how the adult industry killed itself

for many years, i had access to most members areas of med-large sponsors. the first thought that went through my mind when loggin on almost everytime was "holy shit.. thats it!?!?" - if it wasn't the lack of content - it was the same crappy plugins or photosets that are plastered all over the tgps that brought the surfer there to begin with.

i'm not saying "free porn" or anything isn't "a" factor. i'm saying that generally speaking, this is an industry that has always been extremely clueless about the fact that they are selling a product to a customer.... and that has paid far less attention to what the customer actually wants/is looking for and what the appropriate value is of whats being offered than they have in fucking people over and just doing anything and everything to make the sale.

this industry hasn't accepted its own responsibilities for its own failures and when people start saying "its all over because..." and "this time its different because..." its bullshit. its always been "ending" there's always been "too much free porn" and there has always been a reason why "this time its different"... yet the industry on the whole is a joke that has always treated the customer with contempt and who has always chanted idiotic things like "surfers are stupid" as they tried to bang their cards for 3-4-5 transactions and hoped they would forget to cancel memberships.

the people complaining are never the Twistys... the Bang Bros... the Brazzers or the Nasty Dollars or anyone that is providing tremendous value and high quality content and frequent, exclusive scenes to customers. its always the low level people who were either one hit wonders to begin with or have never seen any real degree of success who have spent all their time online following the path of least resistance rather than building a solid business built on solid relationships with surfers and building a trusted brand.

In the most simplest of terms... 99% of all U.S. Industries are down, including Internet/Broadband connections. Even before the recession and WAY before Tubes, we can mark "exact" downturns in our Business, the largest being 2257 <-- that's actually the final nail in the coffin.

For you - to get more sales, we need more global online exposure (ie: more webmasters) doing more promotions, more pages, producing more interest, more searches, and more buyers. So the more people remove piracy, the less traffic our Industry has.

So if you removed free porn, you have no interest, NO TRAFFIC, you would have a VERY tiny bubble of buyers.. 1000's of times smaller than we have now. You "assume" people get online to find us - that's the problem... they don't, they go online to check facebook, look at su, play games, and maybe grab some new music... If your porn/traffic filters are in these areas - You win! If not, your fucked... <-- todays #1 problem

But anyway.. At the simplest of levels, you built something 8 years ago that made 5 times more. Why would you think it would remain the same? No search term, even the best term that can't ever have privacy, has went down -> with time.

This is basic 101 business, nothing will remain the same and only a very small % will really grow. If you built something 8 years ago for 1 keyword, today it had better be 10000x larger, cover 10000's of keywords, pages, etc. Google knows the value of long tail, so if you focus on one word or small group, you fail..


Be back later... kids/school, blah.....

I've been in porn longer than most in more side than most. And this I know for a fact, there are very few "cutting edge" thinkers in the whole business. It's always about copying what the other guys do. Mags, vids, cable, Net, everyone copies the guy before them.

Thanks mate. My survival is testament to my abilities. Never made a fortune but never went broke either. Which is not the same as some of the "guru cutting edge" thinking bros we have telling us what is right. They were telling people what the people wanted to hear. I don't.

The problem is there are now 20 times more people doing exactly the same for the resons above. No thinking out of the box and everyone copying.

Sure, nothing remains the same, but there are very few industries facing a similar lose-lose situation.

The mixture of growing competition and a customer base that gets smaller daily isn't healthy, it's not a question of adapting, even if you adapt the cake gets smaller and the number of people fighting for their slice grows.

Just look at the way most people ran their businesses and the post after yours to see the problem.

Give everything to the affiliates. Many sites simply give the members area to the affiliates to spread around free sites.

Spend as much as possible on the outside of a site and the least on the inside of the site. The most expensive part of a paysite is the part that members don't buy.

Some people are starting to think like me Kmamrox.

If you were right the industry would not be in the situation it is today. Or are you saying that after all the marketing, affiliates, free porn and everything else we did for the last 8 years we got it wrong or we did not do enough?

The last thing this industry needs is to spend more money on sending more people around more sites that are simply not good enough where it counts.

The problem is Kmanrox is after 8 years of a proven failed method some still think inside the same box. All they say is we spend more on what is proven to have limited returns. What this industry needs today is more sites that leave the members thinking they should join another one. Because the MEMBERS AREA meets their needs.

Man, it's sad how many people blame the declining sales on Tubes and other shit, but in reality it's just a mixture of a bad economy, shitty members areas, and crappy sales tactics.

