How do sites like hotfile or rapidshare make money?

I am wondering how do these sites make money?
Sure they can sell memeberships but then again how many free loaders want to pay to download while one can download free (although slow and has to wait)
I did not see any ads being sold on their servers. There seems to be no other source of money that I can think of.
So how do they make money?

 

I'm willing to bet that they sell enough premium accounts to pay the bills.

 

With the massive amount of people using these filesharing sites, it's no wonder they can make money. There's many ways they get signups for their premium access, but here's an easy one.


People like movies, right? So, they go online and they see where they can get them. Now how about if they find someone who's willing to give them the movie, and for free? And all they have to do is download it? People put their files on hotfile since they offer a rewards program for downloads. So people upload videos and such and other people download them.


Some of these files are absolutely gigantic. The file hosts, like hotfile, put caps on just how much can be uploaded in one go. And this means that if the limit is around 200 megabytes, and you have to share a 1000 megabyte file, then you'll need to split it up. So the uploader puts FIVE files up to download, and to play the movie, the downloader needs all of them. ALL of them.


So what about if it takes roughly 30 minutes to download another piece after each download? What about if they've got some kind of captcha in place that makes downloading take even longer, when you have to fill in the letters to get the download? And what if they plaster on their site how much faster it'll be when you have their service?


People sign up because so many people use these sites. It's a cycle that feeds into itself. The price is completely justified because there's always going to be something to download with their account. The sheer amount of movie and download sites out there means you'd be able to get all that stuff and never have to wait.


So besides paying server costs, and paying people for driving downloaders to their site, and believe me, the amount they make from premium memberships far outpaces what you get for working with them, they end up making a killing. The amount of time it takes to download something is a very big issue, and lots of people see the amount of money for a 30 day access account as a small price to pay.



The evidence is in the fact that these sites still exist.

 

Well premium accounts may certainly may be a good source of revenue but don't forget that the files are not organized in a nice manner for such users. It is not like that you get premium membership and suddenly you can choose from thousands of files. You still need to know the download links. If the files were arranged as in case of a pay website or message board with caps and download links visible, I would say that would be a killer but they way it is at the moment, I am not sure if the premium memberships are the only way to make money.
However rapidshare has made lot of money for sure.

 

Yep, premium accounts is the way they get money.
Some of them use CPA to get money too

 

yes,.. same here, I've been found some over internet that they pay their server from premium membership,.. awesome I guess..

 

You are wrong. They have premium accounts. You know out of 100 free accounts, they have 12 premium accounts. That is enough to earn millions.

 

premium accounts, as well as advertisement published on their sites like megaupload

 

premium memberships & advertisements.

also when people post links to their files hosted on those services, they are getting backlinks

 

By selling premium account to downloader.
Its more than enough to cover the cost of dedicated server.

 

Yes, premium accounts can really add up, as can advertising (although as you say hotfile and rapidshare don't have advertising) there's also money to be made with content behind CPA gateways, also where hotfile have done well is with their affilate program driving many millions to buy premium. There are so many advantages to buy premium. For example Megashare will match your line speed and allow you to upload unlimited sized files amongst many other things if you go premium

 

I bet Mostly from premium accounts.

 

They make money by making their free download service as rage inducing as possible . If someone is always downloading using the free service, they will crack sooner or later and buy a premium account. Even cheap memberships cover costs because bandwidth is cheap these days.