So, I've been reading the thread about which is the best paysite to join and quite honestly, I'm a bit taken aback at all the subscribers to the 'FREE is BEST' people out there. So, although this may make me the most unpopular person on the board, I have to ask... Do you guys give a shit?
Seriously... over and over... 'I love this girl' 'I love that girl'...
Do you realize what it does to a site when someone posts free content, and let me clarify here, I'm talking whole or majority of picture sets and videos here, not just the occasional admirer reposting a few pictures here and there?
Patronizing places which encourage 'FREE' content is not cool. I speak as a site owner myself. It's been said that there is nothing free in this world and it's true. In cases like this, it is often the site owner who is incurring the loss in revenue and the repercussions can be mild to downright devastating.
I always find it odd that people who would never walk into a grocery store and just take what they want and walk out have absolutely no problem at all downloading obviously pirated content from a website.
People who post such stuff often justify it by, 'oh, I'm actually helping the site by giving them free publicity.' Stupid logic. Obviously, no one is going to join a site if they can get the content for free.
I can tell you from personal experience... when you take content from a solo site, or patronize places which encourage this behavior, it is extremely damaging to the site owners. Many independent site owners depend on their sites as their sole source of income... so basically, you're taking directly from their wallet (or purses).
Anyway... without getting longwinded about this... if you really like a particular model or site, the BEST way to show it is to stop stuffing fast food or $4.00 coffee down your mouth for a couple days and pony up the $25.00 to join the site for a month. You're actually HELPING keep the site going then instead of perpetuating a problem.
Sites are expensive to run and much of those expenses you surfers just don't think about... there's hosting fees, credit card fees, VI-- fees (minimum $800 / year here in the US), photography expenses, video expenses, location expenses, and lots more. With solo sites, these expenses eat up a majority of the profit. With larger sites, a lot of memberships go towards paying the models to do shoots (typically between $500 - $1000 OR 17 - 35 memberships).
I'm not whining here... believe me, I have no problem at all when someone posts one or two pictures from my site somewhere... in fact, it's kind of flattering. But, when I find whole galleries or video posted somewhere it really jades me. You may think it doesn't hurt the sites but it does... even the big sites feel it... in fact, more and more of them are taking legal action... if you're a re-poster of stolen content... read this:
http://www.wp-board.com/
Anyway... so back to my original question... Do you guys REALLY care about the models you say you love so much?
If your answer is yes, then find a good site, join it for a month, and help support the industry. If your answer is no, then by all means, keep stealing and hurting the sites that provide you the material that fuels your pleasure (that's sarcasm btw... I'd prefer you just stop). Most quality sites have PLENTY of free content on their official blogs, forums, or etc. Find it and enjoy it there instead of getting it from a stolen content board or torrent site.