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.....