Originally Posted by jerkules

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The evolution of porn.

To see where porn is going, we need to see how we got to where we are.

We could say there have been several stages to porn.

Paintings/Drawings. Such as early cave drawings.
Statues.
Written/Books.
Audio Only. Such as records.
Photography.
Magazines.
Films. Such as 8mm.
Films. VHS/Betamax, then DVD and Blu Ray.
Internet porn. Photographs, Film, Written, Audio, and more recent Webcam. This is based on the pay model.
Internet porn. As with (9), but now we see a switch from pay to a free model.
Phone Apps. Such as dating.
These stages are a basic guide, though you may think of other stages in the process.

The first thing to note is that often people find it hard to move from one stage to another. Magazines in most cases failed to move to the internet, and yet many must have a vast amount of content that could be scanned and uploaded to the internet.

Even firms on the internet have often not been able to reinvent themselves. Many firms have over the years simply closed their sites, rather than embrace new ways.

Today many of the ones who are making great success in porn, is not the huge porn businesses, but simply the webcam model. Who rather than working for others, runs her own business from home, doing webcam shows on such as chaturbate and other webcam sites, building up a vast amount of fans on such as Twitter and so on.

At one time the affiliate model was huge, but these days the number of affiliates who can get sales has dramatically reduced. It is often the porn tube sites with there huge numbers of viewers, who can cream off the bulk of sales, leaving the remainder affiliates often fighting for the odd sale.

Phone apps, such as dating, can bring huge profits. Though it is often said that to start one you need at least £150k just to get the app going. In truth you probably need £200k or more for advertising. And one suspects that to have any chance of the app succeeding, that you will need to have an almost unlimited budget to throw at it.

One advantage these days to anyone making porn for such as the internet is the cost of equipment is extremely low. Gone are the days of spending £100 on a few rolls of film, then having to pay to the film to be developed. You can even just use your digital camera, to not only take photographs but film too. For those on a tiny budget, most modern camera phones now have extreamly good abilities, and can even edit the footage for you.

But how will porn develop over the next few years?

The great problem that those who use the internet to distribute porn may find, is going to be many countries now clearly have an agenda to censor and control the internet. As such it may become much harder to deliver content to your customers. The UK using (the now defunct) ATVOD managed to make a real hatchet job on the UK porn business. The result was many sites closed, or moved outside the UK (or at least pretended to). Those who tried to comply with ATVOD were rewarded by increased amounts of rules and regulations. Ofcom have now taken over, but clearly many website owners are very dubious about Ofcom after the debacle of ATVOD.

One pattern that seems to be emerging is that of big sites buying small porn sites and building up a portfolio of sites. One suspects that many paysite owners who were once making huge fortunes, have seen sales drop, and are simply eager to sell and move on. One presumes that not only would they get the site/content, but also their customers (past and present) details, which would clearly be valuable.

It is likely that 4k will become a standard or should I say the minimum standard to shoot content. In truth 4k is in most cases going to be too much for just internet film, mainly as the files will be huge and as such will take longer to download. Though as people move away from using computers to see content to using their TVâ??s, we may see a demand for 4k and above, as people stream direct to their TVâ??s.

The great area porn has not been able to go into, is phone apps as â??pornâ?? apps have generally been banned. It would have been very interesting to see how porn would have developed on phone apps. Indeed would porn have even created new ideas in the app world, pushing the possibilities. While one can understand why such as Apple have not allowed porn apps, one wonders if these firms have missed out.

Perhaps we could take a lesson from the music business. In todayâ??s world many groups simply give music away on MP3â??s. They build up a fan base quickly. They then make money from doing gigs. It may be that the way porn firms will make money is by giving the content away free, but make money from meeting fans, and selling them physical objects.

We may start to see more â??mainstreamâ?? businesses advertise on porn sites. In truth, the cost to advertise on a porn site such as a porn blog or porn tube is probably much less than to pay for a spot on goole or facebook, yet one would expect the results to be as good, if not better. Let me give you an example, take a DIY store/website. By being on a porn site, you are â??sexingâ?? that DIY store up. Sex as they say, sells. Indeed in the UK we have even seem Marks and Spencers repeatedly sell food by doing it in a sexy way.

One area of porn, that could be still an area to sell to, is the magazines. While in recent years in the UK many â??lads magsâ?? have stopped selling and even Playboy seems to be going non nude, it does not mean magazines cannot sell. For me, the problem with UK lads mags was they were rather boring. Often pages of football (I have no interest in football). Then pages of what clothes to buy (again this has no interest to me). Then a few pages of â??babesâ??. But to be honest the pics of â??babesâ?? were often rather dull. Often the same dull and boring shoot and poses. Yet, just because these magazines have stopped production, does not mean that others cannot start. But it does mean offering something people will want to buy. In truth, most magazines seem to be rather dull (lads mags or indeed most type of magazines).

Blu Ray/DVD porn may also not be a dead format. As we move towards 4k and higher, it may make more sense to sell the higher quality shoots on Blu Ray/DVD, while leaving the footage that has been reduced down on your website. Thus upselling your content. Allow fans to purchase content they like in a much better quality format (possibly with more footage too, that does not exist on your site).

One final thought that websites could do is the â??Adult Channelâ?? trick. Let me explain how this can work for you. In the UK we have laws what can be broadcast on TV. Basically from what I remember (and it could be the rules have changed) you can see full front nude but no open leg shots or insertion, except for educational purposes. On satellite there is a few â??adult stationsâ?? though even scrambled they still cannot show the rude stuff. So what some firms do is shoot with at least two video cameras. The first camera shoots rude staff, while the second moves away from the rude stuff. The tamer version is then sold to such as the Adult Channel. The result is people watch the tame version, get frustrated, then buy the hardcore version. This method could be done by shooting a film (tame) and uploading it to all the porn tube sites, with the result people then join your site to see the rude stuff. It may even be that if your content is shot so tame that you can upload it to youtube without being in trouble (though I suspect they may close your account).

Anyway, some thoughts for you as we head into 2016.