Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I came here to ask the same question. The post comes across as if those $200k were on top of baseline revenues.


Right. He made it seems like he got an additional 200k in revenue and then proceeded to reduce commissions to zero. Some might call this scamming the affiliate. After the affiliate has put the work in to drive the traffic to your site then you fuck them over on commissions. To be honest there is a lot more fraud on the advertiser side of the deal. Conversion shaving, reducing commission on high performing affiliates, non-payment by advertisers. Affiliate take on a great deal of risk, especially when they PAY to generate traffic.


I don't think this is "scamming the affiliate", but simply testing the price elasticity of demand. Nothing wrong with that.

By simply testing different pricing models the author observed this demand anomaly, which leads him to uncover the platform's modus operandi.

I just wanted to point out that that part of the story is not that clear/well explained.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: