Marc,

I guess the couple of big advantages over running a paysite are: (1) you don't have to follow of bunch of AEN rules, (2) it's yours and you have more control over it, and (3) you can have webmasters all over the planet promoting it and sending you traffic.

I think the downside is: you're always sweating about keeping chargebacks down, you probably have to do more customer service (I lost my password, why is this picture small, where's this week's update it's 30 minutes late), you have to monitor webmasters to make sure they're not ripping you off, you have to update the site regularly.

I'm quite happy to let an AEN keep half the money so they can handle all of that crap, then I get to do what I love doing ... running a site.

The downside of running an AEN site is that you're never really sure where you stand with processing. If credit card companies change the rules, you could be left scrambling for a merchant account.

Some AEN sites have really dumb rules. Most of them are in place because somewhere along the line, webmasters found a loophole to screw the AEN. Still, they can be a hassle.

You're a part of a network, and therefore, you're dependant on the design skills and integrity of other webmasters. If they design crap (and there's a lot of it) then everyone looks bad; if they screw surfers, the whole AEN looks bad.

The other big problem is that you're constantly chasing traffic. You need to make galleries, you need to SEO, you need to submit new galleries to the AEN and link lists. And because every AEN is approving another whole bunch of galleries every day, there's always a race to stay on top of the heap.

The best way these days to make money in AEN is to build a hub site that would pretty much look like a big paysite. Could we all say this together: The days of putting three pictures on a page and saying, "Click here to enter" are gone. If you want to make money you need to put more effort into your sites and galleries.

Like others have said, an AEN site could be a good way to test whether your paysite idea would sell or not.

I do well with AEN sites, but then I work hard at it. It seems like a lot of AEN webmasters are still dreaming of the good ole days. If there's anything I can help you with, just PM me, I'm happy to help.

Dzinerbear