What would be interesting is to see a statistic of actual subscriber turnover rate and average subscriber lifetime for these systems, which I would assume is fairly high (1-6 months?). My assumption is that most people who purchase these systems are not big/professional traders but new/inexperienced people who go to the site, find systems with the highest return, plunk down their $200/month and wait for the checks to roll in...They stick with it until there is a losing streak and then bail, perhaps to jump to another system. Also, since I'm guessing that most subscribers are small-time traders (<10 lots for futures), I would think that normal market volumes would swamp out subscriber volumes on instruments people would normally trade (e-minis, etc). An interesting test to incorporate while verifying an automated system would be to submit a bunch of variously sized orders when you get your signal and assume your own order brings up the rear...You could gather statistics on fills, etc and this would be a good method to determine what sort of subscriber base you could handle without slippage. If there's no effect, it seems that allowing people to tag along would be a good idea. Anyway, food for thought.
I wonder why they don't post the statistics of how many subscribers for each system. Would be interesting to know.
My take: Because if potential system sellers knew how few paying subscribers there really were they wouldn't bother publishing their systems on C2. This discussion comes up many times on C2's forums and the admin always says the same thing about why he doesn't want to disclose that info, proprietary/confidential business info, etc. A couple of the most-popular system owners have disclosed their subscriber stats and they aren't at all impressive.
This is a very believable story. The best systems (whatever "best" means to subscribers) always get a subscriber here and there but probabbly the ratio of active subscription to the number of listed systems isn't too favourable. Remember collective2 charges monthly fees to system sellers too.
You can symilarly ask why there are so many people in the business of developing indicators and trading systems for others. Trading your own account is a career choice. If you have enough capital, discipline and creativity to adapt, you may make a good living out of it. Others prefer to rely on the stability of salary or fees to carry them through down months.
Thats what you do when you cant trade and you realize your system doesnt really work. See the blowinsky thread to see the mentality of a C2 trader. Eventually a real trader came in; Talon, and exposed the system for what it really was. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=167686 it got so obvious it was a con game, he gave up and closed the thread. Also C2 just got hacked.
systems charging $50 per mo might get up to 100 subscribers. if the system doesnt perform anymore, subscribers will demand a refund from C2 though, which will be granted to avoid legal disputes. hence, system developers not only have to have a flawless system (close to impossible), while at the same time, have to pay an hefty commission to C2 and last but not least pay the listing fee. thus, it doesnt make any sense at all. the only reason there are so many systems there is because most wannabes dream about building their reputation through C2 in order to later became a legit money manager, CTA or HF trader (see blowinski thread as a good example of this profile). sadly, that will never happen, as C2 is as credible and reputable as any professional prostitute from cairo/egypt. obviously, C2 derives most of its income from poor trading wannabes that pay the semi-annual fee and their business acumen is as such, that they have lost the CC numbers of all their paying customers to hacker a couple of hours ago.
Did they accept paypal? It's cases like this where it's always better to use paypal so you don't have to risk having your credit cards stolen (by either employees of that company or hackers). I never give my credit card info to these small dick-lick operations. Ya, paypal sucks, and your CCs are scam protected but it's still a hassle to have them replaced.
Sir, you clearly know shit about how C2 operate, so let's just treat your post what it is, speculation, and correct the missconceptions.