Nothing wrong with it, except the ROI.

Getting "dedicated team" is expensive. The odds on them having any effect on the US Government are extreme. Very, very unlikely a lobbying company would take it on and even more unlikely anyone would listen to them and even more unlikely it would get anything out of this.

Yes with the FSC we can argue in court on points of law. Them achieving anything in how laws are made regarding porn is unlikely in the extreme.

Great in principle. Not going to happen.

If Manwin leveraged every property they have including their own homes, they could not buy out ccbill.

The 'industry' isn't a living, breathing, thinking entity that can change. It's just a way to refer to several individuals that make a living selling the same or similar products.

Individuals change, individuals change their habits, individuals respond to incentives, individuals make decisions,...

If individuals A and B go out of business, that does not mean individuals X, Y or Z will go out of business as well.

When supply was low and demand was high, of course it was easy to make money. This resulted (as is the case in any sector of the economy) in an influx of people looking to make a quick buck. A large part of that group of people frankly had no idea what they were doing. They copied what others were doing without improving it. Not that that is a bad thing. It's good for the consumer. It's the way the economy works. For the entrepreneur it simply confirms one of the basic facts of life.

What we see here happens in every 'industry', in every sector of the economy.. and it has been happening since the first 2 humans beings agreed to voluntary exchanges goods or services: things change. technology changes, people change, people's preferences change,... the ones that continue to make the most money are those that are best at predicting those changes and finding ways to profit from them.

And there will always be a few that expect things to last forever. No matter how much money they once made, the inability to innovate and the refusal to admit that only leads to disaster.

Do I worry about change? No, I love it. Change means opportunities. Opportunities for everyone. The question of whether or not someone is changing fast enough is an individual one. Those who are, will continue to make money. Those who aren't, won't.

Of course whether or not someone 'leaves the industry' doesn't tell you how successful he is. It could mean he isn't able to make money in this sector, but it could as well mean he found a better opportunity elsewhere.

Personally, I focus on what I control: my own business. The big existentialist questions of where "the industry is heading" don't concern me. There is no "industry"... There's only individuals. Individuals that innovate, help each other and do business with each other. And individuals that bitch all day about how X killed Y, about how the increase in availability of cheap A killed the business of those who used expensive B to create product C,...

One of the most frustrating things about working online is that everything is connected BUT you, the individual, often only has "control" over a few factors. In other words, YOU (the affiliate, sponser, etc) may be doing everything 100% legally and correctly and STILL get screwed up the arse because you don't control other websites.

So we can "adapt" all we want but on some level it's a cat-and-mouse game. WE adapt, THEY adapt, WE adapt, THEY adapt...in the end it's who's got the most capital (traffic) to finance all these adaptations who wins.

I am especially amazed there is some useful and true information posted in GFY, is that a joke?

If you say only "some" do shave, then you imply "some others" are honest. Let it exist 1 program that does not shave: all its affiliates would get the high conversion and money expected. So today you and others would write instead: I get 1:200 on affiliate X and only 1:2000 on others, so they shave. But it seems not the case, as affiliates focus on shave on all the sites like they joined a conspiracy theory "My traffic is worth 1:200 but every program shaves it to 1:2000". So I insist, either every and all program it is shaving (include our program!), so every affiliate sents 1:200 convert traffic and see 1:2000 in stats, or, the conversion it is low "itself" for any reason, include the program it sucks, but honestly.

Further, does the conspiracy theory of the few big programs who shave it includes the smaller programs? As if not, then the small programs should be full of affiliates - do you trust more the new and small, than the big and old programs, honestly?
About popularity (and so trust) of programs... should the affiliates promote the small and new programs, instead of the old and big, if really do not wanted to create themselves the situation you described. Go in any new or old affiliate site blog or tube and they are promoting the same few biggest programs always, directly or via brokers. For cams and dating try to find anyone advertising something different from the same 5 top ones (lj awe, streamate, imlive, streamray/AFF, myfreecams/crak etc.), it is nearly impossible - and for pay sites I am seeing brazzers , realitykings and very few others basically everywhere. Unless you go to thehun.net or freeons digging for a "rare" program, you can not even discover anything else it exists.

