If you really cared about the players, you would be trying to make rakeback an established part of the poker industry. That way, no one would be getting ripped off.
I understand the point and share in your frustration over the matter, but the issue isn’t that affiliates don’t want the player to be rewarded; rather, the point of contention is in the delivery of the rewards. The sites themselves are in a much better position to allocate loyalty rewards and rebates than the affiliate are in many cases, including rakeback. Some sites, like Poker Rewards and Poker Champs do just that. The real concern is that by creating rakeback as a norm and placing the onus of tracking on the affiliate, it creates a lot of potential problems.
Also, it certainly wasn’t “irrational” casino affiliates who led Party, among others, to discontinue rakeback. It’s easy to point to that, but there is a larger issue related to shifts in the industry as it matures. When rakeback is done (essentially through trust) with an affiliate, it creates potential problems that may ultimately come back to the site (who cannot always fix the problem to the players’ satisfaction.) I think most everyone believe players should be rewarded; the real issue is how these rewards are allocated. Yes, we have an obligation to provide value-added for the players we refer, but I’m not sure that affiliate-driven rakeback is the answer.