Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Markham
There is one massive flaw in the "Free Driving an Economy" theory.
Free is paid for by sales.
Tubes are paid for by sales.
Affiliates giving away free content is driven by sales.
Google is driven by sales.
Economies are driven by sales.
No doubt a few will make some money by giving away things for free. Google is a great example of that. Industries will lose money if their products are given away for free. Economies will lose money if their products are given away for free.
To earn money with adverts on a free site of any description, you need the advertisers to make sales.
Just a little 101 in business.  |
with all due respect, there's your (and many other people's) problem, you can't think out of advertisements or "the good ole business 101". If you allow yourself to think out of the "good ole whatever", maybe you'll see the clear paths. The "good ole whatever" died many years ago, so why get stuck on the memories? I never said "sell advertisements", that's a business in itself, but I'm in the business of selling ADULT ENTERTAINMENT. Hence, that's what the whole thing is about.
What has changed is the media, the delivery, the formats and the business models. The porn remains the same. You've seen the VHS market die, the magazines die, the CD-ROM die... and yet the final product (porn) is always for sale. All of the now defunct technologies had their own business models, so tell me, how is now different? The fact that you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means you can't see it.
Just as an example, let's get back to VHS. Back in the times, the whole movie industry was crying about the coming end. Yet, it didn't happen. VHS were cheaper, you'd pirate them, exchange with friends, get borrowed tapes, whatever. Cheap entertainment at its finest. Doom. Yet, the more expensive alternative is alive and kicking and making billions. Why? Because there are many, many, many, MANY things other than price.
Now, let's take our own industry: now we have those malign tube sites killing the sales. Of course there's a huge influence of tubes in the current adult business context, denying it would be ridiculous. What you can't see is that those malign tube sites aren't making as much money as they could. With CTR as low as 0.05% (believe it, I've tried a few) and horrid conversions, their only way to survive is by having shitloads of traffic (which they have), but sooner or later, that business model will eat itself. However, once a single tube owner realize where is the real money... well, be prepared. All the other copycats will follow and there will be no room for most adult webmasters, it will be just a big boys party and the only way to keep in business will be extreme specialization. But then, there's where the new wave of porn will probably come and the business will re-accommodate itself.
Either way, Paul, the real problem here is you're seeing the business as a hopeless one, and you're neglecting yourself the chances to see all the opportunities and open paths. And honestly, it's very sad to see one experienced webmaster as you having such a nihilist view