairness" of these billing procedures is if you can hold the merchant account and not blow up the bank with chargebacks...I think people in the know are familiar with the answer to this question...
Where is Colin when we need him?
Colin, please explain the "The Nash Equilibrium" better than I can...
Here is an example -
The Prisoner's Dilemma
In Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22, allied victory in World War II is a foregone conclusion, and Yossarian does not want to be among the last ones to die. His commanding officer points out, "But suppose everyone on our side felt that way?" Yossarian replies, "Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"
Every general reader has heard of the prisoner's dilemma. The police interrogate two suspects separately, and suggest to each that he or she should fink on the other and turn state's evidence. "If the other does not fink, then you can cut a good deal for yourself by giving evidence against the other; if the other finks and you hold out, the court will treat you especially harshly. Thus no matter what the other does, it is better for you to fink than not to fink -- finking is your uniformly best or 'dominant' strategy." This is the case whether the two are actually guilty, as in some episodes of NYPD Blue, or innocent, as in the film LA Confidential. Of course, when both fink, they both fare worse than they would have if both had held out; but that outcome, though jointly desirable for them, collapses in the face of their separate temptations to fink.
Yossarian's dilemma is just a multi-person version of this. His death is not going to make any significant difference to the prospects of victory, and he is personally better off alive than dead. So avoiding death is his dominant strategy.
In essence...look out for numero uno. The Nash Equilibrium forces people to consider what other people are THINKING before making their choices also...ie, thinking about thinking...and if you are in an industry where you think numerous people are thinking we're on a runaway train towards the abyss, do you hop on the train to get what you can...or do you stand on the tracks watching as it runs you over...
I dunno....I just wonder how many people have saved for a rainy day..cuz it's starting to sprinkle...
Jim,
I have also thought of game theory and it's application to ethical decisions adult companies contemplate. I should probably keep my conclusions to myself. The risk is too high.
The deal on game theory for anyone interested. Game theory is just what it sounds like. The
theory of how games are played. Most of the classical interest in game theory has revolved
around two party zero sum games.
* Two party zero sum games have two participants
* Zero sum means that the sum of the reward or penalties is always constant (years in
prison, money, whatever). Example, two people play a game and $100 is divided between them depending on how they play the game.
The "Nash Equilibrium" occurs when both parties have made a decision such that if either of
them changes their strategy and the other doesn't, they end up worse off than they
were before. It was authored by John Nash, the mathematician from the movie "A Beautiful Mind".
Game theory has been used to analyze political strategies such as whether one should defect
from a treaty or uphold it. Is it better to make an arms agreement with a rival nation and illegally break it or hold to it hoping the other nation does too?
Game theory was used during World War II in the consideration of Japanese bombing targets. Should one always bomb the best targets or will that lead to increased defense of those targets? I believe the answer was a mixed strategy. Sometimes you bomb the best ones, sometimes not. Often in life, according to game theory, the best answer is a mixed strategy.
In football for example, passing attempts yield more yards than rushing attempts however a mixed strategy is usually better and one reason is that if the defense knows you will pass every down, that nice high yards per pass attempt will head straight down. There are exceptions of course.
It's really interesting to consider the glut of free content with game theory in mind. Is it
worth it for TGP owners to saturate the market in order to make meager profits themselves if
it decreases the overall sales in the entire market?
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It's really interesting to consider the glut of free content with game theory in mind. Is it
worth it for TGP owners to saturate the market in order to make meager profits themselves if
it decreases the overall sales in the entire market?
Colin, this question would be good if the TGP owner had something to lose to start with - they don't. They start with no income, move up to some income, they are better off than when they started. From their solitary point of view, things went from worse to better.
The people paying the price are not related to the ones making the new income, so there is no feedback circle to stop the negative results. Program owners know that if they start to turn down TGP traffic (not even sure how they could), someone else will take it and they will lose MORE sales as a result.
The one thing I have learned in this business is that there is always someone willing to work on an even smaller margin. It's stunning, sometimes.
Alex
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Is it
worth it for TGP owners to saturate the market in order to make meager profits themselves if
it decreases the overall sales in the entire market?
Unfortunately, most people can't comprehend game theory (I barely grasped it when I read the book, I'd imagine there are only a handful of folks here that do understand it completely), and even fewer bother to contemplate the consequences of their business strategies. The "me first and only me" rationale that seems to be prevalent in this industry does indeed seem to be bound to destroy us all.
I remember many of us causing an uproar several years ago when TGP's first emerged, saying that it would decrease paysite sales and affect the entire industry. It seems to have come to pass because I don't believe that it's only the world economy that has caused the virtual downfall of online porn.
The glut of free content and broadband access has made it far less attractive to the surfer to pay for porn. I've heard this from many more men recently in the real world. They have access to almost all the content found in paysites for free, video is readily available and what's not on TGP's is on napster-style sites.
