Documenting the decline of the porn industry

[signupdamnit]

I thought it would be a good idea to post a thread where documentation of the decline of the industry can be provided.

-----------

LAS VEGAS -- Walking around the Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE) in Las Vegas,
you'd never know the porn industry was at half-mast, sales-wise.

There are floor-to-ceiling billboards of scantily clad sex actresses and HD TV
screens showing every conceivable type of fornication (and a few unconceivable
ones as well). Fans can take pictures with stars like Lisa Ann (the porn
version of Sarah Palin), Julia Ann (no relation) and Alexis Texas (formerly
Alexis Texass). If polite enough, the fanboy or frangirl might even get to
touch a breast.

If the AEE was one's only exposure to the industry, the crowded convention hall
might seem proof that porn is truly recession-proof. But insiders claim the
business has gone limp -- metaphorically speaking -- because more people are
watching porn for free over the Internet instead of purchasing it.

The end result means fewer gigs for hard-working porn performers like Dave
Cummings, a 72-year-old porn actor who has also produced three series: "Dirty
Dave's Sugar Daddy," "Sex Fun" and "Kneepad Nymphos."

"The piracy has killed the industry," Cummings told HuffPost. "I'd say 80
percent of the companies that were around five years ago either don't exist or
are hanging by a thread. The day a new video comes out, within 24 hours,
someone has set up a tripod in front of their TV to copy it and then uploaded
it illegally."

It's hard to track how much money the porn industry has lost, because it's
nearly impossible to figure how much it typically earns. Theo Sapoutzis, the
CEO and Chairman of Adult Video News (AVN), a trade journal that covers the
porn industry and organizes the AEE, estimates that the pornography business
made $10 billion in 2012, but admits getting exact figures is close to
impossible since many porn companies are privately owned and tend to "inflate"
their figures.

Sapoutzis "guesstimates" the industry made as much as $13 to $15 billion during
its peak in the mid-2000s, before the recession. He accepts Cummings'
suggestion that 80 percent of porn companies are now defunct or struggling, but
Sapoutzis sees that as a sign that the porn business is maturing, not dying.

"There are more performers than ever before, but they're working as cam girls
at home interacting with people, rather than in a studio," he said. "From a
company standpoint, there's bigger competition. It's more difficult to enter."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2460799.html

-----

The Guardian?s Theroux does not offer an estimate as to the size of the porn
industry, but warns, ?some time around 2007, the ?business of X? started going
into a commercial tailspin.? Huffington?s Moye cites estimates from Theo
Sapoutzis, the head of the Adult Video News (AVN), who claims that the porn
business made $10 billion in 2012. Last year, CNBC claimed that porn
businesses, led by Vivid Entertainment, Digital Playground and Manwin, ?generate
roughly $14 billion in revenue per year that in 2012.?

The porn industry is facing a period of significant restructuring. Porn
theatres and XXX shops catering to the ?raincoat crowd? and the risqué have all
but vanished; the DVD, the old cash-cow release platform, is in rapid decline
for both porn and conventional movies. Digital video streaming is the
21st-century medium of porn distribution.

Most commentators identify five factors contributing to the predicament now
facing the commerical porn industry: (i) the widescale pirating of copyrighted
porn and its illegal resale and posting by opportunistic websites; (ii) the
ease of producing do-it-yourself (DIY) amateur porn videos; (iii) the enormous
increase of ?free? porn sites; (iv) the resulting change in business economics;
and (v) the ongoing recession with cuts discretionary spending, especially
among a certain sector of the male audience.

This restructuring has led to the closing of many commerical porn companies and
cuts in jobs and fees to porn workers. Not unlike other once-analog media
industries ? e.g., newpaper, magazine and book publishing ? porn is struggling
to make the transition to digital online publishing.

?The current economic crisis besetting the porn industry began to emerge around
2005,? says Chauntelle Tibbals, a sociologist at the University of Southern
California who has spent over 10 years studying the industry. ?2005 was one of
the last years that things looked good for the industry, at least from the
outside,? she adds.?Things started to visibly change after that.?

