The Porn Industry, Free And Basic Economics
from the a-primer dept
Someone who apparently disagrees with our stance on using free within a business model submitted a recent LA Times article about struggles in the porn industry as proof that "free" doesn't work. I always find these sorts of claims amusing. First of all, even if "it doesn't work," it's happening anyway. So, the real question is what are you doing about it. Bitching and moaning that "free" doesn't work doesn't change reality.But, even then, the article doesn't actually support the claim at all. What it does find is that adult performers can't make as much money as they could before, but that's not at all surprising. That's just basic economics again. The tools of production, distribution and promotion have all become much cheaper, and the marketplace has become more crowded. By every conceivable economic measure, it makes sense that the price for the talent may get lower. That's just competition and supply and demand at work.
But does it mean that "free" doesn't work? Again, the evidence is lacking. While some producers who relied on old business models may be having trouble, we've seen others learn to embrace what the technology allows. It doesn't seem that anyone is going to be left wanting for a shortage of porn any time soon -- and give the amount of traffic driven by porn, plenty of producers are figuring out ways to make plenty of money (especially now that their overall costs have gone down).
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Good Lord,
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Re: Good Lord,
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Only mike
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Re: Only mike
I know....poor, big-tittied plastic whores....
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Strange Bedfellows
Not a great industry for news to openly parallel with their "free is evil" campaign.
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Sounds like a job for:
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Re: Sounds like a job for:
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deliberate porn industry lies, they want a handout
porn industries give out their films full length for FREE to make extra money with advertising dollars and selling other complementary services. They do it on all sorts of sites such as tube8, redtube, spankwire and others (I know folks who have signed marketing agreements with them). Last I checked, Cinemax (skinemax) and other sites have been doing this for decades.
Meanwhile, the industry is lobbying for tax dollars and sympathy from consumers by taking the easy out : "free doesn't work" meanwhile they're doing it themselves.
Don't believe a drop, the rest is just the fact that every news company (especially big ones like LA times) will parrot ANY talking points irrespective of their views in hopes to gain a few extra viewers by stumbling onto an interesting article that gains other press. It's the "throw wet spaghetti at the wall until it sticks" method of giving away, or "give away and pray" model done by the news company.
See how this circle goes? Pretty simple, really.
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Re: deliberate porn industry lies, they want a handout
This site always gets opinions from people going off half-cocked (pun intended), without offering well-thought-out arguments.
You've done the opposite here. You seem to be rather well-informed, and your arguments COULD be convincing; except for one small problem: I'm not sure which way you're arguing.
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Re: Re: deliberate porn industry lies, they want a handout
Personally? porn industry is fine, has had no problems, has always been a growth industry in one pun or another.
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Re: deliberate porn industry lies, they want a handout
The porn industry doesn't support tube sites, they don't support giving away the full product for free. It's proof that there are people out there willing to give the stuff away for free to try to upsell something else, and it only works when the steal the content to do it - if they had to pay to produce it, the upsells wouldn't make money.
Comments like this make me understand why people here don't understand the true implications of free!
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Re: Re: deliberate porn industry lies, they want a handout
Video is now cheap enough that the amateur can produce pretty good video. This was not true in the past.
People are now open enough that there are more exhibitionists and angry exes than ever. This was not true in the past.
Site building knowledge, space, and tools are now cheap enough that there are more websites and designers than ever. This was not true in the past.
All the Internet does is bring these people together in a way that is steadily making the core porn industry obsolete.
There will, however, always be a market for the really hard-core stuff or for the the porn connoisseur. More competition just means that everyone has to work harder and better to get paid. What's wrong with that?
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Re: Re: deliberate porn industry lies, they want a handout
(free DOESN'T mean unauthorized file sharing, that's an entirely different, though related, issue)
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Actors are Making Less??
Oh, and any fan can come in and make their own film .. I assume most fans would want to be actors, and they could select whichever actress(es) they want to perform with them.
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Re: Actors are Making Less??
Actually the videoing would be a pretty good dodge. I bet you could get away with it. For a little while at least...
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Agreed
But over time I have realized you just need to keep on your toes and adapt as things change. Identify ways you can add value and create things that people can not share by engaging your customers and creating a community around the content.
However, one problem I have identified that has put the porn industry at a much bigger disadvantage than mainstream content industries is that you can pretty much only advertise more porn on a porn site.
Sex and porn are rarely hot topics on my forums. It is all about the latest gadgets, music, politics, etc.. So if I could advertise products my users are actually interested in, I would make some decent money. But none of these industries are going to want to run ads next to porn. All I can advertise is more porn... Most of my users are not interested in more porn.. They already found some porn they liked and paid me money for it.
This may make it a lot harder for some adult companies to survive. But as long as I can stay competitive enough.. I will personally welcome some of the less innovative competition being thinned out.
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Re: Agreed
Having frequented my fair share of sites, I know what you mean. The innumerable pop-up ads get frustrating. It's kind of like walking out of a video store with a movie that you want, and having a rep from another video store start trying to sell you on his/her video store.
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Re: Agreed
But shouldn't the porn/sex industry's bigger concern, right now, be preparing for all these digital-natives as the majority become sexually unsatisfied adults? You can't tell me that the global socio-psychological significance of pornography isn't changing in BIG ways as the result of the internet, offering plenty of opportunities.
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When did that stop working?
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Kink.com
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Re: Kink.com
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Follow the music artists
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