Simon,
The $100 a month for a CASINO member helps with the site costs. Partly, I am planning for the future here and aniticipating several hundred webmasters eventually. With my current casino members I will be conducting 12 to 20 audits per quarter. And if I have just 100 webmasters submitting information on 5 programs each, that’s a lot of time spent to compile information… then I still need to calculate it, compile it, and email it.
However, I feel the real benefit for a CASINO to join the APCW is the Public/Webmaster Relations angle for their affiliate program. How many times have you heard a webmaster say that “…program X is cheating…” or “…program Y is shaving….” ? Casino members of the APCW not only show a willingness to be randomly audited, but they will now have documentation to show.
The dues paid go toward many, many things… as stated on the site. But think about this: Recently, the GPWA tried to collect funds to help the Pro-Freedom movement buy advertising. Several pledges were made, votes taken, and in the end nothing ever happened. I fault no one at GPWA, but view this as a simple case of an organization not being set-up for the purpose they were trying to achieve.
If the APCW had been around a year before and, let’s say, had a $2,000 reserve to devote to thie cause. I, as the administrator, would have come up with a plan, THEN informed the membership, THEN gone to the casinos and said: “This is our plan. This is our cash. Will you match us?” I’ll just bet that if you approached the casinos in THAT manner, one could have raised several thousands of dollars and made some sort of impact. At worst, it would have been a really good try.
The programs I have listed on the main page seem to believe in the benefit of this program. I have many more interested, and hope to be adding new casinos to the list shortly =0)