Although the industry has always been subject to up and down trends, having been in the game a long time, I tend to agree that there's an overall decline in the profitability. At least from our perspective.
There's no one single reason for it, I think there are many factors involved. One of the main reasons I blame is the large amount of free content available out there. And we're all guilty of it, one way or another. Another reason is that although there are more and more people gaining access to the web, more people are also purchasing their own camera gear for producing cheap content - the digital revolution has made it very affordable to spend a few hundred bucks and attempt to become an online entrepreneur.
Another reason is the shady business owners who rip off customers, one way or the other - causing consumers to become more wary of how they use their plastic online. Add to that hardly a week goes by that we don't hear a data security breach somewhere along the line.
Then there's the poor currency exchange rate with the U.S. dollar (for those of us producers outside the U.S.). Here in Canada we've lost over $0.40 cents on the dollar in the past two years - and that amounts to a helluva chunk of change to absorb.
And of course there's the constant legal pressure from the feds and moral minority against us all. Transaction processing becomes more and more costly and difficult to maintain with each passing day.
And last but not least, there's also an incestuous production factor at work. So much of the stuff starts to all look like the same shit after a while. There's very little innovation or groundbreaking work being done (for the most part - not all). A lot of websites start to look the same, routine and formulated clones of each other. I can't help but think a lot of surfers start to develop a desensitivity to it all - 'seen one...you've seen them all' mentality.
Just a few thoughts...for what they're worth.
