| The Future of the Industry |
A recent thread on the GFY board has spurned me to consider the future of our very fragile industry. The thread discussed the issue of webmasters giving away so much for free that surfers really will not pay for porn any longer. It truly was a very thought provoking thread, unlike many of the threads on that particular board, and even had some of the big guns in the biz putting their opinions forth. We are all aware that the industry is in a much more precarious state that it was in say 1995, due to a variety of forces putting pressure on it. We have had to deal with extreme rules and regulations imposed on us by Visa and MasterCard, which in turn ended up affecting many of the big third-party billing companies. We have had a black cloud hanging over us called Acacia, threatening to sue us over a technology that just about every website with streaming media uses. We have felt pressure from the government and law to clean up our sites to the point that they are almost no longer pornographic. And, we have had companies that we rely on for the success of our own businesses, either close up shop or refuse to do business with the adult industry. However, some of the biggest threats to the future of this industry have actually been the fault of adult webmasters, and we are definitely part of the reason to blame for decline in opportunity in the business. These threats were ones that we either created ourselves, watched take over our livelihoods, or ignored completely.
When the online adult business was at the height of its profit-making bonanza, surfers really had to whip out their credit cards before they could fully get off. Nowadays, there is so much free porn available that there really is no reason or need for surfers to have to pay for a climax. The first place that webmasters point to when trying to place blame for the downfall of the industry, is the TGPs. The original idea behind the TGP was to entice the surfer; to give them just enough to grab their curiosity, but not enough to fulfill them. For a while TGPs really worked and they were a great way to bring traffic to a paysite. The TGP was a machine that was profitable for all: the TGP owners, the submitters, and the programs that were promoted. However, the bliss and the profits soon started dwindling.
Originally, the galleries featured on the TGPs contained a few thumbnails, and some text links and ads for the sponsors sites. As the number of TGPs grew, the competition between them increased as well. The galleries that they featured started containing more and more graphic content until they finally reached the point that we see today. Now the galleries contain up to twenty-plus thumbnails, several movie clips and give the surfers even the most explicit content for free. There is enough content on a TGP to satisfy even the most discriminating surfer. So, while the TGPs are getting more and more traffic, the surfers are becoming more and more satisfied with what they are given for free.
TGPs are not the only source of the free porn that is overshadowing the content that adult webmasters are trying to sell. P2P programs such as Kazaa are one of the first places that people go when they want to get their hands on some free porn. Who can really blame the surfers for taking this route to get their hands on the free stuff when we all do it? I am willing to bet that each and every one of us has downloaded a free porn clip on a P2P program, at some point or another. There is so much free material available through these programs, as well as a wide variety of it, that the savvy surfer needs never to pay for porn again. This brings me to the next problem affecting the future of the industry which is surfers are much more knowledgeable now then they were a few years ago.
Online porn was very profitable in the mid to late nineties because it relied partly on the fact that surfers were rather inexperienced. They were new to the Internet and the fact that they could use it, as a medium to look at porn was a novelty that was still fresh. Back then; surfers assumed that you had to pay for the privilege of being able to view pictures and having videos delivered instantly to your computer screen. However, surfers are no longer ignorant to the fact that there is free porn out there, and lots of it. Surfers today are aware of how to get off without having to charge it. They also have either had bad experiences paying for online porn in the past, or know someone who has. Surfers now are hesitant to pull out their credit cards, for fear of getting scammed, and who can really blame them?
What are we as adult webmasters to do in order to stop the downward spiral of the industry? Sure, we can point fingers at the TGPs and the P2Ps and Visa and whatever else is taking away from our business, but the change really needs to begin with ourselves. What the industry really needs is some innovation. Webmasters need to realize that the way things are being done right now is not optimal for future profits, and they need to find new and improved ways to bring in the cash. We also need to get back to a time when we did not give the whole farm away for free. If we all banded together and agreed to reduce the amount of free porn that we dish out to surfers then eventually we may get them to start paying for it again. It would be a long, slow process, but in the end, it would probably be worth it. |
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| Article Details |
| Author: Muffy |
| Date Posted: December 8th, 2004 |
| Topic: Adult Industry News |
| Reader Rating: 0.0 / 5 |
| Comments Posted: 0 (see below) |
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