Agreed about CCBill. Rates are getting very close to being regional discrimination, which we both hate. I mostly stay away from CCBIll nowadays for that reason. I go with Epoch whenever I can,
Thanks for the reply, Cap'n. I agree the regional pricing is a scam! But I am pragmatic and if I can get around it, I will do to join a site I am interested in. I would not have joined the site if I had to pay the full £ price, though.
Thanks for the warning Cap'n. I received that promo email too and was tempted to join again at that price but the billing company just looked too dubious. If it ain't CCBill or Epoch i'm not interested.
I understood that from the beginning, my point was your comments to the initial reviewer and subsequent responses seemed a bit too forceful in my opinion.
My only point, as it has always been, is that location based pricing is common, particularly in the entertainment industry. I am not really trying to defend it. Do you also boycott amazon.uk since they charge more than the American version for many items, including downloaded items such as music and movies (this was, after all, one of the main reasons for regions on DVDs)? Retailers everywhere will charge as much as they can get away with, and if for whatever reason they think $30 to an American is equivalent to $40 to a European or whatever, that is their choice. It sucks I agree, but such is life.
If regional pricing had always existed, as it has with other areas of entertainment, would you still feel as ripped off as you do?
I think we are talking about different things, Cap'n. I was wondering why anyone would worry about the size of the picture if the whole can be seen by default on a monitor screen. I only zoom occasionally but will always take the highest resolution because it will look good longer as more and more pixels are "added" to the display.
I am always a bit puzzled when others make the same remark: that the good high-resolution pictures tend to be too big. Are there not options in your viewer to reduce the picture to screen size? Or am I misunderstanding you and others, Cap'n?
I know regional pricing is something that really sticks in your craw, but I think it is fair to let the reviewer point it out and draw the conclusions they wish from it, you sometimes sound a bit overly forceful in this regard to me. I agree regional pricing is unfair (and not to start another debate on this), but lots of things probably cost more depending on where you are (including DVDs, magazines, etc) and these increased costs are not due entirely to shipping and other costs, they are due to a perceived value of money in your country.
Market flux happens daily. Why should I pay again if someone's dollar is failing on the world economy? The site, not the economy, is the bad guy here? Yes, this makes perfect sense.
Rates are set based on averages and these are adjusted throughout the week based on bank rates. Again, call any single bank.
How are you not aware of market fluctuations in banking/global economies? It's not like this is a new thing. We didn't invent something, it's been there all along and as a webmaster, we have a choice - get hit with the extra fees when a dollar dips, or a chargeback comes in, fraud comes etc (5-10 times daily) or, chose the average rate so we're protected. The only difference here is we tell you about it ahead of time. Most sites just work it into the cost on the merchant end.
Weird getting a negative post from you Cap'n - you seemed to positive in the replies you left earlier in Marcus' thread. (sarcasm, you said nothing positive to be honest - you merely complained about something you disagreed with, even after it was explained in that thread and had previously been explained in other threads as to why. Maybe you were having a bad day, not sure - if yes - I hope it got better.)
So you don't get you way regarding zip sets, you come and try a smear campaign with misleading information? Do you not read things or are you in the practice of misquoting?
"Advertised price $16.62 = £10.79"
Actually the exact wording says "Membership prices from $17.83 per month!"
If you buy a one year membership ($213.95), divide that by 12, you get $17.829 - which when rounded up is $17.83. Exactly what the page says. :)
So while you don't need to say anymore, you might consider reading. :)
I think regional pricing is bit of a cheek, but I don't feel as strongly as you - 15 seems a lot to reduce the score by! I have put it into the cons, and will let people draw their own conclusions in this respect.
You don't get your way so we're stonewalling you? Not quite. It's our site. We run it the way *WE* want to run it. Same as any business, if you don't like the way something is, you leave.
We don't offer zips. That's it. Pretty straight forward.
As for Regional pricing, as with zips, if that troubles you - move. on. already.
there are reasons we and other sites do this, and no, you don't get a vote or opinion. If you ran a site yourself, you'd understand that every single day things fluctuate. Bank rates, chargebacks, fraud, bandwidth from assholes that attempt a rip etc. So yes, some sites including ours compensate for this.
When you visit a store do you complain about the % on the dollar? When you do - do you notice they don't care and they keep doing what they do for their reasons? What happens next? You leave. I'm not sure why you feel sites have to explain every aspect of why they do this or that. We don't. :)
Move on and find a site you like. Simple. :)
Again, best of luck in your travels. I hope you find what you're searching for.
"With the rip-off regional pricing, it was academic anyway!"
Again, positivity wins the race.
"Best of luck getting any photo collectors."
We don't need luck, but thank you for your well wishes, very nice of you.
We have thousands of happy members and guess how many complain about not having zips? Less than 0.01%.
Photo collectors go to most sites, see that site's "high resolution" is 1200 or 1500 pixels. (our free promo content is 1500 pixels for crying out loud) Then they see us slamming out 4000 pixel content and where do you think they'll sign up?
The simplest advice is go somewhere your personal needs are met.
Best of luck in your travels, I'm done replying to you if all you're going to do is attack. Man up. If you don't like something, move along and find somewhere you do like. How this is not common sense, I'm not sure.
As I said in what I wrote, 80% of our member base that replied said videos are more important than photos. This same sentiment has been echoed in various forums, surveys, even surveys here at PU in the past. Videos are more important than photos to the majority, but that does not mean photos are not important. :)
We still feel they are important, which is why we still do them.
I noticed the other day that the regional pricing through CCBill seems to have gotten more expensive. A couple of sites I checked out the other day where the price was listed as $29.99 (USD) on TBP were actually a few cents short of $37 (USD) when I compared the GBP price on a currency converter. A more than 20% difference in the exchange rate seems way over the top to me and I know there's no way I'm willing to pay $37 a month to join any site. I don't think it's going to be too long before I run out of sites I'm prepared to pay out for if this rip off continues.
I don't consider it disappointing, the content is decent, and 1 photo and 1 video update per day is pretty good as far as updates go (generally I have found sites that update super-frequently tend to just update with crap). I'm not sure what you mean by sophisticated material, but I thought it was a decent variety of stuff.
That said, I doubt I will join it again, but the same can be said for almost every site I join.
My definition (not an official definition, just my own, because I don't know how the porn industry defines the genre): Glamcore is what some people at PU have called heartcore. It's a romantic approach to hardcore porn, where the emphasis is on "soft", non-gonzo sex. It's become very popular the last few years, with sites like X-Art, SexArt, Babes, Passion HD, Joy Mii featuring attractive models, usually has soft instrumental music background, some storyline (implied) beyond a simple wham-bam-fuck of two or more hard bodies. Trying to inject a bit of eroticism or meaning beyond a simple fuck.
Like the name implies: Glamor + hardcore = glamcore.
I think they are going for the "gross out" crowd as their new subscribers. Even many models would not have found their way into this site only two years ago. There is actually one with horrid home made tattoos all over her body. One tattoo reads: "Lead me to your dealer" and her sets rate highly because of the hair factor. How the mighty have fallen!
I just visited the site and the first model I see is Andrea Spinks a.k.a. Pixie who I don't think has been active since the early 2000s. I've never been a member but I would suggest the lack of any kind of proper preview is a cover up for the fact the site hasn't been updated for years.
02-15-1312:48am
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