as is the case with every mature market.

Far-L is right, you're not.

How is this not true?
Random numbers just to make a point:
2005:
take 100.000.000 surfers, 1000 affiliates and 1.000.000 sales. 1000 sales for each affiliate.
2014:
take 100.000.000 surfers, 1000 affiliates and 50.000 sales. 900 affiliates 25 sales each, 80 affiliates 50 sales each and 20 affiliates 1175 sales each.

You are taking example of those top 20 affiliates and say "industry is fine", damn even "better then ever" - 1175 sales is more than 1000 sales from 2005.
While forgetting the main thing what we are discussing that whole pie went from 1.000.000 sales to 50.000 sales. Again numbers are random just to illustrate what people are saying when complaining about tubes stealing sales.

Some points among the many, that people tend to willfully ignore

1) Free content has ALWAYS been available in any quantity since there were nothing online but bbs systems
2) Free content has ALWAYS been the primary marketing tool which drives sales. Your same argument was being made in 1998 about image sets.
3) Content has always been pirated on a wide scale
4) Tube sites are MOSTLY sponsor videos, not full length videos
5) Tube content is NOT high quality
6) Paysite content IS high quality
7) Tube traffic converts quite well which is why it sells for a premium price

The fact is simple. Tube traffic converts quite well. That simple fact, makes all other arguments about "full length videos" irrelevant.

If your life narrative is going to be "things are bad and only getting worse"... then of course, you are going to see nothing but facts that support that. However, when someone like Ruseful comes and shows everyone in great detail how he went from zero to 300 employees using ONLY tubes, he gets ignored or called a liar.

Your level of success in anything, including this business is always exactly what you tell yourself its going to be.

So many of you seem to be focusing on something that you can't do. Why?

Focus on what you can do. It just might happen.

The thing is, you don't know thats the case at all. There is no hard data to support anything that suggests thats even remotely true. People whining and pining for the "good ole days" doesn't count as fact and data.

Even AVN Theo estimated a drop from a high of $15 billion to $10 billion.

https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1135887

Do you have any idea how baseless the original number was in the first place?

XBIz, AVN, Forbes, ABC, Rolling Stones... they all seem to say the same thing. DECLINES. Or maybe they are all trolls? The denials reminds me of dealing with a drug addicted relative of mine. Admitting the problem is the first step.

You have completely missed what should be patently obvious.

I am going to give you some serious advice so do with it what you will but I know it will help...

First... you need to realize that you should not be focused on content. Focus on user experience and the content becomes valuable. :2 cents::2 cents::2 cents:

Next...

The crux of the biscuit is the the apostrophe. Thank Frank Zappa for that one.

I do well, promoting my sponsors on my tube network. I don't think that every affiliate is shady... i value all of my sponsors. And i convert well. I think it is absolutely the relationship that the sponsor has with his/her affiliate in the first place.

All the media sources you cite went off the PR that AVN put out. None of them actually ever dug into the information and trust me they would not have had to dig deep to realize those numbers were based on huge assumptions.

Denial?

Tell me about it.

Netvideogirls has been around for years. That is the content that Ruseful saw worked incredibly well on Youporn. He set out to emulate its success. He used primarily tubes for his traffic because he understood the "Moneyball".

Are you denying that anyone else with half a brain couldn't follow a similar recipe for success?

A good place for affiliates that feel the same way about tubes to see who they should promote or not. Be nice to see how high and mighty these people act if all affiliates who didn't use tubes cut them out.

Come on, son. :1orglaugh

Cut them out of what? 5% of their sales and 95% of their headaches?

Squealer, 12Clicks, Far-L,

Why is it that not only are affiliates disappearing, content producers hurting, traffic sellers taking a hit .... BUT ...

but ... PROGRAM OWNERS are also shutting down their businesses???

If it was just a tube problem like us affiliates are bitching about then the above peoples would all be fine (save affiliates). But that's not the case. How many programs have shut their doors in the last few years?

Even ND, BB and the other bros are not what they once were. I've seen many programs that I have personally promoted either shut down or just stop updating altogether.

