It seems blazingly obvious to me that the problem is as follows in more or less this exact order.

1. The shitty world economy - No further explanation needed here.
2. Tubes sites - It's kinda hard to sell shit that other people are giving away for free.
3. Card bangers - Too many surfers afraid to click the join button nowadays.

Come on folks this isn't exactly rocket science.

There you go. There are also several smaller factors...like the one the OP stated.

The truth. A problem is those supplying Internet porn think the customer is like them. He's not and he's not hanging round sites like Facebook to get off.

I have been in this business a bit longer than most of you and I can tell you where it went wrong. It's lack of knowledge of the customer. You can't market to someone you don't understand.

20 years ago I was selling videos, via mail order, that Astral Blue is made up of. Today I have people signing up who used to buy from me in the 80s. The bulk of that business came off the mailing list. It was largely the same people buying month in and month out. The magazine business was also based mostly on their mailing list and any porno shop owner would tell you it was the same faces buying over and over.

Then the Video and magazine business went the route of my content would bring more revenue. Worked for a few years. Then no matter how many titles were published revenue stayed the same, then it started to fall. People were not buying more porn, they just had more porn to buy. So lots of publishers reacted by cutting prices paid for content which led to the quality falling. The scenes were all starting to look the same.

This was before the Internet could deliver a video without is being compressed to thumb nail size.

So the fall of porn revenues was a long time coming.

If a paysite can't compete with free porn, then whose fault is that?

A lot of truth in what you say. Today too much porn is just a clone of too many other scenes. No matter how high you pile crap it's still crap.

The problem is innovation costs money, needs skills and experience and above all a knowledge of the consumer to make that innovation work.

Ask a sponsor today if he would like 5 solo girl scenes in a day for $1500, or 3 for the same price. And he will go for the 5. Few girls can do 5 orgasms in a day. And few shooters can shoot 5 scenes and make them individual. This goes the same for lesbian and boy girl. So we end up with DVDs or sites that all look the same.

And we now buy DVD content like it's going to make sales. When it hardly sells in the shops.

If a porn consumer sees a video on a Tube site that really hits his needs, he will buy. The problem is he sees pulp porn that just about gets him off and would never want to buy 30 days worth of it.

The industry went for quantity over quality when the buyer needs quality over quantity.

i blame sports and video games! ;)

Paul, I am afraid we left the point at which it mattered if a girls orgasm shot by a professional shooter is real or not already far behind us. and i don't think, that any video that you or me shoot nowadays of a solo girl will make a difference - no matter if it's good or bad.

It always matter if the girl is doing it for real or faking it. TO THE GUYS SPENDING MONEY. When producers say it does not matter we see the problem.

The problem is you're right we have left that point behind. I have never seen so much fake porn ever, the moment I see a content store with pictures of girls with their mouths so far open they could catch flies I'm off. It's fake, looks fake and put's the buyers off.

The point I did not make is the repeat buyer knows what he's buying. No matter how high you pile it and how well you market it he is guided by the last purchase he made. Be it cornflakes or porn.

We in porn adopted the attitude we could just get more traffic to replace those who don't buy. Be it DVD, Cable or Net. We just find excuses the hide the truth, the customer is not impressed. Be it the stands in the Berlin show telling us the Internet is taking customers or the Net blaming the economy and free porn. Neither help but not the real reasons. Porn has always been recession proof and the down turn started long before. Plus if the free scene is good the buyers sign up after seeing one scene.

Blame it on Rio!

http://www.FetishSoup.com/GFY/BlameItOnRio.jpg

People like the porn that's out there. Surf the tube sites and read the comments. Even studio stuff that we as webmasters find boring gets super high ratings and praise, not to mention millions of views. The growing traffic to these videos also proves that people are not bored with the current content.

If the premise was true that customers find a majority of porn boring than the tubes would be declining. They are not.

Now what people will pay for BECAUSE they can get what they want for free, that's the real issue.

But just because you as a webmaster who lives and breathes this stuff finds it all boring, doesn't mean the customer does.

So if your sales are down I would give the following breakdown..

Up to 20% decline - because of the economy. Most industries are down between 10%-20% so porn is going to be no different.

Up to 30% decline - because of tubes. Tubes took out the casual buyer. The guy that would buy a subscription now and then. Not a hardcore collector or niche guy, just a guy who had a taste for porn every now and then. This describes most guys.

If it was only the economy or only the tubes, webmasters wouldn't be bitching all that much. But together they put the hurt on a lot of programs.

At least that's my take on it.

lots of real facts here, although in my opinion the main concern is that people are tired of the same stuff all over, new girls, new sites, always go and download. same stuff.

Yep. Great video. First video played on MTV.

I would still favor the huge amoount of free porn to watch and to download - one click shop for all your needs above the social networking madness.