This clearly shows that most affiliates does not even try or test the new and small programs: they will blame big ones shave, but wait 6-12 months before signup anyone else (simply as not seeing it promoted by everyone else). Funny enough the affiliates will not join new programs as pre-emptively think they shave? Only when a program for any reason it is later promoted by many already, then everyone jumps there and tests it (like a group of sheeps who move together). The case of Chaturbate was easily followed in GFY: when it launched everyone LOLd at it (usual way to say good luck to new program), then after 6 months everyone tried it (including stocktrader "be millionaire" solutions), until everyone said it shave. So affilites are fully causing the situation you described, no any programs secret conspiracy association it exists (or includes everyone at least).

Exactly, the most business and signups are now from traffic deals measured in raw hits, link/spot placement/exchanges per month, including as much as possible own traffic sources and retainers (as it is the tubes), more than on revshare or PPS deals - unless whale affiliate (rely on quantity to get a deal) or very targeted affiliate (relly on quality to get a deal). Also do not forget that most pay sites esp. ccbill ones have lots of adverts to other sites in their member areas, and this is NOT credited to the affiliates - so even if ccbill does not shave, may you take a look in member areas of the sites you promote for any adverts to other sites.

Yes, this is the switch from revshare/pps affiliate system, to traffic trading, brokering, exchanging, bouncing. I am always amazed when I ask the monthly price for spots in new sites and they ask $5,000 to $50,000 per month (the $50k reply I got just few days ago from a chatroulette clone). No one ever will be interested in any revshare or PPS, they do want that money per month or per kilo hits - as they need to pay hosting bills and the traffic they purchased from others in others to grown the own one.
About who they are selling to: you should not forget the gambling, that is legal in europe and other non-US countries and they have huge profits so can buy at the $5k to $50k per spot prices. Then yes there's always every week the new guy who want be porn king and will invest a thousand dollar in adverts for own new site and lose it all - this give a thousand a week until the mother of porn kings it is pregnant. And time to time there's the programs who do money who buy ads whatever the productivity, just as they have the budget.
I am unsure all of this traffic brokering will keep up, may it be more unstable than the pay sites? :)

I know well the met-art niche, we are the only cam plugin for domai, mplstudios, watch4beauty, skokoff and previously worked for others (not as granny old as you yet lol), and I don't think in porn it counts the art or pretentious quality factor so much. Those art nude sites it require the girl to be substantially shy and potentially virgin looking in order to have a certain audience amazed. I can see it happening when we put the same models in cams (but note a photo model can be very boring in cam!), the guys keep in polite adoration. When the girl is doing sex with a guy, the audience quite it changes as well as the contect, and even if shoot with big studio umbrella and sophisiticated lights, I would not call it art sorry and the audience it is different and so the traffic and so the conversion. But I am no more into the pre-recorded content so I may be wrong, I may soon be as outdated as you Markham :)

THE big processor did go out of business. They were called iBill. Most sites used them, and after AdultCheck was no longer the payment system of choice. Just because CCBill is the biggest and the best right now. doesn't mean they are immune.

In this thread people talk as though ADULT is in trouble. In the economy as a whole, about one of every eight people either can't find a job or have given up hope and stopped even trying. It's not adult, it's everything, the world economy led by the US. Never mind a processor, entire countries are going belly up. In January either things will start to slowly change or we'll see that we're headed for something at least as bad as the great depression.

Ah, the "every man for himself" creed.

Good luck with that.

And thus we see why the "Industry" inevitably will stagnate. At some point a collective philosophy in some form or shape will need to be developed to protect the interests of the whole.

Otherwise it will simply be a revolving door of companies (except those who are big enough to survive), any of which can be targeted by regulatory bodies or subject to threats to the stability of their business. Every other major industry has learned the lesson that there is strength in numbers. Why can't this industry get it together?

Perhaps this is the wrong place to have this conversation, but the individualistic attitudes are telling as to why things are the way they are at present.

treat your sites like a business and not a "build and wait" and your returns will be better.

people who don't treat their sites like a business fall short.

What you call a "creed" is a fact of life. It's a praxeological certainty. It's how the market works.

You offer a service. if people value your service more than all other services they could buy at that moment in time for the same amount of money, they will buy your service. If they value another service more than yours, you won't make any money.


The fact that it's only individuals that make decisions, doesn't mean people can't or won't work together. When a voluntary exchange takes place, both parties benefit. People share information all the time. People give advice all the time. Some more than others. Some more useful than others. people learn from each other by observing what works and what doesn't. And yes, people band together to fight certain threats or mitigate certain risks.