That's actually what Paul Markham said. And I agreed with him.

One thing I think it is important for affiliates (and sponsors) to realize is that typically you are providing significantly more revenue to the sponsor than you are getting credit for.

1. Bad tracking where the sale will never get credited to you but the sponsor will still get the sale.
2. The sponsor is using email marketing to sell the stage 1 joins you send for free without giving you credit. This can include dating or their other sites.
3. Users signup for a month or two. Cancel and come back again. It all goes to the sponsor.
4. Cookies not being set due to incognito mode, etc.
5. User types in the url they see on the promo content and you never get credit.

There are many sponsors out there benefiting from affiliate traffic more than they believe and they do not realize it. This helps explain the mystery where the sponsor converts 1:400 but the affiliates all do 1:7000. If you the affiliate take down all your sites or links it will hurt many of these sponsors more than they believe it will.

Sent you a PM.

I make sales from tube submissions for BB and ND that were done almost 2 years ago by my guys. Still converts just as well as ever. Me and my friends used to laugh our asses off at people complaining about "saturated content" when sites that were ranking in google for ND / BB site names were converting as solid as ever.

Again, these arguments are at this point, well over a decade old. Why are programs going out of business? Programs have always gone out of business. More came and went in the first 5 years of online adult than have been created in the following 10.

That is a simple fact.

There are 1000 ways that things have changed and you guys (at your own expense) have became fixated on and obsessed with only one... One which you feel you can blame for everything. A single catch all excuse for your failures.

Your reality is what you make it. If you've decided things are bad and only getting worse... Then that becomes your reality. It's clealry not the same for everyone as others are busy making money. I glanced at my stats today and see I plan ought traffic from well over 2500 sites, mostly tubes and tube scrapers. I spent zero time blaming them and all my time lea ring to better monetize the traffic. That's why these conversations are comical. You guys could download all BB/ND videos (approx 4k), watermark hem and submit those same clips over and over and in a few months be making 30-40-50k a year with "saturated" contend posted to "worthless tube sites with traffic that doesn't convert". But hey... why work for it?

Also, I just looked at my ppc stats. One simple test campaign on xhamster and I've doubled my spend, making about 300 profit. That's before a single tweak, adjusting bids, testing offers and with a very low traffic volume. That's how "useless" tube traffic is.

I am overwhelmed by the deafening silence of the underwhelming rally to revolt against programs that have been making affiliates solid cash for years.

The sad thing is you are trying to revolt against people who are actually trying to help you.

I am going to enshrine this post in a golden placard and genuflect to it each time I pass it by to recognize its sheer genius. :thumbsup

Trying to get sponsors and tubes to open their eyes a little...

Not looking to make enemies here.

Well on the plus side, I've got 2 new people on my ignore list so reading this thread hasn't been a total loss.

Excellent points as always Far-L & TheSquealer

Against my better judgement, I have to agree with him for once.

You tell'em, Robbie!

You tell'em, Magnetron!

Again, it's how EVERY market matures.
Is it really shocking that the sleazydreams and pimpdogs of the world washed out of a maturing business? Is it a surprise to anyone with intelligence and business acumen that mom and pop high maintenance affiliates are being replaced?
Has the trampling of copyright laws hurt the business? Sure it has but that genie isn't going back in the bottle. So you have a choice. Adapt to the ever changing landscape (as all successful people do in EVERY business) or whine about the ever changing landscape on a chat board (as no successful person in any business has ever done)

You told me good, Jel! :1orglaugh

____________________________

You're right. We have no choice but to adapt. And I plan on trying as best I can.

But, I also thinking having a discussion like this and seeing as clearly as we can sets one up to move forward instead of pretending that everything's 'great'.

I don't know how many came and went in the first 5 years but I do know that I have observed that more programs seemed to have disappeared in the last few than have been created.

Programs aside, ratios are also tanking. In 2007 people regularly had 1:1000 and now it's more like 1:5000 ... yes some are still doing 1:500 with niche stuff and funnelling etc... but overall something did change in the surfers mindset ....