Although it's true that if I remember my surfing times you went to internet basically:

- to get information / to read something / find something
- to steal something (yes I confess I downloaded a lot of copyrighted music and movies while at the college)
- to get porn (for free but I was fantasizing how cooll would it be to be able to subscribe for the whole bangbros network and not have to download every pirated clip for ages)

Now MOST of the time over all of this is the social networking madness,

As I noticed with people who are just a few years younger than me, everyone's building their virtual world and virtual egos and virtual relationships while they do not understand that that world ain't real, that they exchange the reality with a virtual world full of pre fabricated and artificial bullshit, that everyone can be COOL on the internet but 95 pct. of those SUCK in real life one or the other way.

I'm even concerned this is another step towards complete social degeneration, more totally unproductive communication and less focused productive effort then ever.

Credit card limit reduction has had a massive effect on this industry. :2 cents: :2 cents: :2 cents:

Sounds like America to me. Not that there aren't good people, but in general.

You are totally right, innovations cost money and require skills and experience to make it successful but are required to grow and keep your market share.

A practical example is Xbiz.net what is in my opinion a very powerful target group based platform. In other words Xbiz did a good job by innovating and offer their target groups more tools and features.

Personally I think there is still money to be made within the online adult entertainment industry but it requires a totally different approach combined with innovation to get the attention and interest from the paying surfers.

There's no country better or worse than any other, it's all just a matter of your personal and cultural preferences and a certain mindset.

No matter how degenerated the average American TV or mass media culture may be, America is only ridiculed because it brought all the degenerated mass media culture to spotlight, it was invented there.

But take a look to Europe - if there wouldn't be government financing certain channels it's ALL the same shit in mass media and people are already overweight and degenerated just about the same.

The globalization of idiocy and continuous fadeout of sense in mass media and society is a general trend and I'm terrified how easily do the masses adapt to comfortable dumbness and zero comprehension.

Carlos, I want to break away from the stale and go with an approach of promoting free information.

I am just setting up a site/group up for this very thing on a social networking based platform right now.

I will be interested to see if it takes off in any way shape or form, I certainly hope a portion of humanity craves more than force fed bullshit.

I mean, ok it's totally off topic:

Who controls the voters - media

Who controls the media - money therefore private interests

Who controls the politics - money therefore private interests

At the end the question is - who controls democracy?

The answer is again money and private interests, therefore the lack of relevant information and lack of any real effort towards educating and informing the masses.

I've seen respectable relevant news sources turning into a tabloid like colorful bullshit during the past 15 years.

Unable to orientate, engaged with bullshit and easy to manipulate is the ideology of today.

Thousands and thousands of targeted clicked traffic and ONE FUCKING signup for the past 3 days ! Worst stretch in over 11 years online ! Now i don't know how long this shit will continue but i won't keep up for long.


1) Economy crisis
2) Free shit everywhere and teaching the surfers and the new generation to never pay to get what they want (porn/music/films/softwares/games) etc.
3) Scams and cross billing + bad members area/content

Yes maybe this type of site ruin the biz but is not the only place where you can find free porn

OMG, to hear it from you man. Fuck, don't take offense but how many big boys must stumble [& actually admit it on here] before we take notice and it sinks in that this shit is real.

It sucks of course. :2 cents:

I feel like teencat: "good luck with all your sites everyone!" :thumbsup

Oh so true.

Well our model cost millions to set up but at least it's not easily replicable and the member value cost millions too - and pays off.

Converting from full length channel on a legal free site below 1:500 for the whole 2009 for a reference (I can disclose stats if required).

Would be of course glad if you would consider doing business with us.

And you were featured in Hostel II! :bowdown :pimp

Good point!

Hah, well that was just a bit of luck, but yeah this definitely has a lot of mainstream appeal.

What other adult businesses were ever featured in Bloomberg, NY Times or Time magazine?

National Geographic coming to shoot next week, there is much more mainstream potential in real people than in "regular" porn.

As a kid I always thought National geographic should be called African pornographic. =p

I always called our stuff "National geographic for adults" now I'll mention that in the interview on National Geographic itself.

:)

Bye Bye
 

I say good riddance to all the poor / average porn sites
who have been taking plenty of money off surfers for years.
Now surfers have woken up to the fact that most of the
well-known sites are actually pretty crap. Pretty amateur
babes who don't mind getting naughty are way more fun
than some fake , silicone filled orange-skinned porno actress.
Theres a whole world of gorgeous girls out there to watch
and I certainly have no intention of ever going back to paying
decent money for a cheap , substandard porn site. Like record
companies who are whining about losing business so are porn sites
......boo ! hoo !

as Mr Dylan once sang " times they are a -changing " .