100% of the money from the article program goes to the article writers and editors, which is then used to hire more writers, which is then used to improve the program, which is then used to get more booster packs from TCGplayer because we're giving them more exposure, which is then used to award YOU. It's literally an endless cycle to support and enrich the community. Everything we do is for you.
I don't like defending an admin on their own site - WPM is a big boy, he can take care of himself - but this really does seem like a profitable situation for everyone, to be quite honest.
1. Players are getting pretty good return on investment if they do well enough. There might be some griping if you're someone who normally buys a lot of packs of each set anyways in that the prizes will represent redundancy for you, but if you're in that boat, it's just a fact this won't appeal to you - doesn't mean it won't affect you either.
2. TCGplayer is likely making the most profit of all of this, to be honest, as they deal with cards in bulk so giving away packs are prizes is going to be a lot cheaper than having to give away cash rewards. Having said that, they're primarily banking on most prize winners being in the US. e.g. I'm located in Australia and if I enrolled and won, they can afford to take a big hit on shipping once in a while, but if all the top winners were costing extra shipping, you probably would've seen this program shut down.
3. I am not going to have the nerve to suggest WPM is actually making money when he just said he's not, but if he wanted to be more transparent (bear in mind he has no obligation to be as such to you, though) he easily could have explained if he is actually making profit, he's probably using it to offset web hosting costs. It is obviously a huge difference in scale but the example of the admin of the website 4chan going into debt for >10 years straight to keep the site up illustrates
- web hosting is expensive for popular sites. Pokebeach is relatively well-known. e.g. it got huge traffic during S/M video game leaks and pretty steady traffic otherwise.
- Google Ads is becoming steadily less lucrative for site admins. Unfortunately, Google Ads also successfully drove out most of the competition so it is what it is.
- My experience with the Pokemon community is everyone is always worried about being ripped off. Unless they're willing to do it for exposure, WPM is probably paying his guest writers a more than fair rate just to avoid any conflicts. This might be read sarcastically by some of the folks who do write articles and aren't happy with their comp, but consider a. where else you might get paid, at all, to write articles about the PTCG, and b. consider it from WPM's situation. It's a bit unusual for him to be paying guest writers at a time he's barely breaking even himself. Certainly a long-term gamble/investment, but I emphasize gamble there. No guarantee it pays off in the long term.
Quite honestly, cheers for the success of this program as it's a win/win/win and a product of a pretty entrepreneuring spirit.
Thank you Pokébeach and TCGPlayer.com!!