The subject line had me thinking it was some comment about how a hobbyist gets what they pay for when they hobby on the cheap, that would be valid too, how many times (on other sites where they congregate I would say,not here) do you see guys complain that the girl was roigh looking or the service sucked right after or before they also say they paid $120 or something similar? These guys must go through hundreds of dollars before they get even a decent experience, with some it really is just quantity being the most important thing.
But yeah your right on about a hobbyist risking other things when playing as a cheapskate. I think it would be safe to assume that the fuzz when they are making these stings are setting rates somewhere that would not be pricing out what seems to be a large glut of people in this area that cannot or will not pay, quoting 3 hundred an hour would probably lead them to twittling their thumbs in the hotel rooms.
Thing that bugs me the most about these stings is they are being done under false pretenses, the online ones anyway. It is one thing if a neighborhood is seeking help with a street full of hookers, but this is not the case with what you mentioned. They have been claiming for the past year that all kinds of "human trafficking" is going on on that site. That is a massive load of BS and anyone even remotely familiar with that site would know that, they probably know it, 80% of the ads on their are fake pictures being posted by scammers of one sort or the other, cash and dashers, bait and switch, bait for outright robberies, etc. Maybe a handful of the ads have even a remote chance of being placed by a "trafficker" yet to hear them talk about it they act like every ad is legit and/or a trafficker.
They do it to justify and therefore pay more policemen. There are also opportunists that have chosen to capitalize on the issue for personal gain, establishing foundations and such to fight the problem, they promote the lies and distortions more than the police, the police have to respond to problems that are promoted as "serious". Some tubby guy is getting the payoff around here, they had some thing down at the Freedom center where he was interviewed, could see $$$ signs in his eyes for sure.
These actions are said to attack the customers of the escorts and in their estimation will eliminate the practice. Don't think it will affect any healthy males desire to get some tail when the urge is there, so it won't eliminate anything. They could accomplish the goal of attacking traffickers and street prostitution without penalizing people simply trying to satisfy a primal urge but less justification has been present for all sorts of other governmental action so what are you going to do?