Are We Gonna Be Okay?
 

So here we are, at the end of yet another year of turmoil in this crazy porn business. If you think about all the changes in our Industry just this year alone it's quite sobering. So what does next year hold for us?

No one can predict the future but sometimes I think a year from now this entire online business thing will go POOF! and be gone. Maybe it's just my paranoia....

So what do you think? Are you hopeful for 2012? Or are you content to just "bubble along" making whatever you are making now and your goal (hope?) is to just "hang on" for as long as possible?

Is real growth possible in 2012 and the years ahead? Or will it be just more and more consolidation and slippage into a few "big" players and a ton of little crumbs scrambling to stay alive?

Where will YOU be a year from now?

Market has been shifting for years but going 'poof'? Not gonna happen.

I think everyone failed to understand the position we were in. This wasn't a two or four year problem and there is no easy fix; The only thing that is going to fix this is time. This is a ten year problem. Businesses were closing up left and right and people were loosing their homes. Exactly ten out of twenty houses on my street were foreclosed on at the height of this.

At the same time, our industry was hit harder than most. We always thought that as entertainment and a "vice" we were safe from any recession. What we failed to notice was that our industry was built around credit cards, and that was one of the first things affected. Combine this with the fact that online porn is no longer a novelty and the staggering amount of free porn on tube sites, and well, we are screwed. The gold rush days are gone, and we've started to weed out the idiots.

It will get better. It's just gonna take more time. And it's not going to be easy money for us any more.

Things have increased for me exponentially this year and plans are in place for more expansion so I have a positive outlook for next year as well.

Most industries have a few big players and lots of little crumbs. Nothing unusual there.

A year from now I'll be more successful then this year, no doubt.

The industry is actually looking better then it has in a while. Lots of shake ups seems to have left only the stong. Congrats to the winners.

I have no idea what will happen next year but I think it is possible that in time(years)
there will be no affiliate marketing.

Tubes will go away because they have nothing to sell and effective copyright enforcement
combined with a limited number of content producers will leave them with "stale" content.

And that will leave nothing except a few well known super sized pay sites that will
charge $99-$150 a month.

Videos will be streamed with a unique encryption code identifying the pay site
member and when the video is found on a illegal site the member will be sued.

Google will open up youtube's "content match" on all URLs crawled and charge
$xxx per month to find your copyrighted videos and notify you.

Well, at least it's possible even if not likely.

The market shifted towards free porn to bring traffic in to sell other things during this same time so it's clouding things a bit. I think that even without the recession / credit crunch / etc we'd still be in a similar situation. New income streams were created, cat is out of the bag. Those that work within the new system will be fine, those that cry about it will leave. Many already have, so pissed that things changed that they threw everything away and gave up.

Nooooooooooooo

Yeah, I agree. Even without the current financial situation we were in for an interesting time. The two combined made it the perfect storm. At the very least it weeded out some of the losers from our industry.

Porn as a market will always be there but the players and their roles evolve constantly.



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Some excellent responses in this thread! The biggest issue seems to be "adaptation" and shifting expectations. Becoming a huge million dollar+ company today is getting harder and harder it seems; but if you set your sights on a "decent" (six figures?) income then that still seems possible, even now.

But the problem seems to be: if someone makes $ online they tend to ONLY know how to make money the way they've always done so. When faced with having to "adapt or die" they tend to, well, die. Get into cams??? I sell Memberships....Get into dating??? I design banners....etc.

I do know one thing for certain: working hard and not stopping, regardless of setbacks, is the only way to achieve anything in life.

Every industry keeps evolving at a given rate.. some faster than others.. Some for the good and others for the bad. As long as you don't get too comfortable and plan for the rainy days.. you should be OK.

People complain about tube sites (still), but it's already been over 4 yrs... the ones that jumped on the tube site ship are laughing now and the ones that didn't not so much..

Now the "new" antagonist is .xxx and even that.. it's already going on a year.

Good luck to all of us! :winkwink:

Oh & luck has nothing to do with it...

I just want to get in here before the Paul Markham wall of text

the 90s increased by a factor of 100 the consumers of porn. Before that, the trip to the little store with black windows and the asshole wannabe biker owner was a significant deterrent. It wasn't about talent, and no one gave a shit about "good" content. For instance, consumers *hated* the obligatory shot of the cumming guy but no one had to change it because consumers had no choice. They bought from a small selection of local porn. Mail order was a risk as well, because wife kids neighbors mailman, etc.

In the 90s, suddenly people who had a very pent up demand for porn could get it. Suddenly they could find the type of girl and the type of act they wanted. Instead of having to wait until they had a VCR to themselves they could sit at the computer and close a web site in a second with no risk. No more judgmental porn store clerk charging 17.95 for a shitty magazine. There was a flood of new consumers who were used to being cheated and lied to who could get good quality content for a low price.

Now, there is no pent up demand, and no new consumers. Kids start looking at porn at age 12 and 13. They can find exactly what they want when they want, and pay nothing for it.

Consumers will still buy memberships, but it is a zero sum game now. No growth, and perhaps a slight decline over time. Everyone will have to fit back into the chain of the large companies, who will be like distributors in the old days and have all the power.

We are now spending about two hours a day just looking for our pirated content, the amount of free content especially on tubes is discouraging. More and more programs/studios need to be sending out dmcas. With huge bandwidth costs, constant dmca violations, and banner ads as their only source of revenue, the popularity of the tube model will eventually fizzle.

Bandwidth is negligible. I barely monetized my legal tube (1 text link) and it more than covers hosting with Terabytes of transfer. Even if every illegal video were removed tomorrow the big boys would just put their own stuff up and keep all the traffic. Saying tubes are going to die is wishful thinking.

I don't believe in too much change, just moving with the times... the 360* film of digitalplayground... wow, I could be interested in that...
But other than that, I've kept porn to the original, shoot with a still hand, boy girl, lol or boy boy girl... get some gangbang hardcore scenes in there :winkwink:

In the end, I do this for enjoyment of my career, my life, my job & my happiness.... I hope to enjoy this for many years to come :thumbsup

To sum up, I hope for lots of growth & hope that my business shall grow, I have lots of dreams & lots of ambition, always trying to give more that 100%, maybe we shall all give to the worlld what they want to see :pimp

I have to agree at this point. The worst that can happen to them is either radical legislation changes or so much competition from other tubes such that the profitability decreases significantly.

The very first online porn was stolen ("free") and there has always been plenty of free porn. I don't see that as having changed. The economic situation in the US.and across Europe is really serious, though.

Wow. That's pretty well written really.

:thumbsup Listen to the man.. he's dead on i've seen it all.

I agree with Rochard... I've had people mail & call me, asking if they can pay membership by sending cash or postal order :pimp

Not for me it isnt ! WOOT WOOT ! LIVING THE DREAM !


Amen Brother ! :thumbsup

On the toilet?

makes no difference if its the porn industry or a car wash, as long as you are selling something that's in demand you will suceed.

Ballers don't sweat the small shit

youll be fine as long as you convert over to .xxx

built in sweater kool!

Caesar?


________

The online rollercoaster continues: sales UP one day, sales DOWN one, rinse and repeat....

will all be bought out by manwin :) lol