[somapopper]

I remember one time I did a search for "party poker" in google, and partypoker.com was like the 20th website. I get normal results now, but the point is that affiliates have kind of reached a saturation point. Go to any poker related site, and there's a party poker banner. If you are aware of this thing called "the internet" and you have "heard wonderful things" about this "poker" you will have about 20 oppurtunities to plop yourself down at pp in 5 minutes. Sure, great, a billion internet banners, and... what exactly? I mean, the second an affiliate takes out a tv commerical for party I'll change my mind, but I think we're in the area of diminishing returns.

Also, RB affiliates do quite well for themselves on quite small percentages. It seems laughable to me that an afilliate needs 25% of a high volume players rake to make it worth their while to recruit that player.

That people say 2-10k per month for one friggin person is in anyway "little" always amazes me. Many of us pay in a year in rake a full middle class salary. It's not unreasonable to expect that every high volume player should have their own host at party poker who they can contact by phone for any issues that come up with their account. Name one other business where I as a customer would consistently drop this kind of money and not expect and demand this kind of attention (one time purcases don't count).

An industry that continues to try to justify giving the customer poor service so it can bend over backwards for the middle man is walking a dangerous line. Right now there are a lot of annoyed people. Every day that goes by without things settling down will lose you some customers. How many do you have to lose before you take notice when each customer you lose is a 5 to 6 figure hit and virtually everything you do is fixed cost?

I don't actually know what party is going to do, and I frankly don't know where I'm going to be playing my hands in the future, but ultimately I guess I can't believe that party is so indifferent to my money.