She identifies piracy as the key factor fueling the crisis. She points out that
the proliferation of ?free? stolen content cut into cash flow, but the
industry?s inability ? or unwillingness ? to effectively deal with the problem
turned a serious cold into a cancer. Only a handful of companies took early
action. ?Digital Playground is an example of a company less impacted by
piracy,? Tibbals reflects. ?They engaged a variety of strategies early on to
protect their content.?

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/30/is_s...ustry_partner/

-----------

A sinking ship
For the past few years there have been complaints of a ?perfect storm,? a term
repeatedly used to describe the double whammy that has hit the industry: the
recession and a wave of online piracy.

The economic downturn has caused customers? wallets to clam up, particularly
when it comes to discretionary spending. And let?s face it, there?s little else
more discretionary than porn.

At the same time, a number of porn-flavored YouTube clone sites ? YouPorn and
RedTube, to name a few ? have sprung up to offer aficionados all the copyrighted
adult content they want, for free. Like their mainstream counterparts, porn
producers are also seeing their content swapped freely through file-sharing
programs.

As such, the industry says it is losing millions of dollars and scores of jobs,
not only on the performer side, but also in production and distribution.

Specifics are hard to come by, since most companies are privately owned and
tight-lipped on financials, but one look at the stock prices of the handful of
public firms tells the story. Over the past two years, shares of Barcelona-based
Private Media, Colorado-based New Frontier Media and Germany?s Beate Uhse have
lost more than half their value.

Chicago-based Playboy has seen a recent uptick, but that?s only thanks to
speculation that founder Hugh Hefner was leading a bid to take the company
private ? a trigger he finally pulled this week.

Some insiders think that no new porn will be made because they can't stay in
business. That's next...

http://www.askmen.com/entertainment/...h-of-porn.html

[Mickey_]

What's the purpose? Doom and gloom?

I personally find it is better (not to mention more productive) to focus on opportunities than it is to complain about the changing world around you.

[signupdamnit]

The adult entertainment business, centered in the San Fernando Valley, has
weathered several recessions since it took off with the advent of home video in
the 1980s. But this time the industry is not dealing with just a weakened
economy. A growing abundance of free content on the Internet is undercutting
consumers' willingness to pay for porn, and with it the ability of many workers
to earn a living in the business.

For Stern, 23, the rapid decline of job opportunities in the porn business over
the last year has been dramatic. She has gone from working four or five days a
week to one and now has employers pressuring her to do male-female sex scenes
for $700, a 30% discount from the $1,000 fee that used to be the industry
standard.

Less than two years ago, Stern earned close to $150,000 annually, sometimes
turned down work and drove a Mercedes-Benz CLK 350. Now she's aggressively
reaching out for jobs and making closer to $50,000 a year.

As for that Mercedes? She's replacing it with a used Chevy Trailblazer -- from
her parents.

"The opportunities in this industry really are disappearing," Stern said. "It's
extremely stressful."

Industry insiders estimate that since 2007, revenue for most adult production
and distribution companies has declined 30% to 50% and the number of new films
made has fallen sharply.

"We've gone through recessions before, but we've never been hit from every side
like this," said Mark Spiegler, head of the Spiegler Girls talent agency, who
has worked in porn since 1995.

"It's the free stuff that's killing us, and that's not going away," said Dion
Jurasso, owner of porn production company Combat Zone, which has seen its
business fall about 50% in the last three years.

Porn is hardly the only segment of the media industry struggling with these
issues. But its problems appear to be more severe. Whereas online piracy has
forced big changes in the music industry and is starting to affect movies and
television, it has upended adult entertainment.

At least five of the 100 top websites in the U.S. are portals for free
pornography, referred to in the industry as "tube sites," according to Internet
traffic ranking service Alexa .com. Some of their content is amateur work
uploaded by users and some is acquired from cheap back catalogs, but much of it
is pirated.

Sites like Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube attract more users than TMZ and the
Huffington Post. The porn sites are even bigger than Pirate Bay, the top portal
for illegal downloads of movies, TV shows and music.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug...s/fi-ct-porn10

---------------------------

Porn Has No One But Itself to Blame

Sex isn?t selling: This is the headline of an issue of Canadian Business
magazine. Of course it?s long been one of the truisms of marketing?sex sells.
But this article contends that for the first time in recent memory sex no longer
accomplishes what it once did; it no longer piles up the profits.

