Is There Money by
Surfing Websites?
Get Paid To Autosurf
programs once offered an
easy way of making money
on the Internet. The
surf for cash programs
boomed during the year
2005. The golden era of
the get paid to surf
programs is over and the
next money making
Internet craze is bound
to be just over the
horizon.
Autosurfing started out
as a means of Internet
advertising. You would
sign up to a surfing
website and, in return
for you viewing websites
belonging to other
members, you would
receive credits
entitling you to have
your website viewed by
other members. Actually,
you didn't even have to
watch the sites: as long
as they kept loading,
you would earn your
credits even if you went
away to make coffee or
feed the dog.
In late 2003, Studio
Traffic, the biggest and
longest running get paid
to autosurf site was
launched. In addition to
autosurfing to advertise
your website, Studio
Traffic offered you the
opportunity to pay for
upgraded membership
which would entitle you
to earn 1% of the
upgrade fee every day
for a full year. For
each day that you surfed
at least 100 websites,
you would earn your 1%
and you would get paid
at the end of each
month.
The rapid growth of
Studio Traffic
encouraged other
entrepreneurs to set up
similar get paid to surf
sites and the programs
were extremely popular.
By December 2004 there
were about 40 get paid
to surf programs
running. These programs
mostly offered members a
return of 1% daily but
there were a few sites
paying 2% and even up to
5%.
Then a company called 12
Daily Pro opened and
offered a previously
unheard of 12% daily
return. Nobody really
expected 12 Daily to
survive for more than a
few weeks but it did and
as time went on it
showed no signs of
weakening. The success
of 12 Daily Pro caused
many people to take up
autosurfing purely as a
way of making money. By
mid 2005 hardly any
surfers really cared
about advertising on
autosurf for cash sites,
all they wanted was to
get paid. 12 Daily's
success made easy for
new companies to
convince people they
could sustain
unrealistically high
returns. By early 2006
there were over 370
autosurf for cash
programs and most of
them were offering a
return of more than 2%
daily. There were
companies offering
outrageous returns of
24% and even 55%.
In February 2006 came
what has become known as
"the storm" when a
payment processing
company called Stormpay
destroyed 12 Daily Pro
and ended the autosurf
for cash boom. The
details of the storm are
well documented, so I
won't repeat them here.
The broad outline is
that Stormpay insisted
the surf for cash
companies must move all
their cash over to
Stormpay immediately and
use it as their only
payment processor. Once
they had all the money,
Stormpay blocked all the
accounts so none of the
surf companies could
access their accounts to
pay their members. Then
Stormpay (after earning
many thousands of
dollars from transaction
charges) called in the
SEC and claimed the
autosurf for cash
companies were in breach
of SEC regulations.
There are more questions
than answers about the
storm. Some of the top
unanswered questions
are: "Was Stormpay
secretly bankrupt and
created this mess to
hide the fact?" and "If
the autosurf companies
were acting illegally,
why did Stormpay insist
on taking over all their
transactions instead of
distancing itself from
them?" The very top
question is still "What
happened to all the
millions of dollars
Stormpay took from
surfers?" Stormpay is no
longer a licensed
payment processor.
A handful of honest surf
for cash companies
survived the storm but
they had to struggle
hard to keep going. At
the same time, new get
paid to surf sites were
being opened just about
weekly and closing down
just as regularly. Some
of these companies
failed through poor
management but many were
outright scams on the
part of owners who
scooped up as much cash
as possible in a short
time and then did a
vanishing act.
Surfing for cash was an
easy way to earn money
on the Internet. There
was always a degree of
risk in surfing for
cash: a return on your
money was never
guaranteed and there
were a few crooks
running dubious surf
sites but, in the end,
it was human greed that
killed the industry. If
people had been less
greedy and a little more
prudent in their
investments, the cash
would not have been
drawn away from the more
sustainable 1% and 2%
paying autosurfs, 12
Daily Pro would not have
found such fantastic
success, Stormpay would
not have been able to
grab millions of dollars
from surfers and surfing
for cash would still
represent a small branch
of Internet advertising.
When the next easy money
craze comes into view,
will people remember
"the storm" and exercise
caution? Unless there
has been a dramatic
change in human nature,
the answer is no and
hoards of desperate
ex-surfers will be
paddling out to meet it.
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