The Ever-Shrinking Camgirl Commission Rate

What once offered a fairly steady income, seemed to have taken a wrong turn somewhere and now is completely out of control with sites taking full advantage of their ability to play with our commissions. As usual, there is no law or ordinance to step in and say “fuck you, you can’t do that”, so they get away with it, easily and almost effortlessly.

A clever old trick is when the sites themselves decide to open studios. It makes perfect business sense to do so. More money for their pockets. Sneaky and underhanded, indeed, but I would expect no less of them.

An example:

Website opens a studio. They hire someone to run it, to be paid on a small commissioned basis (no trail back to the big site). That studio gets independent American, Canadian, European girls to join under the promises of more traffic. This, coming off the heels of a major decline in traffic over the last 6 months, by the way. What’s an independent girl to do? The only way to make any money now would be to sign up through a studio. Right? Now, instead of earning 35%, she is earning 25% but through this studio, sees loads more traffic and is making more money, so she doesn’t complain. Where does that extra 10% go anyway? I doubt it all goes to the studio. That’s way too much. No way in hell that’s happening. Now, multiply  that estranged 10% by the number of studio girls. Getting into the big numbers now, aren’t we?

If all the sites follow suit, and the girls continue to take it up the ass, we can all expect to see this industry run into the ground. We deserve better than that and as independent camgirls, why do we allow this?

The big picture:

They have successfully managed to slice our commissions down from 35% to 25%. This trend is a continuing one. The first site I worked on (from 1999 through 2009) offered 50%. Then, suddenly, the girls started seeing refunds galore. The site’s solution to that was to offer us a choice to accept 35% with no refunds taken off, or sit steady at 50% and continue to see these refunds. Oh and they also warned us that if we were not exclusive to their site, we’d be bumped down to 35% automatically.

How do these studios gain independents offering 10% less than their current commission rate? Promises of a much higher volume of traffic. That’s the only way to get someone to accept such a cut. We already know what (supposedly) gets us higher placement on the site, which subsequently leads to more exposure and more revenue, as a direct result. I don’t buy it though. Every site I have been on has hand-picked favorites. One of the things they say help push our placement up is  a powerful system, hd cam, speedy connection and good member rating. I can’t possibly see the studios sending the newest, most powerful computers to each new girl that signs up under them. Furthermore, setting them up with the best, fastest internet connection speed. Just for kicks, let’s say these studios do have member accounts which can allow them to splurge on the girls a wee little bit to rate them. That only goes so far. Most members will gladly give their girl a 5-rating anyway. There are tons of girls with perfect ratings. Hardly a blip in the radar! So, since that doesn’t work, how are the studios able to offer such a high placement to their girls, unless they have an ‘in’ with the site itself? Some guarantee front page placement and somehow are able to follow through.

Most (former-independent) girls accept this deal, out of greed. Living paycheck to paycheck, they’re forced into that short-term business mindset. Any other industry or group of people would have raised hell if this happened to them.

Question: how much does this studio earn?

Performers used to earn 35%. Now, they earn 25% (or lower).

The site used to earn 65%. Now, they earn ___? More, obviously, or they wouldn’t have  entered into or created this deal.

The studio gets a small percentage or fixed rate. ___? For their efforts in recruiting and promoting these performers.

The variables are irrelevant, but the math is pretty simple. The game is old. Smart girls see through it. Are the majority of girls in this industry smart enough to see what’s going on? If so, why have they succumbed to this? Nowhere have I seen so much complacency, so much acceptance and so much assfucking and begging for more! This absolutely disgusts me to see the way performers in this industry allow themselves to be treated.

This camming industry needs governance. It is unbelievable how the sites continue to get away with this.