The focus of the article is pornography and its coming decline. The author
contends that pornography has been unable to adapt to the new realities of the
Internet, realities that dictate that everything must be free, or at least
everything that can be shared in bits and bytes. Porn producers are reporting
that they have seen revenue fall 80% from their best days; Playboy is bleeding
money and laying off staff; actors who were once paid $2,000 for a single scene
are now being offered just half of that; revenue for major distributors has
fallen precipitously.

http://www.challies.com/articles/por...tself-to-blame

[signupdamnit]

Originally Posted by Mickey_

What's the purpose? Doom and gloom?

I personally find it is better (not to mention more productive) to focus on opportunities than it is to complain about the changing world around you.

Just because I'm an asshole.

No actually it's 50% to annoy people like you and the other 50% is just to have a place to link to the next time someone says things are better than ever.

The industry is in denial. Acceptance is the first step towards positive change...

[Wizzo]

"someone has set up a tripod in front of their TV to copy it"

"Sapoutzis sees that as a sign that the porn business is maturing, not dying." QFT!

[ITraffic]

since you have moved on to dating, cams and mainstream why don't you post some tutorials and tips on how to make money in those verticals? it would be more constructive. i think everyone is aware the paysite model isn't what it was in 2007.

[signupdamnit]

Top 5 Reasons Porn-for-Profit Is Dying

Why is the adult film business in dire straits? Sasha Grey and other stars answered The Daily Beast?s question this weekend at the porn industry?s annual convention in Las Vegas.

Every January, the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas is the biggest annual gathering of the adult film industry. But the biggest is suddenly a lot smaller. The 2010 AEE convention, which ran Thursday through Sunday, had shrunk from packing two floors of the Venetian?s Sands Expo Center last year down to one floor (and that one with lots of empty space).

?The AEE show is an example of what the business faces. There are fewer fans, less foot traffic, and less companies exhibiting,? said Steve Javors, editor in chief of industry trade publication XBIZ. ?During the 2000s, porn kept expanding outward. We thought there was an insatiable appetite for porn, and there would keep being more companies and more porn stars. Now, we are finding out that is not true.?

?People used to be ashamed to say their girlfriends did porn. That is gone. Anyone can afford a Web site now,? said Pete Housley, who aggregates porn on Twitter.

As for the concurrent, AVN Awards?AVN being another adult industry trade publication?which the porn world bills as their Oscars, it moved from the arena-size Mandalay Bay Events Center to the few-thousand-seats theater at The Palms. AVN head Paul Fishbein sounded like he was echoing the words of Spinal Tap?s manager when he described the venue switch as not so much to a smaller space, but one more ?selective and intimate.?

1. Piracy.

According to porn star Dana DeArmond: ?If people don?t realize it is stealing and start paying for their porn then performers are going to stop performing.?

Among the acts DeArmond performs (solo or in group sex with men and/or women) are anal sex and double penetration. ?I don?t think people are just going to do what porn stars do for free and put it on the Internet,? she said.

?It is stealing, and unfortunately it is hitting the adult industry hard right now,? said Sasha Grey, the current porn It Girl.

According to XBIZ?s Javors, thanks to illegal downloading and ?Tube? sites like YouPorn, sales of porn?s most profitable product, DVDs, have taken a huge hit this past year. Javors said: ?Piracy is the biggest single factor contributing to the economic malaise we are in. How can you compete with free??

Dan O?Connell, president of Girlfriends Films, explained how his company has been among the few to claim an increase in DVD sales from 2009. ?We?ve been able to grow our DVD sales, because we have been aggressive going after piracy. In the past eight months, we have taken down 17,000 pirated videos of ours by just sending out letters warning them that we will sue.?

But Girlfriends Films is just one company that averages about five movies a month. And even Grey does not see DVDs sticking around much longer. ?I think DVDs are going to be a collectors? medium like vinyl,? she said.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-is-dying.html

[MaDalton]

the initial flaw in this is that too many people still see this business as mainly based in the US

[signupdamnit]

Money Trouble in Internet Porn

The online porn industry is facing a financial crisis as consumers find free alternatives. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Online pornography helped to build the Internet. It was the cutting edge of e-commerce when sites like Amazon.com were just starting. But today the porn industry is suffering. It?s got lots of eyeballs, but experts say fewer are paying to view. A porn empire based in San Francisco is trying to recover by using data analytics.

