Sometimes I kick myself for even creating a profile on a site which costs a pretty penny to become a member. Now why on earth are they charging so much for? I’m sorry, but while I think it’s nice that the internet has allowed individuals to communicate with one another instantaneously, and I think it’s wonderful that men and women can use this avenue to get to know one another “virtually”, I’m also very upset with how much some people use this advancement to get paid.

Now look, I know a business is in business to make a profit, I get it, everyone has to eat. Still, I think spending $69.99 a month to get a certain type of membership (so far, every email I’ve gotten says I have to have a silver membership to read and reply), is kind of steep, and that’s not including the one time fee of $68.

So again, I refuse to spend my hard earned money this way, I am not too happy with the individuals who run this site, I personally think the individuals are being greedy, instead of trying to offer a valuable service.

Ok, let’s just say, for argumentative purposes, that either all the women profiles are fake, or the women don’t have to pay to send out email. Let’s say that from the first month the site went live, 10 suckas took the bait and paid to masturbate. So, that means that just that first month the individuals running the site made roughly $1,380. Now, let’s just think about that for a moment. Let’s come up with some estimates, let’s think about how much it costs to be able to host this site. A good site that is designed from the ground up, from the designing aspect to the coding and scripting aspect, could indeed run a couple grand. Ok, now, a good server to host the site is going to run at least a couple grand. You’re gonna need a decent connection to the internet, your bandwidth won’t be so heavy on the download side (unless you’re using it for other purposes besides the site), but will be heavy on the upload side. Well, you’ll probably want to get at least a T1, and I saw an ad for a company that’s offering T1 service for about $250 a month (there’s a three year contract). So, take into consideration a few other things, such as registering the domain name (it’s a business, if you’re smart, you’ll register it for at least three years, that’s about $100), and having a backup server for your secondary DNS server aspects and site shadowing and caching (say another $2 grand), a UPS (battery backup), and of course you’ll have to think about the electric bill, and where you’re going to store the server at.

If we add all this up, then we’ll say there was an initial cost of $10,000 to get things up and running. Now, the estimated gross revenue generated the first month was based on just 10 people paying for a one month membership, plus the one time fee. The first month comes and goes, and we’ll say out of those 10, half of them pay for another month. Some new customers come in on this second month, we’ll say another 10, and half of them pay for the first month and the initial fee, and the other half get the discounted two month plan (plus one month free). Well, add it up, you do the math, now we’re looking at about $2,370.

Now here’s where things start to get interesting.

The site takes off, and now 100 people pay for the quarterly special. We’ll say the site has been active for a quarter, that last month was about the same as the month before, so we gotta take into consideration that in three months the site has generated roughly $7,000. After we add in the newly generated revenue, we’re talking about an amount just under $30,000. Well, the initial investment of $10,000 has been paid off, and our monthly overhead costs of about $500 Can easily be met. After the first 6 months, there should still be at least $15,000 sitting in a bank account collecting dust. Or at least, if these numbers were to be realistic, that would be the result.

Are they realistic? Yes and no. First of all, this was just a rough estimate, for educational purposes, and second, there’s always going to be unforeseen circumstances and overlooked expenses, and third, there’s no way to know, for sure, that the site will generate that kind of revenue. Still, with the way technology is, you can cut out alot of the initial costs, go directly through a major hosting site (like a server farm), and look around on the net for any free PHP or Pearl scripts to handle whatever it is you need done (i.e. shopping cart). Of course there’s sites online where you can pay for scripts, and you can either get web templates to do the dirty, grunt work for you, or you can always try to find a hosting site that offers predesigned and custom designed web templates.

In other words, I know enough about the I.T. industry, and how things work, to know that the price for a membership to this site is not just outlandish, it’s a rip off.

Look, I really do want to chat with those who have sent me messages (if they are real people), but I’ll continue to be hard-headed and stubborn.

This wouldn’t have been an issue if I was married.

See, I’m still my own worst enemy!

Oh well, one of these days I’ll find love, one of these days I’ll run across a woman who will actually want to converse with me if I ask her to call me. One of these days I’ll run across a woman who will actually want to marry me. Or maybe, just maybe, I already have.

I know one thing, I know with GOD, ALL things are possible, so I’ll just put my faith and trust in Him.