In 2005 I wanted to limit the content shared in preview but was "required" to place 12 or 16 images in galleries. Would have preferred less. So the industry has been "killing itself" via "overexpsure" for a long time.

Or "killing the little guy".

Anyway, there's still always room for "one more", and there are still lots of ideas outside "the box".

Have to change? Sure, in some ways. However all I see here is a bunch of low end shooters in a massive industry not able to capitalize on the available market.

Even the largest of companies are struggling to find quality shooters, they are all constantly looking to upgrade on them, sadly the talent is not within their circles. And they do not want to risk going outside the box.

The poor thing about a closed off/private industry like this is that new talent does not find its way in.. and I do not mean female talent. I mean behind the scenes. Even the best people at what they do would be considered extremely low end when it comes to mainstream. Their eye for good porn, their judgement when it comes to what models they should cast, the work they put into recruitment, their knowledge of what the market wants in terms of lighting (they always seem to be years behind), their research into equipment and just general drive they have when it comes to improving. The industry needs to open it's doors to the outside and let someone other than basement dwellers who have been here since the early 90s who managed to cash in early call the shots, shoot the content, etc. However, nobody is willing to take that risk in a declining industry, so it just inevitably falls harder than it should. I still see the same cookie cutter shooters who haven't produced a modern twist on porn in 20 years, shoot just about every scene still being made today, most haven't even been a key factor in the success of any site. How can things really trend in any other direction?

I hear the major companies CONSTANTLY talking about how they want to shoot in higher quality, shoot like blacked, etc etc - however why are they not doing it? the ones that are now, why not sooner? and the ones that are, why are they falling short? Its not rocket science. Did they really think that talent was the best? do they really think they made them look their best? do they look as good as they do on x-art/blacked? no, figure the details out. I do think the production teams are a little separated from the owners. Production teams are basically given a budget to produce a scene, that production team will shoot that as efficiently as they can so that they can profit the most. Not the best way to conduct business. Nevermind that, the company will continue to purchase them as they are good enough to generate a product, they dont exactly aim as high as they should and they dont exactly have the drive to step outside the few select shooters they know either. No different than producers dont waste their time with recruiting talent, you get some no shows, etc - Producers aren't willing to take that risk, which leaves us with an industry with a lack of new good talent

I could go on and on, while there is an obvious decline, paysites are FAR from in bad shape. The VERY few that have an eye for above average content are doing very well for themselves, especially given how much it costs to launch a site. Profit margin is still insane.

Basically how about this industry actually tries to do what theyre doing right first, before trying to create some new way to offer it. What you're selling is garbage. Just because it's porn, doesn't mean people should be tripping over themselves to buy it. How many here talking about how paysites have declined have created anything that could be considered more desirable than tube content? I haven't seen a person post a thing. Somebody went out and did it finally and was successful. Lets just say I am not shocked. Less people doing it, less people succeeding. The people who have succeeded are sitting on a ton of money and probably have alot better things to do with their money than throw it back into a declining industry. They also have ridiculously high expectations in what type of profit they should get as well, due to them being in this industry during its peak. Bill from NubileFilms will have much higher expectations for his site, than somebody starting out today, perhaps expectations that are a little unrealistic. I have noticed a few companies not interested in continuing to launch products due to their profits declining on their flagship site, its not exactly motivating. However I think alot of them do not realize the profit is in continuing to launch products, its not 1999 before where you could make it rich and make your living on a single brand. You max out a sites by reaching the ceiling, it will inevitably fall over time, thats why you launch another.

People use this lack of successful sites as evidence of their decline, however thats not exactly the case here. Until I see a top notch site produced with top notch talent, exclusive content and with somebody who knows about marketing behind it, FAIL. Then the talk about paysites and their state is a bit strange. Blacked is not struggling to profit.

Feels good to take such a big shit eh? Yeah let it go bro :thumbsup

:1orglaugh

The paysite industry had 10 years to make big money. During that time it worked hardest at giving away free porn. So lost more than they sold. The future is bigger and better Tubes paid for by advertisers.

What's a quality shooter? Not someone with good photographic/film skills. I've worked with people who were trained at film school worked for the BBC. fucking clueless at producing porn. Pornography skills have nothing to do with the equipment.

There are no new ideas to film porn. There hasn't been for 20 years, so forget about that idea. Because fucking hasn't changed for million of years. All we can do is change the models, style, niche, and location.

The problem is ROI. Brian's idea sounds expensive, how many members does he need to make it break even? This has busted loads of sites who tried to over think the wheel.

