We've received a number of questions like that over the last week from our concerned customers. Following the Vids 2.0 upgrade we promised you better communication of our decisions going forward - so instead of subtle changes over the longer period of time we opted to be as straightforward as possible with you all. Even though you might end up less than excited by the changes we will tell you about, they are necessary in order to better navigate the challenging landscape of the niche we operate in, as well as position ourselves for long-term and profitable growth in 2024. There's a lot to digest here, so we'll try to be concise.
Background
1) Peeing Outdoors is shutting down in the near future
We've been talking to the PO producer, and he told us of his plans to quit publishing soon, citing various problems and very time-consuming nature of his job. As PO is one of the foundations of the PissRIP Premium channel and among our most sought-after content overall, what this means is we are expecting to lose one of our biggest moneymakers. However, our operating costs and our commitment to improving the level of service necessitate a certain monthly level of income. As a result, we have to seek other means to ensure profitability going forward.
2) The subscription model is problematic
In the past, we talked a lot about the flawed design of the subscription model - how it allowed (and encouraged) everyone to subscribe once or twice per year, download the best content and move on. There is no need to revisit that. However, there are also other issues. For example, the automatic rebill from the tokens balance (in contrast to access until certain date, such as what we had pre-Vids 2.0) causes a bug where if a customer does not have enough tokens for a rebill, he is then unable to resubscribe at a later date. It also led to several cases of attempted fraud, when some of our members made extensive use of their subscriptions, and then attempted to get a refund for them, claiming they did not authorize the rebill, were not aware of it and so on. Long story short - there is simply too many flaws with subscriptions model to continue doing that.
3) Plenty of videos are not performing
Under the subscription model, our ability to determine what exactly our customers subscribe for is very limited. Views, likes... all those metrics are not exactly representative of real demand towards this or that content. At present, we feel there is a lot of very low-demand content at Vids, and there isn't really much sense to pay to continue hosting it and maintaining multiple backups. However, if we did a "Spring Cleaning" like we did in 2023, it would likely be inaccurate and once again lead to wiping some valuable content, which neither you nor us would be happy about. However, there is one perfect metric, by which we've been successfully evaluating our Premium content - purchases. If every single clip had a price tag on it, then we'd be able to always have accurate data as to which content you care and don't care about.
Decisions
1) We are abandoning the subscriptions model
From this day forward, every single clip at the site will be offered separately.
2) We are increasing the USD-to-tokens rate tenfold
What does this mean? Within our new site engine, we are unable to set a price for a video lower than 1 token. However, we got plenty of videos, for which it would make no sense to charge $1. To circumvent this limitation, we are changing the rate to 1 USD = 10 tokens. Clips that were sold separately in the past have been rebalanced to fit this system, for example 3 tokens has become 30 tokens. And, of course, your current tokens balance has been adjusted accordingly to reflect the new rate.
3) We are getting rid of redundant channels
There will no longer be any need for the separate "PissRIP" and "PissRIP Premium" channels, as the whole site will technically be "Premium" from now on. We are also removing DrunkVids and moving its content to PissRIP. As a result, we will end up with just 4 channels (PissRIP, DesperVids, SpyRIP, WetVids), and each of them now features its own "latest videos" on the site's home page.
Benefits
1) Pay what you want
You no longer need to buy a $10 subscription, if you're only after a $1 video. We have also removed the minimal payment amount for Crypto and Binance Gift Cards - completely redundant under the new system!
2) Refunds
In addition to updating your tokens balance according to the new rate, we have fully refunded the tokens for every subscription made after December 15!
3) More content
As we are no longer bound by the "gentlemen agreement" with Peeing Outdoors, we have started uploading PO content more frequently, including latest videos. There have also been more frequent updates of other cool stuff, including Wandering Voyeur and amateur models.
Closing Statement
While the site going full "premium wall" might feel like a huge thing, the reality is the majority of our high-demand content has been sold separately for quite a long time as it is. So the change isn't nearly as big as it looks like. We hope you'll appreciate the advantages of this update and will be able to see past its unfortunate, yet necessary drawbacks.