Ratchet down your expectations and live in the 'real world'. Porn has almost always been a last stop for people who couldn't get a real job or make it in the real world. ESPECIALLY when we're talking online porn where the barrier to entry is almost non-existent. This means ANYBODY and EVERYBODY can try and 'make it' in Adult.

Those that adapt, that learn, that evolve, that don't cling to old ways, who look for innovation, and have REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS are the ones who survive year after year and even thrive.

(Not talking about the scum and card-banger-types who use Adult for their money-laundering schemes etc...)

Let's say you can earn 50k a year selling porn online. Guess WHAT? Be happy. Be ECSTATIC for you could be working at Wal-Mart or a shoe store or cummuting hours a day wasting your existence.

"Oh but I USED TO make x times MORE..." Well, either find another biz where you can earn what you USED TO earn (unlikely) or stop bitching, realize you have a pretty happy life and continue to try and grow (and adapt).

Or just keep bitching. Everyone loves a bitcher.

Yeah but honestly, for many of us, things ARE still great.

That's an urban myth.

This was a CLOSED business up until the internet started.
So that "almost always" part of your post is completely false. There were only a handful of players, and not many more performers.

As for online porn...of course anybody can TRY to make money in adult.
Just like they can TRY to make money in EVERY business in the world online.
The barrier to adult isn't any lower than any other online business.

And why people would even post things that make their own business look bad is beyond me.

It isn't bad enough that "civilians" already (erroneously) think the worst of people in the adult industry...but then we have our "own people" posting things like this on a public forum too?

Here is my experience since I started online adult in 1997:
The people I have done business with, met, and interacted with...whom were actually IN the adult industry are NOTHING like the cliche.

Most are people with families, many give back to their communities...in other words, they are very, very "normal" people.

The majority of the folks I have met and interacted with over these decades have also been above-average intelligent, ambitious, and hard working.

Yes, there are a few dumbasses. Most of them are fringe people who have never held a camera in their hand or been on a porn set.

But I have never met a successful person who was truly in this industry that I felt couldn't be successful in any other business.

A lot of them never were successful anywhere else because they simply never HAD to be.
Just like Bill Gates never HAD to be successful in anything else but Microsoft.

Porn Nerd, if you really think that the industry is full of people who are just stupid and couldn't make it anywhere else, etc. ... then name names.
Which successful people do you think aren't "good enough" or are in adult as the "last stop" before total life failure?

Let's start with the old names since you insinuated that's it's almost always been so:
Hugh Hefner?
Bob Guccione?
Larry Flynt?

How about more recent folks?
Steve Hirsch?
Any of the owners of "big" studios?

How about online?
Do you think The Hun wouldn't be successful?
Or Maurice at FreeOnes?

You get what I'm saying.

Just because a person puts a few junk cars in front of their trailer with for sale signs on them doesn't mean that they are in the Auto Industry.

To categorize "porn" in a way that insinuates that the people you are really talking about represent porn, is the same as saying that trailer park guy represents the auto industry as equally as the head of GM.

There are millions of people out there that are affiliates of everything you can think of.
Just because they are an affiliate of a site that sells Rolex watches doesn't mean that they are "in" the fine timepiece industry. :)

That's bold talk for someone who hasn't been here very long. :upsidedow

Larry Flynt
Hugh hefner
Bob Guccione

We are not talking about anyone on THAT level here (and, BTW, none of those mentioned have done anything to stem the tide of piracy and lower revenue we see today; in fact, Hustler is struggling, Penthouse is almost gone and Playboy is a total mess since Manwin took over).

I'm not saying people in the Adult Biz don't have the skills to work in other fields I'm asking why do they choose NOT to? Also, please show me someone who was incredibly successful BEFORE they got into Adult. You know, someone who decided to switch from being a millionaire in finance or another Industry and decided to bring his skills to Adult and kill it?

