Darkstar2 wrote:Getting ACTIVE referrals nowadays is extremely difficult. You are better off relying on your own efforts and work. Most people want EASY money effortless, and anybody who has advertised on PTC over the years has noticed that conversion to ads for sites where a user can earn effortless money (HYIP, ponzi, revshare, PTC BUX rental of active bots, etc.) is much higher than advertising for sites where you actually have to work. Getting NEW active referrals here now is difficult because things have changed for the worse in terms of tasks and surveys. Unfortunately CrowdFlower/Figure Eight has decided to focus on 100% profits and has not shown ANY efforts to engage with community over the years, leaving a platform swimming with unfair and difficult tasks, and declining tasks. Now with Appen's acquisition it has added immense uncertainty for the future of GPT, as nobody knows if we will still be able to continue working on tasks through channels (i.e. here, other GPT) or if it will be done strictly through Appen or F8's own portal from 2020, nobody knows.
For surveys, it is extremely targeted, mostly Tier 1, and even so quality has declined immensely - For OLD members who have enjoyed good earnings over the years, they are more tolerant and will stick around - i.e. you will see me and others complain a lot about the state of surveys and tasks, but we are still around - NEW referrals will NOT have that kind of patience and will likely face the same situation (DQ, off quota, bad surveys, bad tasks, expels, unfair correction) and they will likely start blaming CS and / or just quit. Old time members here including myself have experience a marked decline in earnings over the years - look at my stats for example, the amount of tasks I have completed and surveys - I am lucky now to complete maybe 4 TASKS a day (the market research ones) as the rest is purely junk with unfair corrections or ridiculous instructions. Things have change for the worse, and to be fair, not only here, but GPT in general, even direct panels have become really bad - So I question WHY do people still want to get referrals - if you are getting them for free, that's another story, but if you are spending money to advertise, you are likely going to struggle to reach your ROI.
The only scenario where I could see it possible to get quality referrals is if there were somehow some recurrent and fair tasks like in the old days (wine, uber and other tasks that were on a daily basis), other recurrent activities of the past were PTC element, which is gone now, so you have Surveys which is mostly Tier 1 traffic and tasks which is all tier for the most part, but very unfair.
Now I know some old timers will disagree and say they have thousands of referrals, yeah, but those were likely obtained many years ago when things were better, so like I said, old timers will likely hang around, it's the new ones that are hard to get - now with the Bitcoin and revshare / investment GARBAGE online, people rather gamble their money on sh*t online than LEGIT sites where they actually need to WORK.
Unfortunately Figure Eight is the ONLY platform which has an API that can interface externally to channels I wish there were other options CS could add, but there aren't, other crowd providers are stand alone and do not work externally.
With the sharp decline of affiliation surveys, I think the GPT industry is on the bubble - some survey publishers are opting out from cash incentivized traffic (i.e. CS) and rather do in app, non cash rewards for higher quality of data.
This can explain why less surveys.
In my opinion the GPT industry is on the bubble, and so is CS. If in 2020 Figure Eight / Appen breaks away from external channels, it means CS will lose the majority of its traffic and rank and be just a plain GPT, there are many tier 1 GPTs they are surviving, though for CS it would be a massive loss in valuation as they would go from a full rewards GPT/PTC, down to full rewards GPT, down to simple GPT in decline.
I've been following the industry closely for years I am sorry for my pessimism but I do not see ANY positive markers - the only positive markers that I am aware of is that the companies CS deals with are making HUGE profits year to year, but that has nothing to do with CS or any GPT, they can and will survive without CS.
I'd be lying if I said I am not worried about the future of this and other GPT sites, and I am sure maybe some other long time members here (those who are not afraid of their opinions) might agree.
Whatever happens to CS, I will forever be grateful to Jim, Joao and everyone involved with the success of this site, I will NEVER forget the good times and am extremely thankful and that won't change.
I can't agree with you more this industry is on the bubble.
Task and surveys nowadays are just so hard to obtain, which is much less attractive to new comers.
Even though I've only joined for 2 yrs, I can still observe that.
And people now only like gamble their money on bitcoin or whatever trash, I feel sorry about that too..
I mean here you can actually accumulate your effort, isn't that much more guaranteed?
Anyway thanks for sharing your true view.
For the affiliate, guess I may as well forget it...