Your basic thinking and the thinking of the online porn business is wrong.
If millions could now access porn online who couldn't before. Then why do you even need affiliates to give away free porn. Why is traffic King, other than it takes 1,000s to get a few sign ups? You had these millions and got them off for free, the idea is to make them buy to get off. This isn't a new thought, nor just me. Remember when people were saying too much free hardcore porn on a TGP was hurting sales?
The idea online porn made more money than offline porn is also wrong. It might be that as the online porn grew and offline porn shrunk because of the free porn online. Of those millions coming to online, many were porn offline buyers previously. The Internet offered only one plus,
free porn. All the talk about online delivering a product offline didn't is crap. There was amateur porn long before the Internet
You probably look at what a porn producer made and think that's it. Times that money by 3 or 4 and you have a closer figure. But including offline retail sales is something online refuses to do.
Building an enormous barrier between the millions who wanted to look at porn and those who sold porn is stupid. The example of someone giving away nibbles in a supermarket is so flawed it's amazing people keep coming up with it.
Think of it along the lines of loads of people standing outside a supermarket with bottles of beer trying to sell crates of beer inside. The free bottles are endless, more than you can consume. What you see for free isn't always a good representative of what's inside the crates. And you have to buy a recurring months supply of crates, whether you like it or not. The free bottles are always there just when you need them.
Blaming me for what we did is also wrong. By the time we opened our paysite the affiliates had the business by the balls. Play to their tune or whistle. Also we had other eggs in other baskets, the paysite was never our main income.
No this is the time where the promised land is elsewhere. Online has now ruined the porn business. Eventually companies like Manwin will fade if they stay in porn. The consumer is so educated that porn should be free it's pointless trying to build a site and set up a new business. Maybe there's still some money in offline, but not for us. We made our money over the years and as you say I have been preaching this message for a long time. I saw this coming, it was obvious to anyone who knew anything about porn.
We put away enough money to look after us fr a long time. Not gambling it on starting a porn site.
Today there's is only one way forward. And it is as you point out. Build something that will sell and don't let the affiliate system control the building of it.
It's probably too late for any of us. The really good solo girl sites might hang on and make a Ma & Pa living. The Manwin's and FTV's of the industry will last till the very end. It was great while it lasted and I have some really great memories from porn, both online and offline. Online porn made us a bucket full of money, remember when the cry was "Non Exclusive is saturated"? It takes a lot of sales to saturate a main stream niche like teens. Either we sold a scene a lot of times, or that idea is also bullshit.
Producing the same porn as everyone else and making it exclusive has one benefit. It helps affiliates get the galleries onto TGP sites, to the buyer it means nothing unless it's very special content. Most sites couldn't afford decent content even in the boom times.