People who sell or work in Adult tend to do so because:

1. They see opportunity
2. They're horny kinky fucks
3. They don't want a 'real job'
4. All of the above

There's absolutely nothng wrong with any of this but thinking porn professionals are your average everyday working folk is ridiculous. LOL It's what I LIKE about Adult: a bunch of rogue gunslingers always hustling and watching out for themselves...

But there's a downside to this, too, as we see nowadays. With so many shows (how many a year, all around the world) why is it we do not see a true coalition or union for the Adult Biz? Music and film industries banded together to squash piracy yet porn has ramped up piracy and now we are all forced to 'adapt or die' (with many dying). If this Industry was filled with brilliant people who could 'make it' doing anything else then why do they sit around, solution-less, watching passively while everything degrades into less revenue and more piracy (or worse, contribute to it)?

You can't have it both ways Robbie: smart people who are just like any other successful person yet the ACTIONS by these same people contribute to their own demise. I call that stupidity, not brilliance (or even competence). In fact, I call it predaters caring about themselves and saying fuck it to the rest of the world.

So maybe we are like every other business. LOL

What I'm really saying is many of the people bitching on this board should instead be happy campers that they aren't working in a 'real job' where they don't get to watch sex all day and maybe have a nice wank in the middle of the afternoon. I realize this is difficult to take for old timers who made bank a decade ago but LOOK FORWARD and realize shit could be a lot worse. But if someone can't deal with what I just wrote then hey, take your awesome skills and go get a job at IBM.

Been here long enough to know what time it is, as they say on the street. :)

the deep seated hatred and shame about sex and sexuality - and by extension adult entertainment - oozes rom all your posts.

@pornnerd
As I said in my post...

Many people were young and this was the first thing they went in to in business. WHY would they have been "successful" in something else?

Would you ask the world's richest man Bill Gates WHY he wasn't successful in something else first?

Or for that matter...how many people become wildly successful in any field and suddenly decide to quit and do something else?

That's just a dumb comparison.
If I get successful in a business, I'm not going to suddenly stop it and go into adult.

And if I get successful in adult, and the success isn't waning...I'm not going to suddenly leave and go into another industry (unless it's just something I wanted to do for personal reasons).

"People who sell or work in Adult tend to do so because:

1. They see opportunity
2. They're horny kinky fucks
3. They don't want a 'real job'
4. All of the above"

Your 4 reasons are excellent ones for a person to be their own boss in ANY industry.
Look at the 4 things you wrote:

1. It takes VISION for a person to actually "see opportunity" and know how to be successful at it. Thousands try every day to seize opportunity in every kind of business. Only a handful will actually be able to do it.

2. Every human being on the face of the Earth is a sexual person and gets horny and has their own private fetishes. Doesn't apply to why a person enters a business (though you DO have to be free of sexual hangups and prudishness/religious nutcase type feelings)

3.Only people with drive and ambition go out and start their own business (or as you call it "don't want a real job"). That is a definite positive thing.

4. All of the above? Exactly.

As for piracy? That is it's own industry. It's not the porn industry.
It's a bunch of guys who don't give a shit about the porn industry. They are out to steal content, and sell the shit traffic generated by the content they don't own.

And yes, it's "smart". They saw that the govt. and the courts WANT the porn industry to die...and it leaves the door open for them to just blatantly steal and get away with it.

I'd like to put my foot in their asses. But I can't deny how clever it is.

I completely disagree with you.

I have a family, a home, I pay my taxes, I love my dogs, I like going to Disneyland.

I go to a swingers club and I see people who are school teachers, lawyers, cops, garbage men, every walk of life.

In other words...we are all the same.

I've NEVER met a "perverted" "sex-crazed" cliched "pornographer" like you are insinuating.

Every one of them I know are not much different than any other person in their personal lives.

Can people get wild on the weekends and party at conventions? Yes.
And if you are basing your assumptions on what you have seen at industry conventions...then you are being very simplistic.

Las Vegas is the capital of conventions. If you think that InterNext or XBiz is "wild", you should be here for the Shower Curtain Manufacturers convention, or the Concrete Layer Convention, or the Shoe Salesman Convention.

Every day of the week there is a convention at one of the casino's here in town. And just like every convention....it's a mixture of business and debauchery.

