MORE ABOUT
TRIAL MEMBERSHIPS & PORN BARGAINS:
Trial memberships are for giant corporate porn sites trying to
squeeze money out of every single person encountering their sites.
I do not believe they are appropriate for independent pornographers
and camgirls like myself to offer; they devalue us, our privacy
and our work and are disrespectful to members who pay full price
to support us and our work as homemade porn site owners.
You'll often see trial or discounted memberships offered AFTER
you've decided not to join a site for full-price and tried to exit,
or after you've cancelled your full-price membership. Then they
hit you with a pitch that they want you back for $10 less a month
than you were paying before, or they want you to join for 3 days
for $3.95 since you weren't compelled to join for 30 bucks for 30
days. Whenever I see that I think three things: 1) they're making
people who LIKE their site pay MORE than the people who DON'T like
it -- that seems like a really shitty way to pay people back for
their loyalty and appreciation, 2) their site has no real measurable
value or worth if they're willing to sell it for the lowest amount
the cheapest people are willing to pay. I think that devalues the
women and men who appear on those sites and porn in general, and/or
3) they are trying to hook you with a low trial knowing you will
probably forget to cancel (or find it very difficult to do so) and
you'll be billed for a full month at a high price at the end of
the trial anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I don't fault porn consumers for buying into
these trials and discounted memberships; I myself have bought them
and enjoyed them very much, and it's true that those sites made
a few bucks off me when I never would have spent more than a few
bucks on them at all. I know it's not completely stupid, it's just
not a good business model for a personal site like mine.
"But Trixie, if your make your site cheaper then you'll
sell MORE memberships and make MORE money!!"
I've heard that one before by armchair business-people, but that
logic does not always hold true AND it makes for a very different
experience for me. First of all, I have to pay fees and bandwidth
for each member; my costs will not change so if I lower my prices,
I'm reducing my profit for each sale. Second, simply lowering my
prices would not increase traffic or exposure to my site -- independent
sites like mine do not get as much traffic as giant corporate sites,
so even if a higher percentage of visitors joined at a lower price,
the numbers would not be significant and I would make much less
money. Third, it's highly likely I would make FEWER sales; by setting
my price low visitors would perceive my site as having less value
and think it must be crap if I'm selling it so cheap; people don't
want to buy crap, even if it's cheap and besides -- it would make
me look pathetic, desperate and dumb.
Fourth, and most importantly, bargains attract a different type
of person than real prices do. Anyone who has done webcam shows
(as I have) or runs a site like mine for any length of time and
experimented with prices (and talked to other people who have) knows
that the less money people spend on your product, the more demanding
and critical they are. And people who get stuff for free? THEY BEHAVE
THE WORST. Since I interact with my members, I do want to attract
the nicest, most appreciative people I can; bargain-hunters and
cheapskates and young people who do not have much money or a credit
card are generally not as nice and are, oddly-enough, more difficult
to please than people who pay full price. I do not want to spend
my limited time and energy haggling with people and busting my ass
trying to give people as much pussy as possible for two dollars.
That's not fun or fulfilling for me.
"But Trixie! Just because I can't afford to spend $24.95
on your site doesn't mean I'm not a nice person or that I'm a cheapskate!"
You're right; there are a lot of really cool people who do not
make very much money or have debt problems -- I myself am one of
those people! I'm not saying that ALL people who can't afford my
site are necessarily jerks, I'm just saying that bargains do attract
a lot of assholes.
I've actually considered making a sliding scale based on income
or giving military and senior discounts, but that's just not realistic;
for one thing, I don't have time or resources to administer something
like that and for another, how many people are going to fill out
an application and provide proof of their income and stuff like
that?
In the final assessment, it is up to you to figure out what you
can afford and it's up to me to charge what I'm worth. If there's
a gap between those two numbers with my worth coming out on top,
then that's just life. Porn is a luxury, like fancy cars and fine
dining (but cheaper and less fattening); not all of us can afford
all of life's luxuries, and people who sell those luxuries don't
often give them away as charity (though I think it would be super
fun to make a site that solicits sob-stories pleading for free porn
membersips and to post all of them and let people vote for who most
"deserves" a free porn membership -- hehehehe).
I could go into more depth about the inner workings of the porn
industry's pricing models and give you more reasons why I don't
offer trial memberships, but I'll leave it at that for now.
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