What is a quality shooter, somebody who is professionally trained AND can figure out the porn market, clearly those people you worked with, couldn't. I do not think it is hard to find somebody. Producers always like to pump their own tires by mentioning how hard it is to have the eye, they also say shooting is hard, they say alot of stuff is hard because nobody is going to admit what they do isnt hard, it takes away from their skill and pay. Fact is. It's not rocket science. Perhaps you guys have never worked a job outside adult. 90 percent of kids these days on instagram have better eyes for photography than adult shooters. You think it'd be hard, I do not. I picked up a camera and figured out how to shoot better than most shooters within a day. I strongly believe this industry is full of people who have a better eye than non porn industry people but their technical skills and judgement of models lacks so much that it takes away from it completely, which makes their end product very limited. You disagree , that is fine. I dont expect a shooter to ever agree with me. This is the disconnect between shooters and owners

I didn't say new idea. I said do it well. I just mentioned things they arent doing well and could.

What is "doing it right", "top notch talent">

Tell us what paysites should be doing. Rather than saying, vaguely, they should produce better content.

As far as models, I cannot because people will surely disagree. And unless I still had the millions a day i had in traffic (to one site) and threw up a poll to ask which photo/model is better, I could not prove you wrong at the moment. So I do not care to get into the debate. Lets just say, blacked and x-art shoot better models and make them look better. Most people dont even see this, its sad. The fact you ask, shows me that its not as clear to you. Its clear to some and theyre raking it in. Its not clear to other companies because they are falling short. Sadly I cannot convince you that people do not have an eye. I can't show you what you cannot see. There are many people who are very good at their jobs who do see this and theyre the ones making money. I wont be surprised to see GFYers debate this. ;) I see new threads of producers posting HOT AMAZING new talent, i open and wonder if they posted the wrong pictures. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, correct. However when analyzing talent for the masses, there is a right and wrong. The people who get it right the vast majority of the time are the people good at their job

I already mentioned in my above post. Research lighting trends in porn. Stay ontop of camera technology. Rent something more expensive if you can't afford it now. Actually put time and money into recruitment. Be more hands on with an inhouse crew, as opposed to giving budgets to contracted production teams, etc. Be stricter with quality control. Spend more on wardrobe. Get better shooters. Actually put time and effort into looking outside your circle for a shooter, test a bunch. Do not hire the first shooter that is CAPABLE of doing the job OKAY. Hire hot girls. Hire girls who are trending. Get them early, pay for their first scenes. Pay for exclusive contracts (if you can). Learn lighting (white houses are good). Learn models good sides, learn what makes them look good. Learn how to style models according to what makes them look their best. Dont cheap out on locations. You get what you pay for, cutting corners and being cheap because youre worried it wont produce as much money before, means you'll get a product that won't make as much as before. This is what people dont get.

The list is much much longer than this, honestly, most fail at 95 percent of these things, then wonder why. Most do not see they fail at these things. They simply do not have any eye whatsoever. So telling them they dont will be lost on them

No one survives editing or shooting for the magazine market without knowing exactly what sells. So your approach is 100% wrong. Can I convince you that I know what sells the best?

It may not be what you can sell the best, many here swear blind their tiny little sites with crap content are making great sales. Some can't convert the best selling sites, which are clearly making money. Pre-online days a content producer had to spend $500 to $1,000s on a days work and not get paid for 6-12 months. Editors were putting together magazines 3-4 months in advance. There was no room for try it and see.

Video production, was, even more, money and a longer return.

Agree about what people here call hot talent. They need to get out of their basements more often and see more girls. :1orglaugh

There are people who do know what sells, they have to. Market surveys are to sharpen that knowledge. The problem is ROI or just paying for talent to model and produce.

Today recorded porn is dwindling. In 1995 99% of the people buying porn bought it because they wanted to jerk off to it. Tubes have taken that 99%, added some of the remaining 1% and killing the ROI on producing anything but live porn. And even some of that's in trouble. Because of free cams and independent girls.

Have you ever been in the porn industry apart from driving traffic?

The #1 problem with shooters and they way they shoot porn? Too much focus on cock in pussy (or asshole).

Guys do NOT want to look at a cock sliding into a pussy 50,000 times for eight minutes straight. In fact, to show how useless most shooters are:

Gorgeous girl, in the midst of pleasure, her face contorted with ecstasy...the shooter IMMEDIATELY pulls away and goes down to the pussy. Man is fondling her beautiful breasts - shooter IMMEDIATELY goes back to the pussy. It's almost as if the shooter is emotionally uncomfortable with anything 'real' or focusing on the beauty of the female form. Nope, gotta be a CLOSEUP of a cock drilling a pussy for eight minutes.

Get it? No, probably not. LOL Carry on. :)

Ryan, you just wrote out exactly what I was not willing to take the time to type. You are spot on. From my experience the sites I work with are all selling like crazy. They all have high quality production value and the consumers are willing to pay for it. I am often seeing budgets in the $6-10k a scene now for BG. Sometimes more. And the sites spending that (properly) are killing it.

