Well the shit sure hit the fan in this past week and the news just seems to get worse every day. All this crap from Visa and the billing companies is guaranteed to effect every one in every part of the on line adult industry. As of November 15th, doing business in this industry will get a whole lot harder. Expenses will go up, risk levels will increase dramatically and the way this industry operates will change in more ways than many of us have even begun to think about.

"Time is one of the most valuable commodities any of us have at the moment and how you use that time will ultimately mean the success or failure of your online business."

Trials and rebilling all seem set to go within a very short time. Think of a world without trials, no more $35.00 payout for a webmaster who sells a surfer on a $4.95 trial. It will be harder to close a sale because a $4.95 trial is much more appealing to a surfer than a $39.95 monthly membership

Think of a world without rebilling; will the big sponsors still be able to pay $35 and more for sign-ups? At the moment they gamble on a surfer staying for several months but will the surfer keep signing up if he has to physically go to the sign-up page every month and fill all the details in again? I guess that one depends on the quality of the site and at the moment there are a lot of sponsor sites that could well be in trouble if the rebilling option is removed.

Just the flow-on effect from that will affect many people in the industry. If a site cannot retain its members simple economics dictate that it will close and as more and more sites close the number of affiliate programs will diminish.

Of course that means that more and more webmasters will be trying to sell the same number of surfers on a much smaller number of pay sites, they will have a smaller number of choices. The end result of that may be a much smaller income for webmasters who make their money from promoting pay sites.

Will any pay site owner that has a rev-share program still have affiliates if there are no rebills? While this sort of model has never worked well for me personally there are many webmasters who say that the on-going income from rev-share programs keep them going through the quiet times. That is what makes this sort of program so appealing even though the initial payout is much less.

Will it still be so appealing if there is no rebilling? If you haven't stopped to consider all these possibilities – and more – because it's all too scary then it's time you faced up to reality and started making plans to survive.

Pay site owners face a different set of problems. There have been a lot of comments on the boards that the major source of charge backs in this industry is the small pay sites – something that I just cannot agree with. The pay site that my partner and I operate has had 3 charge backs and 4 refunds in 5 years and figures like that apply to a lot of the small sites.

The real problem is situated elsewhere but now each pay site must carry its own charge back ratio and for small sites that will a real problem because a 1% charge back ratio for a small site is not difficult to achieve.

Charge backs will also become a bigger problem for the larger pay sites; up until now the bigger sites have been able to hide their ratio within the overall ratio of the billing company but not any more. Now pay sites that do not provide the sort of quality content their advertising leads surfers to expect will have to wear their own charge back ratio.

Visa also now demands the right to approve each pay site so sites that deal in extreme content are also going to face problems and there are reports that some extreme sites have already been axed. I wonder how many more pay sites, both extreme and otherwise, are going to close their doors in the next couple of months.

As the number of pay sites and people in the industry decline the call for such things as photos, web hosting, scripting and so on will also decline. To quote George W, "make no mistake about it", this industry is in for a huge shake-up and the first question you need to ask yourself is; do you still want to be among those standing at the end of it?

With all this happening it would be so easy to run around doing a fair rendition of Chicken Little or to stand on a street corner in cyberspace cursing Visa and inviting divine damnation to descend upon the billing companies and if that's your style then please go right ahead. It's so easy to do and so many people are doing it right now on webmaster boards across the internet and it's also a complete waste of time.

Time is one of the most valuable commodities any of us have at the moment and how you use that time will ultimately mean the success or failure of your online business. These next few weeks and months have the potential to be the most significant time for the adult on line industry since it began so don't waste your time complaining about things that you can't change.

The way the industry has always done business since on line porn began is about to change and things will never be the same again. So now is the time to start examining alternative ways of doing business.

You may not believe it but there are alternatives, who said you have to rely on rebills? Who said that accepting credit cards was the only way to obtain payment for porn? Who said that any of the ways that we currently do business are the only, or even most effective, ways?

The people who are answering these questions now are the ones who will survive. The ones who are standing around complaining are those who will fail and fade out of the industry. Its time to be aggressive and innovative!