I agree with you, it is definitely a mixture of everything: bad economy - reduction of credit lines (credit cards) - big brother fears - cross sales - low quality member areas - and waaaaay tooo much free porn in the form of torrents and TUBE SITES!

Bravo.

NO, this is a line of silly bullshit.

Simply put surfers would continue to pay for a product REGARDLESS of what few scams and shams are out there unless it is available for free. They would stick with what sites would take care of them. It is now free, any fetish. Instant gratification at zero cost.


Even a fool can see how that would affect sales.

Only a fool would think the average Joe will let his house be forclosed, and his car repoed, just so he can signup for that oh so sweet $40/mo porn site!

You're talking out of your ass... Anybody who is smart, will cut any extra costs just to save money so they don't go under... You really think a porn membership outranks staying alive? You have a rude awakening creeping up behind you.

2 of the least most needed things on a list of someone who's losing a lot of money due to today's current economy, porn and internet... Guess what? That's us kido!

Agreed ALL points.

I have had 4-5 dozen members over the past year or so contact me sending their apologies for having to cancel their membership because of lost job, economy, whatever.

Kinda odd they take the time to send me an apology for having to cancel I must admit, but the e-mails are basically mixed with an apology, and explanation of their circumstance, plus praise for keep up the good work or alike with promise to return.

Keep in mind that I have a better webmaster to customer relationship that most others I have read on this board. Just as people call me on the 800 number for DVD's or give me feedback, ideas, suggestions. They tend to feel they are talking to a foot brother, not just some faceless monolith.

That said, it's just like the real world to me. If someone is really happy, or really pissed, they will write their congressman, or the store/business/location where they had the experience. Internet is the same thing. If a member takes time to write you. You need to listen. Good and bad. Recommendation on content or not.

What is our lose-lose situation?

We don't have a growing competition base, that's what the problem is. We have far less Webmasters, 10,000's active Webmasters are gone. We NEED them to ALL grow - It creates more Global Internet traffic for all of us. The amount of Programs isn't a factor if we don't have the Webmasters to over expose them.

With what I stated above though, the Adult Bubble getting smaller doesn't mean your sales or traffic base will get smaller. Tubes 'bottle up' and don't share the traffic like tgp's did. Not that they have to share - most sites on the Internet don't. That's what adapt is.. Stop working inside a dieing bubble, and start thinking Global.

We have millions, tens of millions of Buyers online that WILL buy damn near anything. But they WILL NOT buy from you if your ads aren't in front them.

But even within our own bubble, millions can be made. It doesn't make a difference if you can't get more sales/traffic - because others for sure are.

Not every company is dropping, many many many are growing, reaching record numbers like never before. Why?





Get it wrong? People made HUNDREDS of Millions of dollars... They got it very right. We have new money makers today, the old aren't making money, and every mixture between.

It changes.. EVERY business does, every business has, every business will.

But lets take a very tiny sample factor: Google - Bitch Slapped the ENTIRE porn Industry several years back, and has done it several times over afterwards. MILLIONS of pages removed, a massive amount of kick ass sites dumped.. and most importantly - paysites dropped off the map for 100's of reasons....

What counts? Member areas don't count... A few things are FAR more important 'member' wise than what the member areas is like. Like being able to login and get an answer right then if they can't..... that's where 99% of the Industry fails member wise.

Anyone doing any volume, has a decent enough members area to keep cb's/refunds down. Then once it's niched - your opionion of decent goes out the door.

SURFERS - Can't see Member areas... Almost ALL TOURS under value the member areas.
FACT: What surfers SEE on the tour, is what they expect in the member areas. If you have 20 scenes and no updates, your conversions prob suck - but your new Members will not expect anything more than what they saw.


I have member areas with the same content for 10 years, no update in 4 years.. The members are still active, they don't ask for shit, they rebill and when they need help, they ask. I get like 2-3 sales a day, and I haven't had a complaint about the super niched content in so long, I can't remember ever actually getting a complaint about the content or lack of updates. And my rebill rate is over 50%....

If your mind is on Content/Member Areas, Improving that or even improving your tours - It's in the wrong area of attention.

You think people are jacking off less during these "hard" times? Million upon millions of surfers are turning to tubes as their place to get off. It's easy and FREE. Even the most hardened of porn surfer can get off to complete clips in their fetish. No need to wait and download the content.

Vices and entertainment sell BEST during hard times. Unless they are made available for free, which is what happened. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next 12-18 months as many producers slow down new production or go out of business altogether. Fire sales on GFY will be even more common.