From my perspective the sites that are in decline are in decline because the customers want better product. Too many sites are cranking out the same shit over and over. Even the sites (and video companies) I shoot for that are killing it with big budget scenes are looking for ways to improve and evolve.

Pay sites are not dying. The customer is just more savvy and the days of cranking out crap and selling it are over. :2 cents:

Exactly. Funny cause it's so true.

Not ever in my scenes ;) But you are totally correct. :thumbsup

I like you and like your work, so don't take this wrong, but name 3 pay sites (not owned by tubes because they monetize differently) which are paying remotely $10k a scene for pay site content.

Amelia. Hey! I like you and I like your work so I will answer what I can. I have NDA agreements with all the sites I shoot for now. **Edited and sent to you via DM ** And they are not alone. X-Art spends in that range all day long. So thats 3 right there. I am also shooting a $7000 scene this week for a website in Europe. These cost are normal for high quality scenes. My cost alone are almost always over $6000 a day. When you consider that the average cost for a 30 second commercial is $300,000 then these costs do not seem that great. Adult filmmakers and Hollywood filmmakers are starting to use the same tools and the consumer is now used to quality lighting and camera work.

By removing the girls' personality, they kill the reason to buy.

It can be worse, in the eighties often the camera panned to the guy's face. Wankers cumming looking at an ugly male face. :1orglaugh

You were buying gay films. :1orglaugh

Why would you limit the companies to who are not involved in tubes? As an industry matures, the strongest survive and the weak begin to die, obviously. The remaining companies begin to be a little more corporate and have their hands in everything as few companies begin to take over. Almost all big companies have their hands in other brands/including tubes. Half of them, thats the reason theyre still alive to begin with. It bought them the profit/time in order to learn what sells in todays market and continue to be successful. So basically youre saying, what small sites who can't afford or weren't smart enough to get involved in tube sites are still producing content at a high cost? Obviously that number will be limited. It has no reflection on the current state of paysites

Blacked owners are involved in a large tube, however it doesn't mean they could not have reached the success without it, it just helped them reach the level they are at, perhaps at a faster pace. Anybody is free to use tubes to their advantage. It is just more obvious to tube owners what sells and what profit they can make off their sites so theyre more willing to spend, they also have less "risk" because they have the traffic already and aren't as scared to spend the money. They were also the ones smart enough and had the budget in order to get involved with them. The people without the budget weren't typically the smartest, given how lucrative this industry was.

Not being involved in tubes isn't an excuse to be a failure.

Tubes are the highest source of traffic/sales, so why would they not be involved?

Strange question is all

I am right now, producing in 2016 for some of todays top pornstars. I have went from driving traffic to being an owner and worrying about ROI and dealing with producers to producing myself in todays market. So yes im familiar with all sides, which most are not. Its very easy to have an opinion that stems from one area of expertise but until you've really been on all sides, and in todays market as well, you really dont have a full grasp. IMO

Because tubes monetize differently, what it makes sense for a tube to spend on is very different from what it makes sense for a pay site to spend on. Aside from all the factors you mentioned, which I agree with, the most important factor is the business model is different.

The topic is not would it be awesome to decide to fail (only with super excuses), but what should pay sites do. All I'm saying is pay sites should not spend like their business model is different from what it is.

I suspect Tubes pay very little for traffic to their sites, this saves them a huge chunk other paysites have to payout. The Tubes run at a profit anyway.

However, it doesn't take a huge budget to produce kick ass porn. It takes a lot of porn production skill and sites that are willing to pay for that skill are few and far between. Which takes us back to Tube Sites.

I could produce kick ass porn, along with many others, Buttman, Ben Dover, Ed Powers, etc. Will Tubes pay us the money we want or get some lame dick who works cheap to do it on a tight budget?

You talk as if great porn just falls off a shelf. Which made me think you weren't in the sharp end of producing it.

You got it all wrong (as usual).

• Investing in new technologies can yield great returns or tax losses. No balls no glory.
• The second to wost thing that can happen to a business model is commiditization even worse is the zero sum game of free.

So there is;

1. the niche market that will pay for a unique value proposition,
2. the middle market of value buyers (*Netflix or Amazon prime),
3. the low market 100% advertised subsidized.

Whether or not the content is legit or copyright infringing will not make you any money this instant (today). Youtube is proof of this business model. It's not going away.

Trying to convert the low market to a higher market is going to be an uphill struggle with a lousy ROMI (return on marketing investment).

Shap! Look what you started, a monster size thread! I'm just in here for sport, hope you are doing great!

