Re. referback: they keep people sending players by just paying them a set amount monthly. They sift all the good players off the top, but carry affs through bad months.
That is, if your traffic is good enough to where they can sift enough good players to be happy.
If that is what one wants, a media buy in disguise and the amount paid at their discretion, they are fine to promote.
This is what I arrived at after talking in private about referback with a whole lot of people, all with the same experience. Not just larger affs, small ones also.
They are spammy and scummy to boot. To give them credit – it appears they finally got the IE6 cookie compatibility issue fixed.
re. aff managers:
I think the mystery goes both ways. That is because the authority and freedom to make decisions varies widely from program to program.
A lot of managers are however even encouraged by their employers to put up a portal or two and to try their hand at being an aff. Supposedly that is a part of training. I call it conflict of interest and temptation to steal players.