I gave this some thought in the filesonic days, and I think the PPD model has a big advantage, it brings many more uploaders at once, and in the short, medium and long term, it provides a file host much, much larger exposure.
Exposure matters. You'll be much more inclined towards becoming premium with a file hosts that has links available in hundreds of websites, rather than becoming premium with a file host present only in one or two of your data sources.
In that regard, the PPD numbers are an immediate loss of money, but in the long run they're a worthy investment. Even the PPS members should consider they're making some premium conversions thanks to the PPD people showering their links everywhere.
It's a short term money haemorrhage VS a longer term popularity and sales investment.
It must be hard to get enough cash to pay during the first steps.
I was thinking of this during the filesonic days, and I was guessing that, like megaupload did one year before, very soon filesonic would close or restrict their PPD program, since they had become gigantic enough to be well-known and well-liked by everyone.
Except that the Feds made their surprise party-crashing before it could happen.
