its a natural progression that started out with sponsors making FHGs. Its now gotten to the point where sponsors do 90% of the work making free hosted galleries, sites, flv and mp4 promo clips, tube sites and rss feeds, PLUS most sponsors also run half-decent linklists, TGP sites and directories. And to do all this, most affiliate programs need to hire people.

...so why not cover off that remaining 10% of work by making your own blogs and promo sites and listing them on your own linklists and directories....and reap the benefit of no rev-sharing or affiliate payouts.