Paid Autosurfing - A Brief History (Part Two)
The community had recovered confidence when some of those
legitimate webmasters neared 12 months in operation. It must've
been quite a "baptism of fire" for some of the smaller sites as
they became targets for hackers, DDOS (dedicated denial of
service) attacks, extortionists and a sometimes hostile
membership that usually only wanted to generate a reliable
source of income.
Webmasters began to realise the full effect of the many hidden
costs incurred in operating an autosurf program. More often than
not, site policies were geared towards allowing the maximum
level of earning capacity for each member as possible, rather
than ensuring that enough revenue was being generated and
withheld in order to make monthly payout commitments.
The greatest short-coming of most autosurf programs is, and has
always been, that they rely too heavily on new members joining
with fresh upgrade cash to fund the payouts. This practice
skirts dangerously close to the textbook definition of a Ponzi
scheme.
When new memberships decrease and payout commitments are growing
each month, webmasters must find those innovative ways to market
their site to a larger and more responsive audience or tighten
their Terms of Service to restrict the earning capabilities of
the current membership, until such time as revenue increases.
All traffic exchanges write a contingency clause into their
Terms of Service, just for the purpose of protecting their
income and viability. Again, we'll examine that in finer detail
very soon.
Issues arising from the complexities of dealing with such a
large number of autosurf programs and an ever swelling community
were gradually addressed during the months following the
Industrys' birth. Some more innovative webmasters found ways to
channel the collective opinions of the membership into targeted
discussion forums and information/evaluation sites about the
operational state of autosurf programs and the state of the
Industry in general.
The birth of the "resistance" or "alliance" had come.
Greater promotion of these forums provided a generally
heightened awareness of the ever-present "moral transgressions".
Most often, the uninitiated and inexperienced became easy prey
for these cyber-thieves. However, by the time the community was
passing a rather uneasy first anniversary, many founding members
had suffered serious financial losses.
It seemed that no amount of research or investigation would ever
be able to accurately predict the long-term viability of ANY
program. At best, only an "educated guess" was all the
justification a disgruntled membership base needed to apply the
brakes on fresh cash-upgrades. Even membership growth of many
sites slowed to just a trickle.
The second year emerged disastrously with many high-profile
programs folding under the weight of a highly expectant
membership base (compounding terms being widely utilised to full
effect) and the untimely collapse of several larger, higher
percentage paying and therefore riskier HYIP's/MLM's etc that
many PTS webmasters had a tendency to invest members funds into.
Predictably, having a "domino effect" on the PTS industry this
way caused many members pockets to become deeper.
Yes, as one might expect, a now HIGHLY anxious membership base
was now more vigilant than ever with their upgrade cash,
however, some adventurous surfers soon fell for the "discounted"
upgrade offers made by some webmasters. Some of these "bonuses"
were only a final attempt to seize some new upgrade cash before
closing their doors without warning. (There is a tip in there
somewhere...:))
By half way into the second year, the community had emerged with
a greater sense of stability than ever before. The developments
of recent months had left many observers with the knowledge of
the trials and errors of those that had failed.
Easy comparisons were soon being drawn on the most successful
autosurf business models as the community continued to strive,
under the constantly watchful eyes of the independent discussion
forums.
Now, with new leaders emerging as industry "favourites", it
seems some shine has rubbed off some of the "old guard". There
has even been a gradual move away from the traditional "1% for
365 days" autosurf program model to higher percentage paying
(but lesser days of valid upgrade) sites that while on the
surface may seem to carry greater risk, but are proving they
really are no riskier than traditional models on a community
wide basis.
With nearly 500 active programs at the time of authoring this,
the Autosurf Industry by most learned accounts, would most
likely be considered to be in a prosperous upward trend as
popularity gains momentum. Undoubtedly, there will be more
turbulent times ahead as the community struggles desperately to
gain acceptance, recognition and reputation throughout the
Internet whilst working closely with each other to identify,
deter and expose those would-be thieves who view the community
as easy prey for their larceny.
With this in mind, I feel it is incumbent on ALL members of the
community to unite and form a "Union" whereby the interests of
all parties are self-governed and disputes legally adjudicated.
This will require a MASSIVE communication effort on the part of
Web Hosts, Payment Processors, webmasters, surfers and industry
observers.
A tall order, indeed; but NOT impossible.
Until such time as this can be achieved AND greater controls are
introduced to vastly improve the QUALITY of advertising through
autosurfs; in the minds of the Internet business community, Paid
Autosurfing will continue to be snubbed in favour of methods
that are more reliable, flexible and produce greater response
rates to a MUCH wider audience.
Food for thought.....