My comments do not apply to you Sir. You are in the top 1% of talented shooters on the planet. :)

AmeliaG can speak for herself but to expand on what I think she was getting at:

There are tubes and large companies who finance paysite production. They have exclusive agreements with the mega-tubes. Therefore the tubes are spending more than a paysite not financed by a tube would spend. I know what an expensive, professional shoot costs and most small paysites doing 10 joins a day or less cannot compete on that level. So what we are left with is a handful of mega-paysites being financed by mega-tubes to keep the whole daisy chain of porn going. This will continue for years to come, I think, while smaller paysites will have to re-adjust their marketing and expectations because you simply cannot 'compete' with a Blacked or DDF if they are being financed by million dollar tubes. :)

If people keep bumping this thread it will never die. Wait!

I assumed this was a business thread. :Oh crap

It isn't?

I read this thread to the end of page 5 and I couldn't take it any longer.

There is power in numbers. If we could get a coalition of producers and site owners together, maybe we would be able to come up with enough resources to push the tubes and file lockers out.

I know I can't do it, a lawsuit would chew me up and spit me out. That's probably the same for most of us. We need a "Trump type figure" to lead this and make it happen. Someone who kicks the door in, and goes for the juggler.

There is no magic potion in my opinion. It's been said a million times on this board. If it's free... sales go to shit. Most people would say that compared to the past, that sales are shit.

You cannot walk into wal mart and walk out with a new fishing pole. You have to pay for it. If everything can be locked up in our tours and members areas again... the people will pay for it. They JUST WOULD.

THERE IS NO MAGIC POTION. The free content has to stop.

I believe a focus should be on finding a Trump type figure to lead this cause, gather followers and recourses, and take on the free content sites, tubes, and file lockers.

Maybe even the billing companies could invest in this. They have big money, and I am sure that if the reign of free porn would end... that the billing companies would make larger fortunes than before since there are more "potential buyers" and more devices to access porn from than ever before.

Let me guess though, the billing companies are probably in bed with the tube sites and file locker rev share programs...

Would anyone be interested in trying to start something like this up?

I don't know about that but thank you :thumbsup
Now just let me know where to send you the check :winkwink:

Mike South? :)

Put it towards the cost of production. Lighting and makeup can get expensive. :thumbsup

Sure... who ever can do it. I could do it, I just need the backing and Capitol.

Anyone know why the billing companies would not want to take a stand? Or support such a cause?

I've still got it :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

A site as good as theirs, will reach the entire audience if its good enough, it will just take a bit longer to reach such audience, i mean, unless you are lacking the marketing expertise. Given the profit margin of top produced sites, it still should not be a problem to have budgets similar to what they (companies who also own a tube) started with. Just because they spend (lets say 5-7k a scene), doesn't mean you can't match their quality for a bit less and then up it to what they spend once you launch. You may have to spend that much longer finding the perfect locations at a bit of a discount, use a few connections, search a little longer for cheaper marketing help, editors, etc. You do not need to pay riley reid 10k for 2 scenes, this is only what they do once they have the money. You'd be surprised how much fat these big companies have, its because they've been around for ages and they don't care enough to trim it all because they make more than enough to support it. A new company starting in 2016 could do things at a discount as long as they match quality, they'll be fine. Theres no excuse for not producing the same quality they do, like i mentioned before, i know of many companies spending high budgets on scenes, enough to produce the same quality as the companies who also own tubes and their product is nowhere as good, that has nothing to do with them owning tubes. Besides that your producers do not have the talent and you choose to stick with whats comfortable and make excuses for why you cannot reach that level. Instead of realizing you just do not have the eye or drive.

With that said, i do not think them owning tubes should make you shoot for less cost, because you will never be able to compete. Dont suggest tubes are dying because you cannot afford all the tools they all use to their advantage. Tubes are a tool and they purchase them. The thread is about the state of paysites. People who do not own tubes can still utilize said tubes.

It is still very easy to achieve a product in the top 5 percent (in terms of product quality), as the standard within porn is very low, if you produce a good quality product in the top 5 percent, utilizing tubes, affiliates, etc should be more than enough to launch you to the top. Gamma finally checked all the boxes on the requirements sheet when they created Girlsway, they got top talent, a producer with an eye, good story/intro, high quality lighting and production, graphic content (they tried launching softcore products before), and now they have a product that launched to the top. It really isn't as hard as people make it out to be. People just either dont know the simple checklist or people with no eye thinking theyre checking them off.

Gamma own any big tubes? (im sure they own something but im not sure if any major ones). If not, they would be an example.

Show me a site done that well that has failed, it hasn't happened unless a very very clear lack of marketing experience. Until high quality sites start failing, there is no problem with paysites. Ive asked this so many times and people have yet to show me one. Exceptions to people who try to duplicate their product in order to expand, for example, xart creates a second site with an identical style, the market isn't that big, you can't just duplicate things to the T, same locations, same talent, same producer, and expect another big paysite