IMO there is nothing wrong with a tube site that uses their own content, purchased or produced to build traffic and gain "viewers". Full length clips, have at it. As an owner/producer you can use your own content however you wish. The illegal tube sites that upload stolen clips to their sites and allow it are the problem.

Those are the members that you don't want to lose... It sucks... I personally would write that user back and be like "Hey, appreciate the feedback and hate to see you go, here's a free month", because you know damn well they will be even more great full and will most likely come back to you when they have more money, vs some other assholish site that bangs their card 20 times.

Is it dead?

You should kill yourself daddydouchefuck

A thread complaining about tubes? On GFY?

I never thought I'd see something like this.

other than we have always had this and sales went up up up up up up up up up up up for years, and more more more piracy, piracy methods, illegal sites, free porn grew by godly amounts, and sales went... up up up up up up up up up.... Ass Free Porn Sites, Webmasters, Access Grew.... Sales went up...

And then, before tubes came out...BEFORE.... Our Industry started to slip. We actually LOST Webmasters, MILLIONS in free porn was removed... and our Industry started to drop.... like flies.

Anyone that has a business history for the last 8 years can layout and plot the "exact" down turns, and it happened well before Tubes, and just after 2257 was announced.


A tube that posts LEGAL full-length movies isn't a problem, but a tube that posts full-length piracy is? Huh? It's the same damn thing.. And again, Tubes Do Produce Sales To Paysites.

You guys act as if Tubes/Piracy ends all sales, once a surfer has that, they never buy again. That is total, easy to prove, bullshit.

Hard times means less money to spend. Even Cable Companies are noticing a decline and the drop rate of broadband users isn't being covered by the new users (u.s. based) Now most people have access to the Internet at work, or can afford dialup at home - Thus the INTERNET is dropped - and at that point so are we.

Just because a person needs porn to whack it off to, doesn't mean they need the Internet to get that porn.

AND IF, they did use free porn/piracy - member downloads and saved them to the PC. They will use that. And when they get money, all those people that had stamps/branding on that content - have first dibs at getting that member back.

I respect TheDoc and his opinions, however, I am completely missing the logic behind this reasoning.

How exactly "MILLIONS in free porn was removed" ?
The free porn sites, mostly TGP/MGP's were growing, and google searches for all porn terms produced millions of results at any given time.

I am really not sure how and when free porn was removed from the web, I would say the amount of free porn has been only increasing over time.

People I know are cutting off cable/internet. To Americans it isn't a necessity.

The adult industry killed itself?

Come on... the fact that your business is going down does not mean the entire industry is going down.

Stop blaming tubes and first look at what fails on your side. After you have fixed what fails on your side, then you can blame others.
If you cannot compete with tubes in one way or another, then you are out of the market and deserve to die.

Do your paysites or sponsors have more content than the average tube? and more than the big tubes? more than the average MGP ? and more than the big MGPs? If the ansfer is "no", then the failure is your's only.

If you try to tell me that it's impossible to have more content than a tube... then probably your paysite or sponsor sucks. Don't try to make $100 sales with a members area that has costed you less than $2k, it just doesn't work anymore.

Thanks

Here ya go... If you are a domain buyer, you look for domains to park, or whatever... TODAY, we have soooooooooooooo many domains open, like fucking millions must have dropped.. Some AMAZING domains.. Well, ass these domains drop, that's free content that was online, that was in searches, that was in google images, in trades, had galleries, a paysite - whatever it was - it's now 100% gone...

Today the effect is SO huge because it has been happening for SO long.. Just that as the eco gets worse, as companies fall, as more webmasters leave - more and more open and more and more free porn is removed.

1) Free Porn
2) Cross sales
3) Adware, spyware, viruses
6) Site's security being compromised
7) Member's areas not delivering what the tours promise
8) Spam
9) Etc.

I blame canada!

Attention whingers:

Capitalism is MEANT to work like this. With competition, comes better/cheaper consumer products, a balance is found eventually with what is affordable, and profitable and ideal for the consumer.

The people who keep complaining, do you complain about skype? Do you complain about cheap/great phones, do you complain about ever increasing data plans? What some of you want is the equivalent to your phone companies sitting around whinging that it isnt 1990 anymore and that they should all agree on fixed prices and not update their infrastructure. Would that make you happy?

Things change, times change, and yes the internet changes even faster then the real world. Really, deal with it, or get a real job. TGP's aren't making a comeback.

