Paid to surf
Encyclopedia
Pay to surf is a business model
that became popular in the late 1990s, prior to the dot-com crash
. Essentially, a company uses income from advertising placed on members' screens to pay them for time spent surfing.
A pay-to-surf company would provide a small program, commonly called a "viewbar", to be installed on a member's computer. Advertisers' banner ads were then displayed while the member was browsing the web. Since the viewbar tracked websites that the user visited, the pay-to-surf company was able to deliver targeted ads for their advertisers.
Advertisers paid the pay-to-surf company a small amount (typically US$0.50) for every hour of a member's surfing.
Members were usually limited on the amount of time per month for which they would be paid to surf (typically 20 hours). However, pay-to-surf companies also paid their members for each new user referred to the company (typically US$0.05 - US$0.10 per recruit). Thus, it was profitable for a member to garner as many referrals as possible, encouraging some users to recruit members using spam
, though officially forbidden by the user's agreement.
The first and most well-known pay-to-surf company was AllAdvantage
. It launched in March 1999 and grew to 13 million members in little over a year with the multi-level marketing
system of recruiting new members. The scheme capitalized on the notion that anyone could make money on the internet
without much effort.
AllAdvantage’s success attracted many imitators. At its peak, there were several dozen pay-to-surf companies. AllAdvantage had US$175 million in venture capital; its imitators did not and thus their members were never more than a small fraction of AllAdvantage's.
After 18 months, even AllAdvantage ceased operations. At that point, AllAdvantage had paid out over US$160 million to its members. Many members of smaller pay-to-surf companies were never paid when the companies shut down.
By late 2001 with the dot-com bubble
collapsed, very few pay-to-surf companies remained. This is not surprising since 100% of the revenue came from internet advertising, which was the area hardest hit.
As with many Internet business models, pay-to-surf companies attracted people trying to defraud the company out of money. First, as noted above, the companies had to deal with spammers, often having to terminate member accounts. They were also required to get parental permission from members under the age of 18, many of whom flocked to these programs as an easy source of income. Finally, utilities started appearing which allowed users to simulate surfing activity. Some users even created mechanical
mouse-moving devices which ran around their desks, i.e. "JiggyMouse". These programs and devices allowed users to get paid simply for leaving their machines on. This began an arms race
between the pay-to-surf companies who built fraud-prevention software and fraud program developers, with each releasing increasingly sophisticated versions of their software.
Business model
A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value...
that became popular in the late 1990s, prior to the dot-com crash
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
. Essentially, a company uses income from advertising placed on members' screens to pay them for time spent surfing.
A pay-to-surf company would provide a small program, commonly called a "viewbar", to be installed on a member's computer. Advertisers' banner ads were then displayed while the member was browsing the web. Since the viewbar tracked websites that the user visited, the pay-to-surf company was able to deliver targeted ads for their advertisers.
Advertisers paid the pay-to-surf company a small amount (typically US$0.50) for every hour of a member's surfing.
Members were usually limited on the amount of time per month for which they would be paid to surf (typically 20 hours). However, pay-to-surf companies also paid their members for each new user referred to the company (typically US$0.05 - US$0.10 per recruit). Thus, it was profitable for a member to garner as many referrals as possible, encouraging some users to recruit members using spam
Spam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
, though officially forbidden by the user's agreement.
The first and most well-known pay-to-surf company was AllAdvantage
AllAdvantage
AllAdvantage was an Internet advertising company that positioned itself as the world’s first "infomediary" by paying its users/members a portion of the advertising revenue generated by their online viewing habits...
. It launched in March 1999 and grew to 13 million members in little over a year with the multi-level marketing
Multi-level marketing
Multi-level marketing is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they recruit, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation...
system of recruiting new members. The scheme capitalized on the notion that anyone could make money on the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
without much effort.
AllAdvantage’s success attracted many imitators. At its peak, there were several dozen pay-to-surf companies. AllAdvantage had US$175 million in venture capital; its imitators did not and thus their members were never more than a small fraction of AllAdvantage's.
After 18 months, even AllAdvantage ceased operations. At that point, AllAdvantage had paid out over US$160 million to its members. Many members of smaller pay-to-surf companies were never paid when the companies shut down.
By late 2001 with the dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
collapsed, very few pay-to-surf companies remained. This is not surprising since 100% of the revenue came from internet advertising, which was the area hardest hit.
As with many Internet business models, pay-to-surf companies attracted people trying to defraud the company out of money. First, as noted above, the companies had to deal with spammers, often having to terminate member accounts. They were also required to get parental permission from members under the age of 18, many of whom flocked to these programs as an easy source of income. Finally, utilities started appearing which allowed users to simulate surfing activity. Some users even created mechanical
Mechanization
Mechanization or mechanisation is providing human operators with machinery that assists them with the muscular requirements of work or displaces muscular work. In some fields, mechanization includes the use of hand tools...
mouse-moving devices which ran around their desks, i.e. "JiggyMouse". These programs and devices allowed users to get paid simply for leaving their machines on. This began an arms race
Arms race
The term arms race, in its original usage, describes a competition between two or more parties for the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation...
between the pay-to-surf companies who built fraud-prevention software and fraud program developers, with each releasing increasingly sophisticated versions of their software.