And that's the point. As you say the problem was clear years ago and no one bothered to fix it. In fact they escalated the problem as fast as they could. And now they're paying the price.
Yes I scoffed at starting a web studio. Because I had first hand information of how well they were doing, the amount of work required and the commitment put in by the people who ran web cam studios. The studios were the "content providers" and like other parts of online porn were treated pretty badly. In Brno alone most have closed, the biggest in Prague was doing very badly last I heard. Not even sure if it's still there.
The studios were paid a fraction of what the customer spent, girls were earning very little. SNZY has done well, because he had the money and experience to get it right and I believe his studio is for his sites. Glad you picked up that this was his real reason for seeing me. And probably why I wasn't interested.
I'm not stuck in my bubble. Our content stores sell to other sites, we know custom shooters who shoot for other sites, we know models who work in the industry and agents. I also read the boards, the message as you say has been we give away too much free porn, it was ignored because there was still growth. My point is that growth might of been tan time as much without free porn distracting the potential customers.
Now the ultimate in free porn is Tube sites operating within the law and piracy. Not much we can do about piracy, but Tubes exist because of the massive cost of getting traffic, in my belief a cost that's far to high. That cost has also effected the sites ability to put out a better product.
Here's an estimate. Different people spend different amounts.
50% goes on promotion of the site, traffic. 10% goes on processing. 5% goes on hosting, which is far lower today than it used to be. 10% on offices, admin, programs, design, and everything else. 10% profit.
That leaves 15% of a join for the content of the members area. $4.50 per join. 1,000 members = $4,5000 for content per 1,000 members. That's not the price of one decent BG scene. Maybe 2 GG and 3-4 solo girl scenes. I used the word decent and judged it by what a decent shooter could earn shooting this content in other areas of the business. That cost the industry a lot of money, conversions were hurt and retention was hurt.
Look at it from a different POV. In general web cam girls don't earn well. So you end up with the worse girls giving out a barely good enough performance. That effects your income by less guys falling in love or getting infatuated with a girl. I've had 100s of them on castings and they rarely make it past that level, just not good enough. Yes there are a few who make great money, I'm talking in general.
How many sites can afford to put a model under contract for exclusivity? Like Wicked and others do? How many sites
could afford to move up to the top level of producing content? And how many of those who could
would.
The cost of traffic was far far too high. It put sponsors in a straight jacket, which led to saturation of sites, sponsors, affiliates and free porn. You think you benefited. Did you? Would you of been better off with a smaller % of commission and a larger turn over?
Less affiliates because the lazy and weak couldn't compete with you, more income because of the higher turn over?
The problem was once you go down the free content route to generate customers to get sign ups to fairly low level sites. The flood gates open. Because it's a lot easier than it should be. The end game is so much spent on traffic people can easily afford to run free porn sites giving away 5-6 minute clips or even full length movies. That's effected everyones income.
This tells you a lot.
Affiliates didn't control traffic in the early days. We built them to a level where they did. All traffic generation could of been done in house by sponsors. Who says TGP sites have to be run by a guy who isn't employed by the sponsors?
Affiliates were only possible because of the "50%" spent on them. Cut that to 10% and the strong survive or the whole culture disappears and the need of porn by men remains. Only way to satisfy that need is by
paying to satisfy it.
To figure out how it's done without affiliates needs a little creative thinking.
It's not hard.