The problem and quotes about changing ships is misleading
2000ish online porn really started growing and some made good money. Offline was where the old porno people were and for them the best boat. At any time an online
mega earner could of walked into Seymour Butts office and made an offer he couldn't of refused.
They produced a cheap easily copied medium to mediocre product concentrating money in traffic generation. Like it was hard to get men to look at porn.
A few had another approach. Met-Art, Alsscan, Perfect Gonzo, etc. Or were they lucky enough to hook into a producer who could create such a product? Everyone knew these sites were doing well. Everyone should of known of offline guys who could produce the same product. Why didn't they go to the other boat, from their supposedly luxury liner, to make producers an offer to come across?
Viv Thomas, Steve Hicks, Suze Randall, etc. Were all
guns for hire they worked for other people who paid the most. Even a lowly guy like me was able to make more shooting for offline than shooting custom online.
Switching ships meant, getting your own website, to become a publisher in a foreign world and risk losing what they had. The big labels couldn't change ships and lose the retail business. Shop chains were adamant that if the big labels went the route of selling 100s of scenes for $30 a month, it would effect their sales.
The Viv Thomas, Steve Hicks, Suze Randall, etc. level would never of got paid what Dean was happy to work for. Until very recently few bothered to look at creating a product 1000s couldn't copy.
There was nothing stopping an
online big gun making them an offer. Not Homegrown, few would of worked for what they paid for content then and for them going direct online was far better than their offline sales. They bought from amateurs happy to get some money with a video of them screwing, getting shops to dedicate shelf space to that was tough, compared to what the other side of offline was doing.
Far-L will now come back and tell us their offline sales were booming, at the level of all the big guns, and online just boosted it. Which still doesn't answer my main point. Producers can be hired, they go where the biggest bucks are. They don't give a flying fuck if it's online or offline.