Appreciate the candid answer. Though to be clear, the free membership is not being offered specially to Flyertalkers. It says it right on your site that it's currently free to everyone and has $99 a year crossed off.
Also in fairness I think the average FTer is not the average consumer- somewhat more informed, more aware of the competition, more willing to search, probably more price sensitive. You may find a small number of people in the general public willing to pay $99 a year (like TA Plus is trying to do) but you'd be hard pressed to find them here. Every time I find a deal on TA Plus, it indicates to me that wholesaler rates are out there and I am able to easily find it on free sites. I personally wouldn't pay a dime for "exclusive" deals. And there is a difference between "signup" and paid membership. I realize you need the former to bypass the hotel programs best rate guarantees and agreements.
What I meant more than "on request" bookings was that I find when I deal with the third tier OTAs (in my mind, first tier being direct booking, second being the big retail OTAs, and the third being those that sometimes offer below market rates, like you are trying to do) I find that often there is a fourth party involved. There is me, the hotel, the OTA, and the wholesaler. When I resort to third tier or fourth party OTAs (and I do that sometimes cause I travel a lot and realize you can save some money), frequently the OTA collects my money but the booking does not make it to the hotel for days, weeks or months-- or ever. I've had this happen to me over and over and if you read sites like TrustPilot you'll see it's the standard way of doing business for many if not most of the third tier OTAs. So typically what I will do if I really can't resist a deal is make a refundable booking, give it a few days, check with the hotel directly and if they don't have any record of the booking, I'll cancel because I know it will be a headache down the line.
So, let me reformulate my comments into a specific question: does HotelSlash (which is very different than AutoSlash, since the latter just refers you to another site for booking to make the commission but is not an actual OTA) provide third-party bookings via a direct link to the hotel --- or fourth-party bookings with an intermediary wholesaler (like Hotelbeds) involved?
Sorry for the tough questions but you pulled back the curtain a bit so I'd like to see what's behind it...