mihai makes a good point about skins that offer it on the same network. Party tries to fight this by not sharing tournaments, but for the ring game player who is a grinder, they have no reason not to jump to a skin that will give them a % thru an affiliate.
The other side of this is something we are starting to see in small doses. Sites, like pokerrewards, are offering their players a % of rake back without punishing the affiliate beyond normal bonus procedures. They are only offering 10%, so the big players aren’t going to convert from the 25 to 30 they can get elsewhere, but if a decent sized site would offer at least 20 I think they could pull some big players. If the program is run by the room instead of an affiliate, it is less likely the player will get screwed.