Industry crisis

That is exactly the problem, according to Internet porn mogul Peter Acworth. ?We?re suffering what happened to the music industry a while back. It?s becoming much easier to get content for free and people are less apt to want to pay for it,? he says.

Acworth is founder of Kink.com, a San Francisco fetish porn conglomerate that had 205 million views last year alone.

Back in the late 1990s, Acworth was getting his Ph.D. in finance at Columbia University. He realized there was lots of money to be made in streaming sex. So he started video shoots right out of his own room. ?You honestly couldn?t add the sites fast enough. It was like money was falling from the sky.?

It?s becoming much easier to get content for free and people are less apt to want to pay for it.? Peter Acworth, Kink.com founder

Earnings were so strong that, by 2006, the company decided to make a major real estate investment and purchased the Armory ? a towering building that takes up a city block in the Mission District.

But because of piracy and an explosion of free sites, the heyday is over.

The porn industry trade group Free Speech Coalition estimated that global revenue plummeted by 50 percent, from $20 billion in 2007 to $10 billion by 2011. Kink.com saw a decline in its own revenue for the first time that year.

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/0...internet-porn/

[signupdamnit]

LAS VEGAS -- The atmosphere is festive, and how could it not be when scores of naked or almost-naked women are turning the place into a real exhibition center and banners promote upcoming porno versions of "Avatar" and "Spider-Man."

But behind all the giggles and surgically enhanced jiggles is yet another American industry facing a perilous time brought on by drastic changes in technology and an stagnant economy that has even prompted even the sexually ambitious to pinch pennies.

The porn business, convening at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas this weekend for the annual Adult Entertainment Expo, is feeling limp these days thanks to a plummet in the sale of its one-time cash cow, DVDs. Websites that offer free downloads or views of adult movies and that allow amateurs to upload their own have forced this once seemingly invincible business to grapple with an uncertain future.

"They're destroying us," said Michelle Liss, sales manager of Fleshdrive, a company that sells flash drives preloaded with adult films. "Business is down because of these sites and it sucks. I have friends who come up to me and they say, 'Oh, my god, I saw this great site,' and I say, 'You realize you're hurting my business?' "

The trade show itself is feeling it, too. About 170 exhibitors are here this year, down from more than 200 in past years. Attendance, about 20,000 people are expected, is about the same, but that's partly because the show sells tickets to the public and Las Vegas already has about 150,000 extra visitors this weekend for the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/09/po...gling-economy/

[signupdamnit]

Will Porn Become a Mainstream Business?

Not too long ago, the average consumer would blush when talking about Larry Flynt's business. Today, they very well may be promoting his company on their shirt.

As the porn film business continues to see revenues decline ? a victim of both piracy and the copious amounts of free content on the Internet ? more and more adult companies have begun expanding into new fields of business. And business has been good.

Hustler leads the charge in this area, having spent years building up a successful clothing line, opening casinos and even publishing the occasional mainstream magazine (including the video game-centric Tips &Tricks Codebook).

"You can debate which industry is most affected by piracy," she said. "It might be a toss-up between adult and music. I know for us, adult is higher. For example, if you do a search for a non-piracy word like 'porn,' it's basically all piracy sites that show up. That doesn't happen if you search for music or an artist's name. ? We understood a lot from the side of the copyright holder how important it was to customize [anti-piracy tools] and make them cost effective. A lot of the anti-piracy firms are very expensive - and people who want to be active in anti-piracy are being impacted because they can't afford [those firms]."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100364346

[RyuLion]

lol...........

[signupdamnit]

Poll: Porn Revenues Exceed $5 Billion According to Industry Survey

LOS ANGELES ? In spite of an economic recession, an oversupply of free porn online and rampant piracy, the business of porn continues to impact the global economy on a multi-billion-dollar level, according to the results of a new industry poll conducted by media organization XBIZ.

The majority of industry insiders place annual gross revenues in the $5 billion-plus range worldwide. The results are based on responses from members of XBIZ.net, the adult entertainment industry?s leading social network.

