Is the entry level into online porn too low?

I got into porn long before online porn came along, so no flames about me please. It shows you voted No. As it let you in. LOL

The entry level is too low yes however the chance to succeed these days is also low.

We were all n00bs at one point, and even 10 years ago it was enough to make a few tgps...
No one here popped out of thier moms vag, landed on a keyboard and started making tubes.

Agreed. Today it's very hard to succeed. It wasn't very easy in the early days.

I met loads of people at shows with good ideas, but small budgets who were gone a year after.

Still some sites can run and make money with the boss working part time, or retired.

Truthfully I should be long gone, but still hang on because hosting is too cheap and we still get business. Try doing that in other industries. A few yes, but in general?

It is.

But do take into consideration that the Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support email.
Most traditional communications media including telephone, music, film, and television are reshaped or redefined by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). Newspaper, book and other print publishing are adapting to Web site technology, or are reshaped into blogging and web feeds. The Internet has enabled or accelerated new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Online shopping has boomed both for major retail outlets and small artisans and traders. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries.
The origins of the Internet reach back to research of the 1960s, commissioned by the United States government in collaboration with private commercial interests to build robust, fault-tolerant, and distributed computer networks. The funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial backbones, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks. The commercialization of what was by the 1990s an international network resulted in its popularization and incorporation into virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of 2011, more than 2.2 billion people — nearly a third of Earth's population — use the services of the Internet.
The Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own standards. Only the overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address space and the Domain Name System, are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols (IPv4 and IPv6) is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise.

Okay went on a bit of a rant there but you get my point.

Back in the early 90s when I first tried getting into adult (offline), it was hard and expensive. Very difficult to open doors. Then came the web and quality digital photo cameras. It was still difficult for those of us without the tech skills, but we learned, and it was still somewhat expensive. Bandwidth back in the day was a killer. Quality cameras were expensive. The learning curve was huge.

These days, any jackass who knows how to steal a video and upload it somewhere can make a living. As for producing porn, any jack ass with an iphone is now a porn producer. For as awesome as that is, it's a doubled edged sword.

That said, the herd is thinning. People are dropping out. Those who are serious and have a good foothold seem to be making it, even if profits are down. Of course profits (and praise) are way up for those who steal from others, but we won't go into that. I'm curious to see who's going to be standing 5 years from now. Economies are getting worse, not better. Minus a few site shut downs, there seems no end to piracy. Free porn is everywhere already and we can't shut Pandora's box. But there will also be a shake out of smaller tubes and other pirate sites as they can not make a profit. So even the glut of free porn will dwindle over time, but it won't go away.

For as gloomy as it may look today, and even with no real light at the end of the piracy tunnel, I am cautiously optimistic for the future of the business for those of us who can adapt and keep moving forward.

I actually think it was harder years back, pre-web, than it is today. As you are well aware, it wasn't easy back them to get your foot in the door with the large companies.

And what a pain in the ass it was shooting in film.

VHS...

The cost was also high. Can't get in if you can't afford it.

Too late, the jackasses got in years ago.

Thinning because they need to go elsewhere to earn their living. Which is surprising when they spent so long telling us how successful they were.

Porn will never die, some might be left. Just a few though. It needs the demise of those who fund free porn to die. