What in the world are you talking about?
The fees are pretty average imo.
The initial amount of $49.95 is known as the activation fee to get your product screened and listed in the market place.
Good news is, if you want to list another product in the market place, it would be cheaper... if I remember right, it will only be $29.95 or so.
And the main advantage of joining clickbank is they have a huge army of affiliates. These affiliates are helping you to draw in profits.
Imagine it this way - you sell a product for $20.
After Clickbank takes some fees ($20 - 1 = $19 *7.5%), your remaining profit to be split between you and your affiliate is 17.575.
But lets say an affiliate's cut is 75%, you will get the remainder $4.50.
You may think it is little, but hey... just imagine hundreds of affiliates creating review pages, articles, and so many stuffs to forward targeted traffic to your site.
Imagine if each of the 100 affiliates make a sale, you would have earned $450 doing NOTHING in marketing efforts, provided that your salespage is good.