Quote:
Originally Posted by Rochard
Most people in our industry believe the sky is always falling. Some of us remember the movement to limit the amount of pictures TGPs can use because they were giving away too much content. Then there was Google picture search that was giving surfers easy access to our content, and some of us complained about that. (At the same time some of us learned how to use Google picture search to our advantage.)
The truth of the matter is you can blame this on TGPs giving out too much content, Google picture search, Tubes.... The funny thing is no on in our industry seems to give any thought to other issues that kills us - such as the fact that a handful of websites now suck down more than half of all Internet traffic. That's sixty percent of our potential customer base out the window from the start. (I'm talking about Facebook, Ebay, Myspace, and YouTube here.) The Internet is now useful and entertaining, and we are being left behind.
No one in our industry seems to be accepting the truth. We are in the worst recession we'll see in our lifetime. People are loosing their jobs and their houses; Discretionary cash for cheap entertainment is at an all time low. More than half of the houses on my street are empty; I can name a dozen restaurants within a two miles radius of my house that have closed up shop. The problems our industry is facing isn't because of tube sites; Open up your eyes - every industry is hurting.
How have I kept my head above water? Blogs. I launched four more this week, all hand written. Cost me nothing to make, and after a few months each blog makes me some coin. While everyone is bitching, my blog network has been rising every month except for last month.
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There will always be the people who cry wolf, but sometimes the wolf does pop up and eat a few people. Everyone's level of panic really depends on their personality and what sector of adult the are involved with. If I was a content producer I would be worried. If I owned picture and video sites I would be worried. If I promote or own cam / dating sites I wouldn't be as worried.
You have the attitude that nothing is ever going to happen, all these staurt littles just cry the sky is falling every time an issue pops up. Don't be too arrogant and over confident. It is one thing for people to be worried something is going to happen it is another when you see companies starting to close down. I've never been one to scream it's the end blah blah, but what you have right now is a perfect storm. Not one issue like xxx, or acacia, or bush and obscenity laws, like we have had in the past, 1 issue at a time. What you have right now is several bad things that really are happening:
Tube sites: You can make all the analogies you want to tgps, google search or whatever. Tube Sites give away your entire members area and make it very easy for you to view the videos. No downloading like p2p and worrying about getting a virus, no poor quality, slow feeds. The shit as good as it is in your members area. Not to mention the amount of tube sites that are in the top 100 - top 500 sites on the net. Tube sites are putting a huge dent into pic and video membership sites. If you think otherwise you have your head in the sand.
The other big factor is the credit card crunch. Because of foreclosures, bankruptcies, high unemployment, the banks reduced millions of people's available credit on their cards. Add that plus the people who are living off of their cards because they are unemployed + the people who have already lost their cards in bankruptcy and the pool of potential customers have shrunk 1/2 IMO.
Social networking sites, I really don't see that as a issue. So what people spend a lot of time on them. You guys who believe this act like people are jerking off less now because of facebook. That is absurd, people are just working less, watching tv less or going out less so they can spend that time on facebook, youtube, etc... But people aren't getting off less and they can't get off on facebook. If anything something on facebook might turn them on and then they g o to a porn site to yank it. People still get off just as much as ever, that will never change. What will change is where the go to get off, will it be to your membership site or to youporn.con ?