Hosted galleries following the free content and hosting that all sponsors now have to offer to be able to compete with the large companies are only adding to this problem. It's gotten to the point where any John Doe from Bodunk can open his own porn business because there is virtually no investment on his part, so the more people that enter the business part-time to make 100 extra bucks a month, the smaller the piece of the pie becomes. No one even has to have the basic knowledge of html, graphics or design, it's all done for them now.
Add that to there being enough bad paysites out there to burn out the paying surfer and most of us are in trouble. The few that are making money now don't think about the future, but it's been that way since the beginning of this industry.
The vast majority of people in the adult biz had no prior business education or experience, so trying to explain any of this to them is like banging your head against a brick wall, very few will listen or care. They're here to grab what they can and refuse to envision what appears to be the rapid demise of the industry as a whole.
Ok, lol, Alex was posting at the same time I was and managed to say it all in a lot fewer words..I should just edit my post to say, "yeah, what he said!"
Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 14 2003, 02:55 PM Colin, this question would be good if the TGP owner had something to lose to start with - they don't. They start with no income, move up to some income, they are better off than when they started. From their solitary point of view, things went from worse to better.
It's STILL a good question. In fact it is still THE question. It's not a question of whether they are better off than before but rather whether they are better off than they would have been. Isn't that THE question we are considering and not the one you are suggesting? We all know companies that defected from the standards and rules most of us adhere to do better in the short-run and some of them even did better than they ever would have by not defecting.
Without the free content glut, a TGP webmaster may have put effort into another free site endeavor with little start up capital, taken more time to get going but eventually made more money. Maybe without TGPs, it takes twice as long to make the same money in other free site projects but then it runs ahead.
The answer as to what is better may be either but it's still a fantastically interesting question, both specifically and in general.
The question is not which path is better. The question is which path is best.
Last edited by Colin at Feb 14 2003, 03:09 PM
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Does anybody know if overall revenues from Net porn have declined this year to last, last year to the year before? Or did it plateau? Or................is Net porn revenue still growing somewhat but the pie is being nibbled on by more webmasters and programs so that everybody is seeing drop in business even tho biz might still be growing?
CCBill, IBill and Epoch know the answer. Only they can know for sure. They have the historical data and between them probably process 80% of all porn transactions.
Sorry but little to add to this as it really has all been said above. I really just wanted to say wow - one of the only (the only?) educated discussions I've seen and most of the posts with a very good understanding of the causes of delining sales and true impact of free porn.
Originally posted by originalheather@Feb 14 2003, 03:14 PM The problem is that there are very few willing to consider the question, even if they could understsand it in the first place.
Most of us act locally. What happens globally is the sum.
Porn as an industry is so unique. It's not like we can ask anyone to bail us out if the evolution of the industry is such that it ends up a dodo bird. - as happened to the airline industry for example.
Laissez faire is pure evolution. Sometimes it produces evolutionary hiccups.
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Finally - a chance to get a word in - this thread has been zooming along like a rocket
It's really refreshing for someone to come out and say what a lot of us knew - most parts of the adult industry are struggling. Apart from the free aspect this industry has to be feeling the effects of the world economic downturn simply because it is a business like any other and there is no reason why general economic principles would not apply.
Interestingly not all parts of the industry are in the doldrums, some small paysite operators that I talk to are still doing very well because they provide exclusive content for their members areas.
Perhaps that is why the 'reality' sites are also reporting good sales - not so much because of the 'reality' aspect but because their content is exclusive.
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Originally posted by *KK*@Feb 14 2003, 12:34 AM If what I heard today is even remotely true, it's not going to take til April.
Whatever you heard, then I´m sure that some other payment system(s) could sell as good if not better than visa/mc. If just the processors would start to spread more of the risk by getting more local/national payment options, then we could see visa/mc drop from 80-90% of most websites transactions to prehaps 30-50% (if not even lower) - without loosing income!
Programs using Babenet are ok in my book - aslong as they do not try to hide the fact that they are "resellers"... The setup sounds really like how the dialer companies build their affiliate model - it allowed them for fast growth, however it ended with everyone having their own dialer program, and when some of the dialer networks closed, then alot of the dialer program owners were missing payments, and either had to pay out of their own pocket to their affiliates or close their programs/sites/companies...
As for the Babenet sites/tours price model - well I guess they know what they are doing, and if VISA/MC didn´t like or know about the model, then I´m sure they will eventually (that is, if there is a problem).
__________________ "Chaos is the law of nature, order is the dream of man."
~Henry B. Adams (Historian) 1838-1918
There will be even more free content in the future - there is only 1 way to stop it... politics/goverments, but thats probably not going to happen within the near future...
However I think its a matter of who controls the free content, not that its there. If people who control the free content is doing it to make big $, then it will be good for all
If it will be people who gets more excited when their counter rank rise, then when they receive an extra digit on their paycheck - well then it will not be pretty in the long run.
