[jrz1972]

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They are in a position to sh+t on the multitablers and expect them to say 'Thank you Sir, may I have another?"

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Not really. I multitable and am perfectly happy taking my business to Stars and/or Absolute.

I could see if you were just talking about people multitabling 15/30 or so, but there are a lot of people like me who grind out some extra money each month at low-limit tables. Other sites offer plenty of good games at that level, provide regular bonuses, and allow rakeback. All else equal, yeah sure I'd rather play at Party, but when a site like Absolute is offering rakeback and essentially infinite bonuses, all else is far from equal.

This is all really just Econ 101 stuff. Some people have relatively inelastic demand for poker services. Those folks include fish (who are oblivious to rake-related issues and thus don't respond to changes in the rake structure) and high-limit pros (for whom Party is basically the only game in town). You're right that Party doesn't need to do anything special to get their business. The fish are going to stay there anyway because they've seen it advertised on television, and the high-limit pros are going to stay there anyway because that's the only place they can multitable relatively soft 20/40 games.

On the other hand, low-limit whore-types like me have much more elastic demand. There are a bunch of good substitutes for PartyPoker at my level of play, so when Party raises the price of its service (by refusing to provide reloads and nuking rakeback) I can just go elsewhere.

Bonuses, rakeback, etc. are all just forms of price discrimination, and basic economic theory predicts that consumers with inelastic demand will get charged a higher price than consumers with elastic demand. That seems to be exactly the way this is playing out. Low-elasticity players are returning to Party sans rakeback (or with some shaky under-the-table deal in place), while high-elasticity types are going elsewhere and getting better deals.