On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 09:08:39AM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
Doing exactly what we're doing now, but including an associates link, will reduce their income, not increase it, at least relative to the status quo.
They wouldn't offer the "associates programm" if it would increase their income - one way or the other.
It does - on average, because many "associates" will make exclusive or prominent links to Amazon. We don't.
I believe the most important thing is to note: Karl does not want to be convnced. Let's honour his beliefs and stop convincing him.
Then, it is obvious why anyone wants to have paid referrers: while you lose some percent of the sales, you gain new customers, which is more income.
Moreover it is obvious (at least for me) that if someone links to a seller and does not get paid then the above stands: the seller get new customers which is more income, but it does not have to pay anything for it, so the income is even larger.
Apart from not liking amazon (and I don't like 'em) it is better to get parts of their income from them than not. We should link as much as ISBN-capable sellers as possible since people would like to have those books, and that's what the sellers are for. And since we don't like the sellers at all we should get as much of their bloody money as possible. ;->
HHOK
grin