Oh, to answer the initial question, of course they're a threat to affiliate sales. It's a no-brainer. The affiliate program will suffer some losses as well, but there will STILL be people who pay for the site. How can someone with 3 30 second clips on an advertising page compete with a site that offers full length movies? They can't. So the only people "Honest" affiliates will be making sales from will be internet novices who aren't yet aware of the tube sites or those with GREAT SE placements.
I posted this elsewhere a while back. Affiliate programs use affiliates to generate traffic. If they could replace affiliate traffic with their OWN traffic, does anyone think they wouldn't do that? Who's to say affiliate programs aren't now, or will be in the future, behind the tube sites? Program generated sales eliminate the middle man in the affiliate. It's not too wild a concept to believe that affiliate programs want to reduce their payouts. An affiliate program could, in theory, pay a tube site to run advertisements OR start their OWN network of tube sites.
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