[Rolo]

I agree - there are many areas of promotion where affiliates are no use anymore since getting traffic is more streamlined in todays market.

Paysites that want to do a few hundred signups per day they do not need a affiliate program. Ofcourse if you do not know where to get those signups from, then you would need a affiliate program, and hope someone will send you their traffic.

Without affiliates I would say acquisition cost per signups is much lower, and so is your potential risks (carding, overselling, traffic pulling, rumor mill etc.).

If you wanted to do thousands of new signups per day, then I think its possible without a affiliate program, however you would need lots of liquid capital to start and long ROI.

Cutting out the middleman works for Dell ;-)