While revenues have declined sharply in some market segments of the industry since the mid-2000s, the demand for adult entertainment remains strong. In an era where mobile content delivery and interactive entertainment is gaining market share, XBIZ asked industry members: "In your estimation, how big is the porn industry today??

Of the 311 respondents, 36% believe the industry generates revenues of ?more than $5 billion per year,? while 29% say that number is ?more than $10 billion per year.? Another 21% estimate the industry to be worth ?more than $1 billion per year,? while the remaining 14% say it?s ?less than $1 billion.?

http://www.xbiz.com/news/151751

[signupdamnit]

Porn is not recession-proof.

Like many other industries, the adult entertainment business did not exit the Great Recession unscathed, but, rather, it's been hobbled by the events of the past four years.

Some estimate that the projected $10 billion industry -- once thought to be largely impervious to economic downturns -- has lost about 40 percent of its sales base. The reining in of consumer spending combined with Napster-like offerings of free adult content on the Internet contributed to the sharp decline, says an executive for industry trade news site XBIZ.

Locally, those trends played out in a 23 percent drop in revenue from 2007 to 2011 for Boulder's New Frontier Media Inc., a firm that produces and distributes adult content.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/c...frontier-media

[signupdamnit]

XBIZ, an organization that covers all sectors of the adult entertainment business, says piracy, free online content and legal challenges have all adversely affected the industry.

"The adult entertainment industry is facing its first downturn ever in its history," said Alec Helmy, president of XBIZ. Helmy also added that attendance figures at several trade shows have declined steadily in the past several years.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/10/05...tml?eref=ib_us

[signupdamnit]

Porn industry feeling pain as expo hits Vegas
Industry gathers at annual convention to battle slumping sales, piracy

The economic downturn has many companies looking for ways to survive, and those in the adult-entertainment industry are also finding it?s not always easy to shake a recession.

http://www01.lasvegasweekly.com/news...po-hits-vegas/

[signupdamnit]

In 1998, a study by Forrester Research on the porn industry - including paraphernalia, internet, cable television and magazines - estimated it was worth up to $10billion.

This year, the worldwide industry is estimated to be worth up to $5billion - however, it is difficult to know how accurate these figures are.

The mainstream industry has been hit not only through piracy and free content, but people choosing to pay to watch live sex acts over the internet.

Steven Hirsch, who founded porn company Vivid Entertainment, told the newspaper: 'We're dealing with a perfect storm: decliing DVD sales, rampant piracy, free content and a weak economy.'

Piracy, as in the film and music industries, is causing huge problems for mainstream porn companies.

Kathee Brewer, an editor at AVN, which covers the porn industry, told USA Today:'The tubes are making money off the studio's investment of time and money, while the studios are forced to spend ever larger chunks tof change to police the tubes and send endless takedown notices.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...orn-stars.html

[arock10]

Where does it say google caused most of the problems of the last couple years

[CurrentlySober]

i take a dirty delight in dollop...

[signupdamnit]

Free Porn Threatens Adult Film Industry
June 11, 2007

"Free porn" just might be the two most exciting or frightening words in the English language, depending on your point of view.

And they're especially threatening to the adult film industry, which has made billions through the sales of DVDs, videos, and sex products.

After two decades of phenomenal growth in profits, the porn industry is facing some major challenges as its X-rated DVDs and Internet content lose out to free videos and photos distributed by amateurs on the Web.

Sales and rentals of adult DVDs fell 30 percent in the last two years and sales of Internet-based porn, while still growing, have started to plateau, according to Adult Video News, an industry trade publication.

"The DVD market is a battle that we're losing," says Drew Rosenfeld, the creative director of Hustler Video Group. "Looking back historically, we're at less than half in numbers. Even a line like Barely Legal, which is our hero brand, used to be off the charts and it's gone down to a third of what it used to be a few years ago."

But pornographers will keep trying to adopt changes and hoping to make a buck. "I don't really think that there is less money to be made because of free content," says Drew Rosenfeld, the creative director of Hustler Video Group. "We're making important changes, from hard DVDs to video on demand and we're focusing a lot of production for Internet purposes first. In the past, we've put it online 90-100 days after we sell it on DVD. Now we're shooting it for the Web, which is less expensive for us and the consumer."

