@6ynylons and @onlytease - Thanks!
@6ynylons and @somona - Yes, there is money in tubes or else people wouldn't be doing it. If you look at where they're making their money it's generally on dating and cam sites. Some of these sponsors, they will pay up to $100 per signup. I know alt.com is currently doing a promotion for $175 per signup. Like somona says, when you have 45k visitors daily it's not hard to find revenue.
On the downside is it's costly to run a high traffic tube site plus the legal side of things. I recently read that a few of the largest tube sites have agreed to cease and desist after continued copyright infringement complaints and legal cases. With the big guns starting to fall, copyright holders are going to focus on other illegal use of their content and start pressuring the smaller tubes to become legit. Problem is with the number of illegal tube sites out there it's going to take a long time for this to happen. As the folks at Only Tease can attest to, there's a lot of sites/forums/etc that appropriate full sets and videos and post them illegally. I know they've been battling this issue for years and I'm sure they still see it on a regular basis.
I still think tubes are evil and have caused a lot of the issues related to the shakedown in the industry. But that's just me
I swear I am still working on the next post related to paysites... it's turned into a huge beast and I'm trying to pare it down a bit.
Cheers!
Chris