Wetlook World Forum

Running a membership site requires a great deal of dedicated time and commitment, especially if you're going for one or two updates a week. If you lapse from that, your credibility suffers. And, if you're not well-known in the first place, people are probably reluctant to sign up (give their commitment) as you haven't proved yourself. I was involved in trying to keep a site updated with 2-3 updates a week and is a real trial. You're on a constant treadmill of updates unless you've banked up months of photo and video. Onsite shoots start to become a chore instead of a pleasure, as you try to get as many as you can in the available time with the models. I wouldn't do this again, or recommend it if you want a life doing anything else (LOL).

Regarding the members, you're correct that some people will sign up for a month and grab everything. In the worst case (but it wasn't so for Styx), I can see potential members holding back until several months' worth are online - so they can grab everything for one month's membership. A site generally won't stay viable for long if all the members adopt that purchasing pattern. If you stay away from monthly memberships, the signups are limited as people don't seem to be prepared to commit. For Styx at least, there is a core of members who continually support sites and keep their recurring memberships going. But there are many who sign up for a month, disappear for several, and then come back again for a month - trying their best to 'beat the system'. And finally there are those that wait a year, sign up for a month, and then complain that old sets have been deleted.

Monthly/regular memberships generally involve a membership area. These attract the 'password bots' like magnets. Unless you have some form of protection in place, expect to see 1000's of hits per hour trying to break into the membership area. And also expect shared passwords - that you can only spot if you have software in place to detect passwords being used from multiple locations. And (usually) monthly/regular memberships mean going into an arrangement with companies like CCBILL, and that can be fun (not) too!

Running a PPV site requires a lot less effort and is more rewarding 'artistically' as you're not on the treadmill of of continuous shoots and updates. You can spend more time making a quality product that you're personally happy with. But I'm unsure this is as financially rewarding. There's no commitment or core of fans that like to communicate and pass on ideas. There's just anonymous 'purchasers' that will like your site one day and be gone the next. And you still have to keep a PPV site fairly regularly updated otherwise you'll just drop off the radar after a few weeks.

Just my thoughts ... Graham