I wish that every paysite owner and every tgp owner could switch roles for just 1 day... then paysite owners would see how much free content matters, when getting traffic/bookmarks, and tgp owners would see the costs of having a paysite.... they might end up understanding eachother, and finding ways where they both will benefit
__________________ "Chaos is the law of nature, order is the dream of man."
~Henry B. Adams (Historian) 1838-1918
The question is not which path is better. The question is which path is best.
Colin, the problem is that this question cannot be answered - because everyone else suffers as the result of a poorer choice by any one person in the group. Like electricity, surfers tend to flow through the path of least resistance... and membership is a remarkably large resistor.
The first Picpost and the first TGP basically closed out certain options in the game. TGP2 was an attempt to reverse that, but even that suffers in the face of the poorer choice that is TGP.
Now the question is "faced with the current circumstances, what is the best path from here?".
Alex
__________________
Let's go to the edge of disaster Push the pedal and go a little faster Let's slam into a wall at ramming speed Let's go to the edge of a mountain Jump off and lets start countin' Hit the ground and tell me if it bleeds
Originally posted by Rolo@Feb 14 2003, 04:49 PM There will be even more free content in the future - there is only 1 way to stop it... politics/goverments, but thats probably not going to happen within the near future...
Rolo, in a past life, I use to do rental car yield management - the process of pricing available cars for maximal revenue and utilization of resources.
One of the simpliest (and stupidest) ways to assure full utilization of cars was the "cheapest in the market". Basically, a certain percentage of potential customers will rent from whoever has the lowest price, all other things being equal. The cars are the same, the locations are the same, the service is the same - price is the point of difference. Being cheap gets you more clients.
However, those more clients don't make you the most money - and more importantly, if you are playing against other people in the same situation (and you always are) you often end up in price wars that lower the actual TOTAL market revenue and don't grow either company's business.
Free content, free galleries, free all that stuff is basically the same product. "If I give enough stuff away, people will come to my site and MAYBE buy something". We have passed from 1 in 100 to 1 in 400 to 1 in 1000 to 1 in I don't even want to think about it. This has all happened in the battle to have "the most for the least".
General "porn" is almost dead on the net as a result.
With too many programs willing to give away the store to get clients in the door, the free galleries / content / movie clips / etc won't stop. But the economics of the situation are shifting quickly, and this whole industry is due to shift gears VERY soon.
Link sites I operate have seen more than 10% of all listings go 404 or no host in the last 30 days. There are larger numbers of free site webmasters who just can't afford to pay to renew domains, can't afford to pay for hosting, and are disappearing. I ran the link bot 3 days ago, I suspect I can run it again today and find another 1-2% gone in that time frame.
The end of "as it was" started about 6 months ago... and it won't be long now.
But there are sunnier days on the other side, where new choices can be made, less players will be around, and the same money will be spread to less people.
Alex
__________________
Let's go to the edge of disaster Push the pedal and go a little faster Let's slam into a wall at ramming speed Let's go to the edge of a mountain Jump off and lets start countin' Hit the ground and tell me if it bleeds
Colin, isn't the idea of the Nash Equilibrium when applied to economics, that unlike the old "do what you do for yourself" model and it will help the marketplace ... that it is replaced by "do what you do for yourself AND for others" turns out to be best for everyone in the marketplace?
The BabeNet thing sounds like it could be a bad thing if it is mishandled. I know the the YNP model from PMB has it so that if someone joins from PMB and later from someone's YNP (or visa versa) the programming catches it and the member gets an automatic refund keeping chargebacks down. (At least that's the way I recall Bill explaining it to me three years back.) So if Babenet does similiarly, it might not be bad at least in THAT respect. However ....
If I'm sending traffic to what I think is five different sites, and they are only five different front ends, I am wasting my traffic and putting too much into the same basket. Worse, as Mike says, I might not even know it is the same basket, and that truely does suck!
Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 14 2003, 02:01 PM But there are sunnier days on the other side, where new choices can be made, less players will be around, and the same money will be spread to less people.
I hope that you are right
But I also think that we must not forget that free needs pay, as much as pay needs free... the problem we have today is that the free content is more widespread then pay content on tgps... the balance is out of order, when you can get more XXX content free at TGPs than at the paysites promted on the same TGPs.
However if we can get more "free" controlled by business people, then we will start to see changes in both the amount of free XXX content outside pay areas, and the amount of promotion for paysites at TGPs etc.
If free tgp galleries submiters are going out of business to be replaced by hosted galleries, then I think we are headed in the right direction, because tgp owners will start to ask themself questions like "how can I convert better etc.", and hosted galleries will try to sell more, and it will be accepted by the tgp owners.
__________________ "Chaos is the law of nature, order is the dream of man."
~Henry B. Adams (Historian) 1838-1918
In any economy where the saturation point is reached, I think it's safe to say that cannibalism will arise. I think we've come to that point in this industry and this year we'll start to see a shrinkage in the number of players on all levels...
02-11-2003
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by giving a webmaster who can generate 200+ signups per day an affiliate program of their own, you guarantee their 200 signups are going to stay with you everyday plus a few referrals of the same size MINIMUM.
God I love emails.
sista!
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