But after the show is over. Everybody flies back home and into their routines.

I'm not sure why you find it so incredible to think that we in the porn industry are not just as "normal" as anybody else?

I've raised my kids, helped my parents, given to charities and on the flip side I've partied and had good crazy times too.

Hatred and shame? Look deeper into what I wrote man. If I hated porn and felt shameful about it I wouldn't fucking DO it. LOL


I agree entrepenuerial spirit cuts across any Industry. Entrepeneurial spirit is what I LIKE about the Adult biz (and affiliates or anyone who runs their own biz). But you said people in Adult could be successful doing anything else yet the examples of such people are few and far between.

(And, to be clear, I am NOT speaking of the Shaps of the world, who sold out and made millions then learned how to invest those millions in other fields like real estate or the stock market AFTER they left Adult; many successful people got their START in Adult.)

Let's bring things back to today, NOW, 2014: we see a landscape where all we will have left are two camps:

1. Big corporations
2. Small business operaters

Anyone else "in the middle" will be (and are now being) squeezed out. It's the way of any Industry really. So what I'm saying is either you will work for one of those big corporations OR you will be on your own, more or less, and if you ARE "alone" then be happy you aren't selling shoes for a living at Foot Locker.

Man people really see what they want to see, don't they? I never used the words 'perverted' or 'sex-crazed". LOL I said HORNY and KINKY - which does describe many people, which you acknowledged. And I am NOT saying people in porn are not 'regular people' who go to Disneyland and help their families etc. Jesus H Christmas!

I am saying if you work in PORN it is not the same as if you work at IBM or General Electric. Maybe it's you (along with many others in this thread) who have the myopic head-up-their-ass view of life, not me. LOL

that is whats odd. the shame and disgust is obvious, but it is your occupation.

True. I started when i was 20, college student. Now i am 32....
Adult it's my first and only job :)
My hubby by the way, worked as a coder and he earned good money at his job, but we are working together now.
I know many guys in adult who started when they was really young.

Again, no shame. In fact, when I meet people in "real life" and they ask what I do know what I tell them? This:

"I sell porn on the Internet."

There's usually a pause, even sometimes a gasp, then interest and tons of questions (and smiles). Then I get laid (LOL).

'Disgust" however....yes, I will admit there IS "disgust" in my overall temperment when it comes to discussing the Adult business. I do wish I had started in 2002 because then I wouldn't BE here any longer, having sold my biz for oodles of glorious cashola.

But really the "disgust" comes from people bitching and complaining about shit they either cannot control or, in some cases, CAN control and yet chose to do nothing about it. I also have "disgust" for pirates and those who make this game a heck of a lot harder than it has to be.

But, in the end, I can control only MY actions so I reserve the real "disgust' for myself: like why am I fucking around on GFY when I should be cutting galleries for The Hun?

Gotta go! :thumbsup

I guess you don't have kids :)

I just mean. Its not going to happen.

ah right sorry for misreading, and yeah agreed :)

:1orglaugh :thumbsup

LOL No I don't. :)
But if I did I would say: "Daddy makes lonely men happy online."
Haha!!

Wow it's crazy to see people who are actually in the business that think the same way the general public thinks. I was not a millionaire when I got into adult. But I did have a successful car audio business, I made the choice to let it go and concentrate on opening my own program. It was not a last resort. Also to claim it's not a real job is ridiculous! I have never worked anywhere that took so much time and attention to detail.

Very cool! And you are right: I've never worked so hard in my life at this "not real job". I meant in the 'mainstream' 9-5 job kinda way.

What I wrote in my first post is a cliche, I did not invent it, so I invoked it to make a point not to disparage good people working their asses off (Robbie included).

Many in this thread I consider "Lifers", people that would be in this business if it paid a penny. :) But we all know of people (affiliates, Programs, even large companies) that have left the Adult Biz within the past 5 years. I suspect many of those who left would've done so regardless of the business model.

For those that remain the work gets even harder - but the rewards are potentially greater. That's the Good News.