Longtime observers of the industry are more pessimistic about its prospects. "Why buy it when you can get it for free on the Internet," says Luke Ford, an industry gossip columnist, comparing pornography to the plight of newspapers losing readers to the Web. "There is less and less reason to pay for porn because there are plenty of free two to three-minute clips out there."

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3259416

[Tofu]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

the initial flaw in this is that too many people still see this business as mainly based in the US

This! ^^

[signupdamnit]

Barnett said it's already hard enough for an adult entrepreneur to make a profit since in the past four years revenue has declined industrywide by 80-90 percent, partly because of the popularity of tube sites operated abroad. Barnett said his own business has shrunk by 50 percent during the past four years.

http://www.xbiz.com/news/news_piece....=all&q=rule+11

[EddyTheDog]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

the initial flaw in this is that too many people still see this business as mainly based in the US

[Rochard]

Everyone keeps talking about the "decline" of our industry. We just went through a massive worldwide recession: Everything declined. Every industry took a huge hit. Our industry, just like every other industry.

[Jel]

Originally Posted by Mickey_

What's the purpose? Doom and gloom?

I personally find it is better (not to mention more productive) to focus on opportunities than it is to complain about the changing world around you.

and USE the tubes as part of your overall traffic generation scheme

[signupdamnit]

Originally Posted by Rochard

Everyone keeps talking about the "decline" of our industry. We just went through a massive worldwide recession: Everything declined. Every industry took a huge hit. Our industry, just like every other industry.

During the absolute worst of the recession I was making almost record sales with a certain paysite. It paid all of my living expenses from that one site alone. This was late 2008-2009. Now the site is lucky to make a sale a month. The surfers were trained to expect it for free. It wasn't just the recession.

But let us say your theory is correct. Should not things be rebounding by now?

[Sly]

Originally Posted by signupdamnit

During the absolute worst of the recession I was making almost record sales with a certain paysite. It paid all of my living expenses from that one site alone. This was late 2008-2009. Now the site is lucky to make a sale a month. The surfers were trained to expect it for free. It wasn't just the recession.

But let us say your theory is correct. Should not things be rebounding by now?

Why is your experience the truth and everyone else's experience a delusional bro lie?

[signupdamnit]

Originally Posted by Sly

Why is your experience the truth and everyone else's experience a delusional bro lie?

Hmm. My experience matches what the press both within and outside the industry is saying. I have to ask the same question of you?

Another question, why do you always come into these threads and make bitchy comments to people -- especially affiliates? You've been doing it for years.

[Magnetron]

Originally Posted by arock10

where does it say google caused most of the problems of the last couple years

+1.6666666666666

[12clicks]

the weak die.
apparently, before they die, they post excuses why on chat boards.

[signupdamnit]

Originally Posted by arock10

Where does it say google caused most of the problems of the last couple years

One of the articles referenced mentions Google. Namely that piracy sites dominate the porn terms but not the non-porn terms. Google has been a big part of the problem. They have helped to enable it.

[signupdamnit]

Originally Posted by 12clicks

the weak die.
apparently, before they die, they post excuses why on chat boards.

So AVN Theo is weak? And XBIZ, Forbes, Rolling Stones, ABC, etc? Or are they all trolls?

[signupdamnit]

Don't shoot the messenger. <shrug>

[Sly]

Originally Posted by signupdamnit

Hmm. My experience matches what the press both within and outside the industry is saying. I have to ask the same question of you?

Another question, why do you always come into these threads and make bitchy comments to people -- especially affiliates? You've been doing it for years.

Because I'm bitter and can't figure out how to make a penny.

[AmeliaG]

That $14 billion number was always a fiction. At the time it was first bandied about, Playboy had a market cap of a hundred million and grossed about three hundred million a year. Even if you figure that Penthouse, Hustler, Vivid, and Private, every single major cam and dating player, and all the $30+PPS guys all did much bigger numbers than those, at the time, there is no way porn ever accounted for that much financial activity.

[EddyTheDog]

Originally Posted by 12clicks

the weak die.
apparently, before they die, they post excuses why on chat boards.

Your story is the story of the decline of porn...

[signupdamnit]

Originally Posted by Sly

Because I'm bitter and can't figure out how to make a penny.

