[Glathannus]

Well, the first thing he posted was a link to Play-Asia. The only thing I like about them is they actually give you your money back, when you find out how much of a joke their availability is (I've had that experience with videogame-related goods). So I'm not trying to paint this picture of "YesAsia dreams up all of these diabolically evil schemes". If they actually kept an extensive Japanese inventory (not just a listing - but an actual real inventory), I'd be giving them props, but no sellers in Hong Kong really do that (unless bootlegs and sample copies on eBay actually count).

What's really messy is the few Hong Kong eBay sellers who actually stock anything old and legitimate, are often also selling illegitimate stuff in other listings, and the untrained eye doesn't know which stuff is which, so from what you can gather from their feedback, everything must be legit or everything must be fake. On that basis, chances are you dismiss the few good opportunities out of fear of getting sucked into a bad opportunity. Or you're just a huge sucker who gets lucky sometimes.

When you try to buy Japanese goods from Hong Kong, you don't know what you're getting (in the case of samples/counterfeits on eBay or second-press at Play-Asia or YesAsia), if you're getting it, or when you're getting it. Comparing that to the Direct-from-Japan Experience is like comparing witchcraft to science. It's the difference of hoping versus knowing. If you're a big fan of certainty (I know I am), then there's not a lot of great things you can say about buying Japanese goods from Hong Kong. It's an overrated phenomenon in other communities about Japanese music, and this guy was perpetuating it the moment he first started posting here. I blame the all-too-rampant affiliate program more than I'd blame his own personal preference of where he might choose to buy from.

I'm just pointing him (I'm assuming it's a him) to a good example of vendor linking and implying that if he wants to do us any favors, any linking he supplies us with ought be more than just affiliate-only. I noticed that the English-speaking Ayumi Hamasaki forums were linking exclusively to YesAsia before, but that after CD Japan introduced their own affiliate program, that community started linking to CD Japan instead (when they could be linking to both). As a matter of credibility, why can't someone just link to a vendor like HMV Japan, or post non-affiliate links to CD Japan or YesAsia? That's the kind of credibility most EMFers have, and if bucklemyshoe wants to be welcomed as an equal, they should conduct themselves the same way.

The only official affiliate linking at EMF (at the beginning of every Product thread) is to help fund the community. Affilate links are not the only official links, nor are they covertly-affiliate like Play-Asia links. That's the example to follow. If you want to link to only one seller, don't be a douche about it.

I guess the cat's out of the bag now.