Here is an email Hotornot Sent out saying they are going back to paid because of fake profiles and scammers.
I think its more about money, as a free site I earn millions, as a paid site I would earn around 100 Million a year given my membership. I would suspect the game plan is to focus on facebook apps to send traffic to hotornot and then make a lot of money off memberships again. I can’t see to many free site competitors in the future, as there is just way more money in being a paid site.
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Dear loyal HOTorNOT star members,Based on feedback we got from many of you, we have decided to start requiring star memberships on HOTorNOT again. While many of you saw how going free would be good, you also warned us that this would probably lead to more spammers and fake profiles.
You were right, this is exactly what happened. The spammers got aggressive to the point where they were screwing up the system, even causing the “someone wants to meet you” emails to not be sent for periods as long as 5 days.
We don’t really regret trying to make the site free dating site so everybody can use it, but it’s clear that most of our users believe an inexpensive paid site works better than a free site filled with spammers.
If you left the site after we went free, we hope you’ll come back and join again. If you are still here, we hope turning subscriptions back on has a noticable impact for you, helping you meet more people without having your time wasted by the spammers.