It must be something but at least your employer is paying you to do it.

[12clicks]

Originally Posted by EddyTheDog

Your story is the story of the decline of porn...

if that helps you sleep at night, kid.

[12clicks]

Originally Posted by signupdamnit

So AVN Theo is weak? And XBIZ, Forbes, Rolling Stones, ABC, etc? Or are they all trolls?

Is Theo in here whining like a little girl before he dies? And XBIZ, Forbes, Rolling Stones, ABC, etc? Or are they all in here crying?

[DWB]

Originally Posted by 12clicks

the weak die.

Originally Posted by signupdamnit

So AVN Theo is weak? And XBIZ, Forbes, Rolling Stones, ABC, etc? Or are they all trolls?

Time will tell. But I no longer worry about what is happening to others, as I'm too busy focusing on my own business that is growing, not shrinking.

When I worried about "the industry," my business shrank. When I stopped caring about "the industry" and focused 100% on myself, my business stopped shrinking and started to grow again and has been growing every since.

[12clicks]

Originally Posted by DWB

When I worried about "the industry," my business shrank. When I stopped caring about "the industry" and focused 100% on myself, my business stopped shrinking and started to grow again and has been growing every since.

[CaptainHowdy]

Adraco or die ...

[signupdamnit]

Originally Posted by AmeliaG

That $14 billion number was always a fiction. At the time it was first bandied about, Playboy had a market cap of a hundred million and grossed about three hundred million a year. Even if you figure that Penthouse, Hustler, Vivid, and Private, every single major cam and dating player, and all the $30+PPS guys all did much bigger numbers than those, at the time, there is no way porn ever accounted for that much financial activity.

Possible.

Even now I think there are serious misconceptions. People seem to think all the money is in the tubes, right? Since they have taken over and all. Well...

200 million uniques a day * $2.5 per 1000 uniques = $500,000 / day

$500,000 * 365 = $182.5 million

That's it. And that is revenue not profit. Now look at what was lost industry wide to generate that revenue. All this is right in front of our faces but we do not see it. It's a shame. If anything we should learn from these mistakes.

[EddyTheDog]

Originally Posted by 12clicks

if that helps you sleep at night, kid.

I don't blame you - Greed is natural - It was going to happen with or without you - Your well documented greed is the story of the demise of internet porn though...

[Sly]

Originally Posted by EddyTheDog

I don't blame you - Greed is natural - It was going to happen with or without you - Your well documented greed is the story of the demise of internet porn though...

This year is about tubes, not cross sales. Let's stay focused.

[signupdamnit]

Originally Posted by DWB

Time will tell. But I no longer worry about what is happening to others, as I'm too busy focusing on my own business that is growing, not shrinking.

When I worried about "the industry," my business shrank. When I stopped caring about "the industry" and focused 100% on myself, my business stopped shrinking and started to grow again and has been growing every since.

You're right. But it's frustrating to have sat here and watched it all unfold and to see people in complete denial about it. All that means is we've learned nothing as an industry and it'll probably just happen again and again. We can't even all agree there exists a problem.

[EddyTheDog]

Originally Posted by Sly

This year is about tubes, not cross sales. Let's stay focused.

I thought we did tubes last year and moved back to cross sales?..

[Markul]

Originally Posted by signupdamnit

You're right. But it's frustrating to have sat here and watched it all unfold and to see people in complete denial about it. All that means is we've learned nothing as an industry and it'll probably just happen again and again. We can't even all agree there exists a problem.

So? Even if we could all agree that there was a problem, what do you propose that we do to solve it?

[12clicks]

Originally Posted by EddyTheDog

I don't blame you - Greed is natural - It was going to happen with or without you - Your well documented greed is the story of the demise of internet porn though...

as I said, blame me for your failure if it helps you sleep nights.
In the mean time, those of us who can change with the times and stay legal will thrive. Those of you who whine about the demise of internet porn will wink out eventually.

[EddyTheDog]

Originally Posted by 12clicks

as I said, blame me for your failure if it helps you sleep nights.
In the mean time, those of us who can change with the times and stay legal will thrive. Those of you who whine about the demise of internet porn will wink out eventually.

Did it ever occur to you that screwing the surfers would make it harder to do business in the future?..