Human history is the history of revolving doors of people that come up with great ideas and ways to profit from them. Nothing lasts forever.

Yes, there's plenty of examples of companies joining forces and forming cartels. And what happens every time? They get outcompeted by the new guy and the cartel breaks up. The only cases where cartels can survive for a longer period of time are those were force is involved. Either directly by the cartel members as is the case with for example drug cartels or indirectly as is the case when those cartels manage to get enough political influence to have the government outlaw their competitors. Do you see either of those things happening in this "industry"? do you want either of those things to happen in this "industry"?

I fear you are confusing one of the basic truths of human existence, namely the fact that we are all individuals and only individuals can make decisions (There's no such things as a "collective mind") with certain moral values or ideologies.

The fact that we are all individuals does not mean people don't or can't help their fellow man. And to help your fellow man, you certainly don't need to turn control over your business over to some 'collective body'.

We all have limited amounts of time and limited resources at our disposal. If I prefer to use mine as efficiently as possible, then that's not a sign of egoism, but good business sense imho. That I want my business to turn a profit does not preclude me from helping people the way I prefer or decide to help people.

Fuck you, pay me.

The great U.S.A.

I rest my case.

I do believe that you're misunderstanding what I'm saying.

Do you honestly think that tobacco, alcohol or even farming lobbies formed by those industries are a waste of time? Companies within those industries compete directly with each other, but they know that as a collective that they have a better chance of facing the government on issues that could effect their industry as a whole.

Look at how tobacco companies handled dealing with hard evidence that their products actually kill and maim people. Don't think for one second that if there wasn't a powerful tobacco lobby that individual tobacco companies would have still been in existence.

This is the point that I'm making.

Most persons in this industry shrug off the growing roar of government officials against porn. We will have to face it inevitably and should at least prepare accordingly and collectively.

Yes this is where the lower conversion ratio it comes from... not from a cartel of programs who all agreed to shave. I would bet there was bigger shaving in the past years when there was bigger money to shave from - also biggest worth to collapse an iBill or Epassporte before that money flow decreases. In fact the biggest shaving and risk it was when it was worth for the bigger fraud gangsters to be in the online adult biz! With today's smaller numbers whoever kept in online adult biz (or just entered it) it can't be so greedy, most do it just as an excuse to see pussy :)

The persons in this industry does not act as if anti-porn government(s) are unimportant or not a problem (does not "shrug off", if I understand the meaning). Simply no one of them have even 1% of the money that tobacco people can use to lobby. So it was said by researchers: in the 21st century tobacco will kill 1 billion people worldwide... this requires quite a lobbying to fix... eventually less people will die due to porn for sure. But the global tobacco industry it is more than $600 billion per year, some $50 to $100 billion per major company per year, of which several billion it is pure profit, income!
Now how it compares with a manwin, playboy, hustler, adultfriendfinder, myfreecams, streamate , imlive or whoever you can call as big program? You convert the billion of tobacco in million of porn, and maybe you get the right numbers of online porn: 600 million per year, 50 to 100 million per major company a year... still this is 1000 times smaller money of tobacco (or oil, etc.) so it can lobby 1000 times less. Which is what we got, it is just the money, not the skills or wishes.

The recession hasn't helped. Still it's not the sole or even main cause of the decline. We have to accept the blame for that ourselves.

Porn always was a small industry when compared with others. Worldwide sales revenue weren't bad. Yet this was split into 1,000s of shops turning over, let's say, $1 million each.

There were a few moguls, Flynt, Hefner, Sullivan, Gold, Raymond, Uhse for instance. Then there was 1,000s of smaller fish. Online replaced it and none will reach the size of those guys. And if the ever do, we will never know it for sure. The small to medium businesses were never able to step up a gear and are suffering.

Yes they diversified using the money in porn to invest in other forms of business. How many online porn companies did the same? The most successful was probably Paul Raymond.

At some point a new industry has to leave the little business methods behind and start to act like a real industry. Our business methods prohibit this. Giving away a product to get 1-1,000 consumers to buy, isn't a way to grow an industry. Unless the ratio of 99.9% can be improved on. And it's not. It's getting worse. Recession or no recession.

:thumbsup :thumbsup

I hope you are not right !

The good news for us and bad news for others.

Is. We paid more tax for last year, so made more money. Not a lot, still a nice sign.

so you can still ignore my posts for a little longer. LOL

PM, did you ever meet Paul Raymond?