Actually, I find Paypal extremely useful, for other things. I pay hostings and domains with it, but also, for practically any other service or product that one sells, staying out of their no-go policy, I have found it to be incredibly useful and fast. Specially when well configured and all. I had my Paypal blocked once, as I made a mistake, and set badly a personal data of mine. It seems that changing it, somehow triggered their extreme heuristic system, and bang, the bank account could never ever be used again for that. Needed to make a new Paypal account, and link to a different bank account. The key thing with Paypal is, stay functioning in their terms, and... heck, retire always funds, even if it's just 20 $. I have it in a way it costs zero to me. So I have it most of the time with zero funds. For erotic sites, it is a no way. But... I don't see the danger of models going paypal massively. I have seen lots of them setting even in their topic "paypal accepted". But is a minority compared to the mass of models not using it. It's not worth for them, so it wont get anywhere.
And if you want the point of view of an user, those of us knowing how easily a Paypal account gets blocked when mixing it with erotic matters, wont risk it. It's too important. For some of us, to sell stuff. For others, to buy on amazon, ebay, hosting services, etc.
LilyEvans said:
Well, keep in mind that MFC does need to produce a profit, not just break even. There's nothing wrong at all with them making money. They work at it like anyone else.
I agree with your points. But I know of sites that give even more expensive service and charge less %. But anyway, I agree, all seems fine.
I worked long years as web designer, SEO grunt, among several other things, and know one can cook himself almost all what you list, and you would get a larger cut, specially once you are more or less already known. But even so it would be a huge risk, I know.
Mostly, the fact that probably bandwidth would be one of the biggest issues. Although nothing that a dedicated server couldn't solve (it's still a machine in the hosting company, but is not a "shared" hosting), and is no that expensive per month (way way less than the 50% with the most modest models). The key point here to me is not all this. Is mostly a model rarely would have already the skills acquired to design a cross browser compatible well designed site, manage a server, do SEM/SEO (one of the things that brings you traffic), etc. Even those that can, then wouldn't have the time and energy to do actual camming and become these community managers (btw, is a job profile quite going up, lately) that I seem to realize is what a lot of them evolve to, actually...The legal part is nice, I didn't know they went that far. The credit part is one of the biggest issues, yep. Although there are a lot of merchant companies that make it really easy for any user. But I agree. The sum of it all is such a hassle. I would cook it myself, but certainly not with this kind of business. (I just know 30% will still be a lot of money
. But its good so.)
In other activities, mounting your own thing is usually better (in the long run and trusting on luck! or having an special ability for making things viral ), if you plan on dedicating 50% of the time and effort on promotion. But I have learnt with the time that every activity has its clever approach. It did not work for example with flash games (you really needed to join forces with portals, big sites, etc. Your own promo could do little) And this world seems to be similar in that.