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charly: you obviously understand the differences between porn in print and porn online, but I wonder if you have thought about all those differences and their implications. Here's some context:
freehostedgalleries.com lists 2,600 sites offering hosted galleries. Let's take a guess based on that figure and say there are around 5,000 paysites in total. If anything there are more.
In almost 8 years I have found just 20-odd sites which rebill well enough to suggest that they are using content as a way to retain members. For sure there are others I haven't found and sites that rebill well but do not offer a revshare program. But it's hard to escape the conclusion that around 95% of paysites use content primarily as filler, relying on designs and sales pitches to make sales; and on consoles, cross-sells and up-sells (rather than rebills) for the rest of their income.
I'm not going to try to defend the specific numbers, but my gut feeling is that the final percentage is close. Double it to 10% if you want and it's still bad news. With such a small number of sites (of all sizes) placing any real value on content, not more than a handful of content producers have any reason to hope that prices might rise towards what they enjoy when shooting for print media.
Although I see some changes as the market matures and factors such as pressure from Visa, there is a built-in resistance to such change. 5 years ago my expenses were less than 10% of my income, now they are approaching 20% despite all the reductions in bandwidth, content and design costs. Even so, profit margins are still obscene by most standards, but it's what we are used to and we are naturally reluctant to let go.
Another consideration is that many times as much content is sold to promote paysites as is sold to the paysites themselves. It is usually difficult to buy content to suit the site you are promoting. So other factors apart, it's easier, more effective and cheaper to use a sales pitch to do the work and hit the bargain bins for your content.
I believe that content producers have even less reason to be optimistic about looking to these customers for any increase in prices. Most would cut back on how much content they use. Many would join the ranks of those who sell without using content at all, rather than pay more.
If this is even close to an accurate picture of the present and the mid-term, it means that the majority of successful content producers for online porn will be selling on price: slick operations, efficient and effective from the studio through to the sales and licensing process. Contrary to some of the views expressed here, I believe licenses will become broader and more simple, as producers recognize they are handling an essentially throwaway item with a 3-6 month shelf life. If protection doesn't increase the bottom line, it's a waste of time and money.
Those who want to command higher prices, if they are not already established names from the offline world, are either going to have to fight over a relatively small number of customers or they are going to have to invest in themselves and educate webmasters away from their current attitudes. Offer to do mag-quality shoots on a profit-share basis, sell them at regular prices to start-up sites for 3 months... whatever. If you want to wean webmasters away from what they know works to what you say should work, you have to overcome their scepticism. The most convincing way a seller can do that is by putting his own money where his mouth is.
One last thing. I get p*ssed when someone shows me perfectly edited samples but sells me material that needs hours of work. The print media world understands that post-production work is an in-house job, but if online porn producers are going to show the finished product to their potential customers, IMO that's what they should sell. It's also self-protection because every time a webmaster publishes raw content (and experience shows that's what most will do), that content will under-perform: the last thing producers hoping for higher fees should want.
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