Bodyart .com

Bodyart.com Galleries Information on Tokens and Pay-As-You-Go Content Offerings

After years of considering various alternatives, and liking the micro payment systems when they were first introduced over a decade ago, we've settled on a token-based, pay-as-you-go system for our galleries. We first had galleries on-line in 1992/93, taken from our BBS system which was on-line since the mid 80's. Long, Long time! One of the oldest, if not the oldest, in this business. In the BBS days you bought memberships which gave you "credits" good for downloads, time on-line, and other access features. So much has changed, but the basics stay the same.

Because of the varied nature of our content, and the broad range of interests it covers, the ability to pick and choose what you want, rather than having to purchase a whole site, is a far better option. To have a membership to EVERYTHING might cost over a hundred dollars a month, because we don't know what you are interested in, and how much you'd be downloading. But, when you buy tokens, if there is only one $0.25 update a week in your favorite model's area, you'd be spending a dollar a month, not $25-30 or more. If something else caught your interest, you'd drop a token or two, and IMMEDIATELY see if it really was what you were looking for. No more buying memberships, signing up, cancelling recurring billings, paying $59.99 for the first month, then $29.99 each month after. Like pre-paid wireless, you are always in control.

While some people really like the recurring membership options, and it can generate a huge extra income for the site, automatic billing is not always fair to you, and it can generate a lot of ill will and charge backs for people who forget they have a membership. From our point of view, it creates a real challenge to try to figure out what content people really like. Not what they look at the most, but what they are actually willing to pay for. Voting with dollars (or pennies) as it were. Some things get looked at a lot, but people don't want to pay for it. That means a site could be generating content that was actually putting them out of business, when right next to it, was content that was each downloaded by fewer people, but those people were interested enough to purchase it -- and would keep purchasing it if there was more.

Can you see how the token system ENCOURAGES the content you want, while lowering costs for everyone, and the AVS all-access-passes actually DISCOURAGE the generation of the good content, and raises costs across the whole system (and even Internet)? By eliminating the "wasted" content and bandwidth that sucks money and resources from the sites, and actually interferes with generating the content you want, the website owners know what it is you REALLY want, and can keep finding models, photographers, and other providers to create it?

We will be setting up some test galleries, for "previews" of what is coming across the network. For now, those galleries will be stand-alone, not part of your user account, or integrated into the system. Once we test the parts, you will only be able to purchase tokens, and spend them, once you log on. Your purchases will be listed in your account history, and you'll be able to access that content for at least a year, maybe longer. Your payment information isn't sent to us, so there is no security or privacy issues.