You are right but have some one did only for reputation, they don't care money.
The real that most of new group they belong underground world. I thought they got paid by usenet network
Sorry for my bad english
Yeah, I have started file sharing works since 1998, and have a group of loyal vistors on my sites and members on my forums.
Some of them even become fathers or mothers now, and they also find educational materials on my forums.
Before 2011, I haven't used any filehosts which can earn money. (at most some of them can earn points to exchange premium memberships)
I have changed my sharing methods many times during the 14 years: ancient file hosts, edonkey2000, bittorrent, and new file hosts.
If all file hosts die, I can go back to use other methods.
Affiliate program is just a little bonus to me, whether it's existing or not doesn't matter.
I constantly use 25% ~ 30% of my salary to keep exclusive resources.
Earnings from filehosts cannot save it too much.
It's the reason why you cannot see I cry about no payment in all filehosts threads.
All questions I asked are free users download capability, and how long or how many files I can store.
I was sharing files for free in the first place.
Although I have joined affiliate programs since 2011, it's not too long so I don't need to rely on them.
If a filehost pay me, it's good and lucky.
If a filehost doesn't pay me, it's bad but nothing.
I'm not only doing that for reputation, but I cannot say what they are.
Maybe it becomes a habit, so I merely cannot stop it.