The above is a great example of where we go wrong as an industry. Clearly most have been in decline for a few years, the Tubes then recession made it worse. But no it's all going to the elite few who are doing everything right. Want to point them out to us please?

Crazy how some cling to a sinking boat instead of letting go and swimming to another one. Doc porn buyers are repeat buyers, on the same site or another one. Disappoint them and the industry loses them.

That effects affiliates, sponsors, billers and everyone else.

But no after 8 years of going this route you think the right way is to do more!!!

Good post, and why we need to change not carry on the same route. How have we changed in the last 8 years? We got HD.

I would rather blame Zurich.

I've had it up to here with the Swiss.

fact is people are lazy and dont want to change their ways. they are used to making money by submitting galleries and putting in an hour of work a day... if that. now that they have to actually do work, its easier to blame someone or something else for your downfall rather than come up with new business tactics.

a lot of people here run a 1 man show with their website and dont have a team of people advising them new business trends. a few months/year ago everyone was blaming cross sales for killing the industry and once those went away people are still not getting sales, now its time to move onto another victim.

the truth is if you give the surfer what they want, they will pay for it and not every damn surfer loves tube sites. keep in mind that people LOVE to have a physical good when they pay for something, and in the case of porn, they love to brag about how many gigs of tranny porn they have on their computer.

i dont think its the free porn on the tubes that are stealing your sales, i think its the business model the tubes supply that is stealing sales; rather why am i going to go to our lame blog with 5 images when i can go to a tube site with 1000s of videos then decide which membership site i want to join

Thats right, get out....leave more business to the people that know what they are doing

Of course - GIVE the surfer what they want and they will PAY for it - and people brag about their porn collections.

Got it! Great advice!

Good post.

I can see some big sites deciding to make a Tube option, Dating and Web Cam upsells, with a throttled limit to what the surfer can DL in one visit. Then sell them the members area at a price to suit him. Day to a years access at a price he can't refuse.

Then buy the traffic, because it's cheaper, with the money from the dating and cam adverts.

The key to it is whether the content on the outside is good enough and plentiful enough to make a reluctant buy spend money.

Your post is way confusing...

How is what I said any type of example of what is going wrong in the Industry?

I'm not sure what elite few you are talking about that I said.

Examples of companies kicking ass are TopBucks and DukeDollars. I know TB is doing some amazing new things, and has expanded greatly and created solid foot holds in many areas of the Porn Industry, online and offline. Duke, posted here on GFY record numbers already twice this year, and I can back those facts, record sales, rebills, and income. And so have others, but I can't confirm it with them.

I'm not sure what porn buyers being repeat buyers has to do with anything. The "minor" few that have done some type of fraud to members, is easily dwarfed by those of us that haven't. TB for example, ND doesn't seem to CC fraud... What % across the board are they?

And repeat buyers, at one point 100% all of them were first time buyers, thus not all porn buyers are repeat. And rebills, do not count as a re-buy, that's a rebill. They have totally different names for a reason. At that, a real repeat buy would be when a person cancels and buys the same site again. Not when they go into the same Industry and buy again.


Who has been doing this for 8 years? My route that has worked for me? Or the Customer Support route I suggested, that MOST companies do not follow - Most do do this, and haven't from day 1.

Or maybe it was not improving the member areas? Most member areas are perfectly fine, you assume they aren't for some reason. And fraud wise, we are talking less than 2-3% of total NEW transactions is fraud... That's piss ass low.

Hell, if you want to ADD a factor, how about the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of credit cards around the world for years and years that Visa and MC close (killing all rebills), due to fraud that wasn't from our Industry?

EVERYTHING is worse overall than it was just a few years ago, with a few exceptions.

I've not heard the fat lady singing over the adult industry. It's far from dead. Tube sites are not necessarily the biggest problem the industry faces.

One huge problem that no one ever talks about is that porn is slowly going mainstream. Why screw around with "porn sites" when you can buy your movies at Amazon?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_d?...eywords=tranny

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_d?...words=ass+fuck

Here's a User List of anal sex and ass movies:

http://www.amazon.com/juiciest-anal-...ch_f_2_rsrsrs0

IMHO, mainstream companies selling porn is a bigger threat than any tube site will ever be.

The main difference between Adult Corporations and Mainstream Corporations.

Mainstream corporations need to follow a rule of ethics and be a part of associations..

In adult people are soo desperate to make a buck that shit doesn't exist..

