Starting a porn paysite that's successful is a tough business, whether it's 2019 or 2000. You need good scenes and a lot of them, for members and affiliates. Then there's fresh updates. This all costs money before a cent comes in. Add CMS, site design and you looking at a bill of $50k to $100k for the minimum in 2000.
Your problem is getting the right content producer to shoot the right content that attracts and converts. The good ones are already working for others and won't be tempted by most for the money offered by most. It doesn't matter if you think his work is shit and he's never sold anything online. Others don't think that and are paying him.
So they pick up camera and shoot the content themselves or get someone cheap to shoot it. And end up with a site that needs the majority of money spent promoting it because the content doesn't sell. Then blame the traffic for the reason their shit doesn't sell.
Today your problem is not enough sites offer anything as good as a free tube. Back in 2000 the loss of sales to free porn was only 99% of surfers, today it 99.99%. Those figures are to represent the huge losses to free porn and not to be taken literally. Yet idiots will swear blind the porn industry is thriving and never had it so good. Even though a week rarely goes by that another program isn't outed for not paying affiliates.
It's not dead and porn will never die, not as long as people will pay for ad space on a Tube.
