The interesting point in this thread is the idea that that porn itself will be a loss leader. Not sure that I am taking it in the context that you were getting at but to me it seems like the content itself will be like best buy selling cd's at a loss. Or itunes selling songs for a low price to sell ipods. It is like one huge upsell to cams, dating, sex toys, and tangible products.
I am not sure this sounds like a promising future. However you do see companies putting thir tv shows etc. on the web for free and supposedly the subscription based newspaper sites are also following suit. This being said, I forgot to include using advertisers as a potential "upsell". As of now you do see lots of these "tube" sites with this attempt at an income stream as well.
As a sponsor I don't know how I would feel about my content being shown; with the real purpose of it being shown; being to sell other things. Not to say this has not been going on to an extent for years. For example when you would see a gallery made by a site owner for example that would have a gallery linking to a site, but also lets say dating ads at the top of the page. But now adays it is try to sell anything and everything with and or, "but" the site as well.
Some major sponsors have already caught on to this and have just created dating or cams sites of their own. This way even if their content is going around for free they can be still getting members to their other "upsell" sites. IE their content could be on a page with no links to the appropriate website lets say the full video; but right at the top is a link to their dating site. So although they may be losing the porn membership sale at least they will still have the potential for the dating one.
Anyways just rambling and not going back and making sure that everything is typed perfect or correct. So flame away at my poor use of grammar