IMHO:

Illegal tubes make traffic and sales stealing producers, it not only badly affects producers but all people promoting their production (affiliate programs and affiliates). Illegal tubes aren't neutral but are direct "outlaw" competitors to MGP's, Blogs,.... Many would consider them as unfair and unethical competitors for some good reasons.

On the other hand I see "legal" tubes posting 2-5min clips advertising properly the producer or affiliate program making sales that benefit all parties. These legal tubes represent a "new" form of advertising for affiliate programs and producers.

I say Illegal tubes=NO , Legal Tubes=YES

I also believe that illegal tubes will prosper as long as they are allowed to and are profitable in some ways. They use the DMCA loophole probably making a "decent" amount of money and getting quite a few competitors out of business. When this business model will be "banned", they will convert to a legit model with a large traffic and a dominant position. No reason for illegal to stop until legal actions require it.

Will any such actions take place anytime soon? Not sure. This would require some big boys to start the fight. This fight ain't easy and many won't start until their profits are significantly hit by the problem. Other big boys run their own illegal tubes, so...

As some would say, there isn't anything really new here. There are always been some people or business model pushing the limits (including the legal limits) to step over the competition and make the money. That's most probably true in any business and competition. You can blame it as a person with good ethics however I am not sure how it will help you business wise? It may help your karma though. What about OUTLAW BUSINESS vs KARMA? Make your choice!

What can you do? Mmmhhh.... Build an illegal tube, build an extra-value legal tube, optimize your current business, create a new business model, diversify your incomes,... Adapt or die?

FUCKING RIGHTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Now you must be a mother fucking stupid asshole to not agree with that.

All of those saying die or adapt are a bunch of crazy fucks ! I'm telling ya !

adapt or die

I didnt know it was dead

Wow TheDoc
I got respect for you from other posts but
You can't really believe this

If you do - i gotta say - and only in my opinion

you do not know the customer base that is porn freaks/fans
and you do not know what 'no free porn' could bring in terms of (old school) revenue


If you took out all free porn ALL the people that searched for it before (searched for porn - NOT free porn) - would still search for it. getting rid of the freeloaders only hurts traffic sellers - keeping motivated buyers looking for it is riches for all

Thats a fact

but just my opinion...

really

It's amazing how some people think that if you have no free porn then they will stop looking at porn... porn is like a drug... it addictive, they are going to get it one way or another, even it means paying for it, it's amazing how it worked years ago when the abundance of free porn wasn't like it is today! Right now it's being handed to them on a silver platter!

I can give you the simplest of answers to explain this, way better...


People come on the Internet for "entertainment." If it be porn, movies, music, games, social sites, email, it's ALL entertainment.

Today - You are fighting for entertainment value. The porn fan, is an EXTREME minority, for sure not enough to hold this Industry. Search Engines have never been strong enough to hold our entire Industry. Then without Free Porn we wouldn't have had the HUGE Webmaster Rush that we did, sparking the largest boom of Internet sales EVER..

All the Search Engines combined over history can't compete with the scale of Webmaster traffic. We would look like the old magazine business... the competition would be locked up solid and no room for anyone else.

Free Porn = Entertainment = Traffic = Sales - We have to keep Porn on peoples mind, or they will forget about us.

If we only had paid porn online, you wouldn't be here talking on GFY.

So why was it years ago when free porn wasn't so available you still had surfers looking for porn? Porn is like a drug... they are going to get even if they have to pay for it!!!

The environment has changed so you have to change with it. I have one foot still planted in adult, since adult is what I know best and enjoy the most, but my other foot is in non-adult ventures (or crossover ventures) since adult is becoming more precarious each day.

Free Porn has ALWAYS been available, even before the Internet. But we can't really count before, so moving forward to the Internet... It has ALWAYS had free porn.

I got on in 96, and PK had listings to 'free sites' that had free porn on them.

But today, we actually have less free porn. The Porn boom is gone (it could return), the Webmasters are gone, the global porn traffic bubble is much smaller, the searches for primary words is much lower.

I'm really confused as to why people think free porn has grown..

I got in 99 and I found you could find free porn but it was very selective on what was free where as today you can find pics, movies ect of almost any niche, I remember looking for nude celebs back in 99 and the most I could find was clothed pics, today I can type urls here for an hour and not even cover all the free sites that have every celeb naked and free! Now if you have a celeb get naked you show the pics/movies of that celeb and then you try to sell them a membership telling them to join here to see them same pictures and movies again! LOL

One positive about the changes in the industry is that in the near future the only adult paysites that exist will be ones that are all super high quality. A lot less clutter.