Bargain Center: discussion, gossip, etc.

[SalemBeatsKVR]

You are pretending to be a private person but instead you are making money by misleading people with reposted bargains and with offers often worse than the first bargain posts. Now that's what I call exploiting people for money.

I'm not "pretending" to be anything!
In fact, I decided to participate in this discussion to ensure that I disclosed my affiliation,
in spite of knowing what a headache I'd get from involving myself in another stupid online argument.

I simply believe that if you're not posting your opinions of a product or seller (and instead, merely facts about a sale), a disclosure is truly unnecessary clutter.
Since you seem to be so concerned that people might be making money from the products in the Bargain Center, however, I wanted to make sure you knew: Yes, I am amongst the people who earn money when you buy a product from the Bargain Center.
I'd put it in larger text if KVR had the option.

Uncle E. makes advertisement. His is employed by JRR-shop. He doesn't get any fees by people clicking his links. Maybe he get's a fee if someone actually buys something.

It seems that you're suffering a fundamental misunderstanding over how this works:
These are the exact same circumstances for me as well.
Just as Uncle E., I don't get paid unless someone finds my link useful enough to buy from.
I encourage you to shop around to check for the best deals, but I can't force you to.

I'm flattered that you consider my link in the Bargain Center to be an endorsement, but I doubt that anyone is evaluating whether or not to buy the Waves Silver bundle I linked just because "Salem Beats linked it".
If I ever post my opinion on the merits of a product or the merits of buying from a particular merchant, I'll be sure to explicitly disclose my affiliation within the paragraph, the same as I have done here.

-Ki
Salem Beats (+Reviews/Blog)

[hibidy]

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hans25]

It seems that you're suffering a fundamental misunderstanding over how this works:
These are the exact same circumstances for me as well.
Just as Uncle E., I don't get paid unless someone finds my link useful enough to buy from.

You only get paid if someone that clicked your link buys the deal. That's NOT the same as being a reseller. Uncle E.'s business earns money, if someone buys his products. You make money when people buy someones product AND at the same time click your links. There is a huge difference. When you pretend to be a private person (but really are an advertiser), repost bargains to worse prices, mislead people about the bargain deal and furthermore fill your posts with useless crap to make the post so huge, that every other bargain is pushed away, you are definitely NOT acting like Uncle E.!

[ferez21]

I post here on behalf of the resellers who can't be bothered to take the time to do what Uncle E does, and I see no harm in that - only mutual benefit.

I have to agree here, i see nothing wrong with an Advertising Agent as long as the content is real and related to the thread.

[Hans25]

I have to agree here, i see nothing wrong with an Advertising Agent as long as the content is real and related to the thread.

But if you read the thread, you definitely can see what is wrong. Advertisement isn't wrong. But the way he does it is.

[paterpeter]

I have to agree: disguised affiliate links, spamming the links all over many posts, not disclosing the real nature of the posts in advance - all that is super fishy in my book and totally kills the transparency of the bargain thread. Affiliate links are forbidden in signatures for good reasons and IMO they should be in normal posts as well.

[gamecat666]

every reply seems to be an excuse to include the waves bundle i linked.

[BBFG#]

Personally, I get a feel for the market and it's dealers on these threads and I sometimes even go for the deals.

It's nice to have an understanding of who you're dealing with in a larger text whenever possible.

Believe it or not, some of 'the best deals' have raised the flags of when I was a buyer/seller/dealer myself.
And the continuous '80+% off sales' and get free titles with purchase do cause me to see these in the same psychology of sales that drug dealers use. Often because they think they're product is so good that they believe pirates will steal it at any moment, so they add some type of intrusive copy protection that further devalues it and forces them to sell at these 'give-away' prices.
So many of these 'deals' are clearly to trap the vulnerable impulse buyers of the market masses.
Just think, if they removed the secondary software that only assuages their paranoia and sold it at a comparable price in the first place, chances are they would sell more without having to give it away.

The bottom line is to always do you're research as best as you can, learn the tricks and how to avoid them and always try to keep your wits about you. And quit picking up every piece of trash that is thrown at you. Whether it be a product, the deal associated with it or the quid pro quo in KVR.
Thanks for making us aware of those that are finding ways to profit from brokering deals that aren't all that real.
And yes, a full disclosure stating their association would prevent others from exposing them as a shill. (Which in many cases is illegal and considered fraud).

[valerian_777]

I absolutely agree with everything what Hans25 wrote here. Nobody needs your stinky links SalemBeats. The ultimate nonsense is that you compare yourself with Uncle E altough Hans25 already explained why thats absurd (not that somebody else but you need a clarification about this) but you still keep talking the same crap over and over again. I muted you now and hopefully other follow. Even better would be if they kick your a** outta here.

[antithesist]

Yes, I vote for no URL linking at all, for whatever reason.

Posts here work just fine without shortening, etc.

Also, you need to disclose your pertinent affiliations.

In that light, I get a 10% commission on each one of these sold:

http://www.moogmusic.com/products/modul ... lar-system

(kidding about the Moog thing... posted that in the deal thread and no one commented)

Oh, and Uncle E "is" JRR (owner, etc.).

[GreyLion]

tl;dr --

Hans25: Hey, SalemBeatsKVR! Are you sneakily posting a bunch of tacky affiliate links in the Bargains thread?

SalemBeatsKVR: Why, yes. Yes I am. How about that Awesome Waves Silver Bundle deal that I'll make money from if you click on it?

Hans25: That's kinda immoral, and really cheesy, and it pisses me off!

SalemBeatsKVR: Blow me.

****
Are we done yet?

FWIW -- I never click on affiliate links. Screw those parasites. I hope it gets explicitly banned here.

[thetechnobear]

I think there are two questions, and imho they both relate to 'transparency'

a) the rules state, it must be clear if you are a private person or a trader
I've seen Salem beats post, and never really believed they were from a private seller.
BUT I do think all posters who are not do private sales should include something in their signature which makes this clear, as Uncle E does.
you cannot expect kvr users, to have to search for this information.

b) using indirect links
this is for the kvraudio moderators to decide, but I would strongly support that only direct links to sales websites should be allowed.
I think using shortened URLs to 'disguise' affiliate links, is at least confusing to the buyers, and not very 'transparent'

I think 'transparency' should be the guide here, it should be clear to kvr users what the posters 'motives' are in the posting, who are they dealing with, and the conditions and origin of the offer.

[TheKid]

Two douchebags throwing shit at eachother... where is my popcorn?
I have no problems with affiliate links if someone really contributes to the bargains thread e.g. perfect discription, offering promo codes and stuff if the link is transparent for everyone. I don't lose anything there. But hidden links via short url services deserve to be killed. And whenever a deal is worse than others or even repeated someone needs to get the stick (very hard up the arse).

[scuzzphut]

This thread really has been a steaming pile of poo recently.

[jsp1979]

This thread really has been a steaming pile of poo recently.

I suggest a Bargain Center Discussion Thread: Discussion thread.