Economic Theory and the A$.

[Janine Dee]

We're currently dealing with inflation here on AChat. While popular opinion seems to be that AChat has just gotten greedy what has driven them to it?

Businesses rarely just start getting greedy. Typically they realized they've cornered a market and they can.

Is that the case? Is AChat one of the top adult chat servers if not THE top? Is there a way to know.

Another possibility is the free users. While they make demands on system resources they don't contribute to them. That could in turn create an increase in costs and a resulting need to generate more income just to maintain a status quo.

They have made a (fairly) recent upgrade in the base system so perhaps they HAVE increased their staff, creating yet another increase in their costs. (Something that could also be a reason for their loosing communication with the forums.)

Basically I thought would open this discussion because a "Because they can" motivation for increasing costs does (and has) seemed self defeating, and in life I try to never make the mistake of thinking the other person is simply stupid.

[Bear]

totally pissed I wrote out a long opinion, timed out before I could post it.

premiums drive the site,...non-premiums drain the resources,...some things need to be with held form the non-premiums,..like 3 somes, otherwise there is no incentive to go premium and help defray the costs of operation. No sense in buying a cow if you can milk the neighbors for free.

Adjustments have to be made,..thiss site is less than 2 years old,...no doubt to stay econmically fit adjustments to pricing have to be made. Besides once you turn a profit, the devil claims its share in taxes...and that has got to be accounted for and passed on once it turns profiatble.

There quick response,...58 minutes to time out...

[Janine Dee]

I'm sorry I missed your longer response Bear, I'm sure it said a great deal.

Your shorter version did make me think though... when I first found my way here there was a big debate on the various sites, and AChat was said to be very economical kin comparison to similar sites.

Now I wonder if it's newness had it pricing itself too far below what it would take to run this kind of service, and it's now catching up to them.

Though that also brings up the rather impressive list of privileges non-premiums enjoy in comparison to what they would be allowed on those other sites. If they are not evened out it would be a reasonable fear to think  that our costs could slip above competing sites. The money has gotta come from somewhere.

[Unhealer]

It's all the damn prostitution, I think about 90% of the girls I saw online were doing it last night. The site needs to change the gifting system, instead of making it A$ they should make it like flowers or something.
Instead of girls trying to get gifts so they can pay membership its just like "aww cute! flowers".
The sites costing more because there's probably much less people paying membership. Guys have lots of extra A$ usually, so they arent buying more in order to gift girls.

[Janine Dee]

That's been brought up before Unhealer, but playing the Devil's Advocate every A$ came from a real $ (or other legal currency). For it to be a real drain there would have to be free A$ and there aren't. It could even be argued that they are getting the A$ into the marketplace (the shop) even if it's just to buy premium memberships.

The question has to be, would they buy premium memberships with their own money if they couldn't do it with their A$?

There could be an argument that their premium use piggybacks off of another's, but even that argument isn't terribly strong as the difference between premium and non are surprisingly slim.

Right now there is no "flower" implement, but even if they just made it for things like outfits, or maybe positions (in a sense "teaching" a partner) then there would be those selling themselves to get those outfits and positions.

Some have said guys need to be able to get get gifts, but I don't see that as a solution to the prostitution issue as there would still be those who would be willing to gift to get sex. If anything it might set off a wave of gigolos, who might branch into gay markets. (Maybe shemale, but from what I've heard they have no trouble finding curious guys, while the gay guys are seeming to get almost aggressive with some of the straight guys.)

They may need to remove the gifting, or make it for effectively useless items like "flowers" since I doubt that would have people willing to sell themselves to get them.

[Bear]

A good point in that operational expenses have to be generated from some direction. puts the burden again on the males and females who don't resort to prostitution.

The smartest counter is to expand the options in clothing and FF poses since most of them are Bi' give them something other than a subscription to work towards.  After all most guys probably invest heavily in the poses. If a woman is doing so (MF poses) ,..she is probably playing more in the non-premium membership. But there is no "profit" there.

A very good case for FF, FS expansion in poses...and clothing development.

Script is coming from somewhere...

[Janine Dee]

The problem is that I question if they could code fast enough. Even if they went and adapted all possible positions like we've been asking to work across the spectrum it would only be a temporary fix.

The problem isn't prostitution so much as it is the gifting system. There will always be those who are willing to abuse a situation to make things easier on themselves, basically willing to ruin everyone else fun as long as they are okay and get their fun out of it.

The gifting system is almost MADE for those types.

A possible short term fix COULD be to get rid of the month memberships for A$. If the prostitutes have to pay every three days then at the very least they'll have their ill gotten gains leaving their hands that much faster.

Where I'm going with all this however is that it's the people abusing the system, and how they will keep trying to do so, but are they even able to do so on a level that could cause all the price increases we are seeing?

[Bear]

Script for monthly subscription remained the same even though there was a real price increase...so if the trend of prostitution continues, perhaps that needs to be raised to 2000 a month,..to reflect a 33% increase the rest sustained.

[Janine Dee]

It only seems fair, but that means that the market would be flooded with even more currency. Which encourages inflation, and gives guys who may otherwise not consider prostitution a balance they have no use for (after buying all their clothes/positions).

You deal with inflation by putting less money in the market, not more.

[Unhealer]

I think if a guy buys premium and gifts alot it really just splits the A$ from one premium 2 ways. half as many people paying. that and I bet 1/4th of the blue star chicks are 14 year old russians

[Janine Dee]

*sigh* And what exactly are you basing that bet on?

The argument about the A$ getting spread around is far more valid, but my earlier question about whether or not the prostitutes would buy memberships would come in. I certainly don't support them, but I see them as more a social ill then an economic one.

[Unhealer]

I dont know if any would buy membership otherwise, but they certainly arent doing it now.

[Janine Dee]

Agreed, but as I noted earlier if they would then yes there is a definite impact. If not then the impact is minimized since the difference between premium members and non is surprisingly small on Achat.

[Bear]

Well I received some unexpected help while discussing this. The groupie took it upon herself to do some sampling of the membership and interviews, Making a determination of the population is difficult since the women never lose their stars, once blue always blue, but she estimated about a 1000 premium males, and about twice that of females,...the bulk of the rest,..non-premiums. So just because you see a blue star doesn't mean they are a paying current paying customer. When you see the roster of on-line members of women premiums are shown by seniority of time paid first, then, (then I get muddled, need more checking,) presuming script purchases, then non-paying bue stars.

again hard to estimate how many are active paying females, since the stars do not disappear.  She checked banners, and found at times up to 75% of those asking/demanding gifts. Fluctuates, since I was on earlier and found it closer to 30% when I checked,..but actually have seen sessions where it was closer to 90%. Lets just sat its substantial now. Ratio of female premiums to male premiums on-line is generally slanted towards the males. My instinct was estimating around 60%.

There is no exact conclusion to make from this sampling, other than to support,
1) Males tend to financially support the site. (hence the emphasis on the het-set poses)
2) A huge disparity between premiums and non-premiums.
3) retention and/or conversion rate to premiums is low.
4) the majority of women seen as premiums are not paying or paying by script.

Many thanks to the groupie for putting on her nerdy side and gathering data. (That nerdy side is such a turn on baby)

[bobbler]

hmmm...