As millions of people worldwide turn to their credit cards to help pay for essentials, suddenly paying a $29.90 per month for porn suddenly seems like an outright extravagance, as opposed to a mere occasional treat.
I believe we will witness a shift away drom the $29.90/month business model to more of a "pay as you go" one.
For despite all that free porn out there, surfers are still prepared to pay for the convienience of not having to search for
exactly what they are looking elsewhere.
So, intead of charging surfers per month, more and more webmasters will start charging surfers per MINUTE to access their member's area. Credit card billing is not suitable for this kind of micro-billing anyway, whereas phone billing is ideal.
The downside is that the phone companies, who effectively collect the money from their subscribers on your behalf, keep a relatively high % and it's not recurring.
The upside, however, is that the world literally is your oyster since the phone is so ubiquitous - hell, the cellphone penetration levels in some developing countries is beginning to rival those in the developed ones!
As for chargebacks, these are neglible in most countries since people tend to pay their phone bills in full - failure to do so results in losing an essential utility which just so happens to double as the internet's backbone.
However, as with mobile, the USA is slightly different - 1-900 only works with one network, MCI, and Americans are not legally obliged to pay that element of their phone bill.
Unfortunately Joe Plummer & Co are maxed out, and the credit card crunch has truly begun so if you have compelling content, you should consider adapting your business model accordinging in these recessionary times.
Good news is that the world is a big place, the internet is global and growing, and thankfully a pics and vids we peddle really do say more than a thousand words.
