Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Markham
You could start with a constructive argument. Not just say it isn't true.
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Ok how is this. Porn is not dead, it's never going to die while people like consuming it.
Consumers have had porn in many different forms for millennia, you were a part of that for a fleeting instant that is now pretty much over. There was porn before Paul Markham was born, there will be porn after he dies.
The Internet became a platform on which porn could spread more easily than any platform before it. Like everything, the Internet went through a wild west stage before big money and governments got involved in it.
In the wild west days which I will roughly cite as between 1993 and 2007 a lot of people, myself included, made stupendous amounts of money from their various ventures. It was relatively easy to set up a pretty lousy site and earn money from it.
Post 2007 as consumer expectations changed and smarter money became involved, consolidation within the industry occurred (the Mansef Interhub period) and some smart and somewhat lucky people worked out how to get big money invested in porn through the Colbeck Capital deals. So the Brazzers guys, the Pornhub guys, the YouPorn guys, and so on all ceded to Fabian when he bought it all up. A lot of change occurred during this period. Huge amounts of money changed hands. Fabian came and then he left.
Fast forward even further to the post Fabian, Mindgeek, consolidation continues.
However despite consolidation, the advent of a mountain of 'free porn' that no single person could consume even 1% of, the existence of copyright infringing porn on torrents etc which is rampant, there are still some businesses (independent of Mindgeek) making money shooting and selling porn. There are insanely successful businesses who do business with Mindgeek that are not owned nor are likely to be owned by Mindgeek. There are successful groups and businesses making and selling porn, doing deals and so forth that may never even be involved with Mindgeek.
The people who were making easy money as content producers like yourself, or webmasters like so many now gone from the industry forums, dropped away as they could not any longer make the easy money without the investment of time, purpose, money, technology or business acumen to do something differently.
MindGeek is the first incarnation of really big money, all controlling corporate porn machines. Like all empires things will change over time, they may not remain dominant forever however I think for the foreseeable future they will remain in top spot.
Porn is not just about sex pictures and video anymore, it's about money, it's about consumer reach, it's about data, it's about power. It's changed so much since Paul Markham was making content that it unrecognisable to him. Because Paul doesn't understand it he says porn is dead, but porn will never die, it will simply continue to evolve beyond the understanding of some people.
In the Paul Markham world it's about supply chain production and sales. But in the corporate porn world the dynamics are much more complex and it's just way too easy for people who don't have a grip on those dynamics to throw their hands up in the air, look at the sky and curse tubes and free porn.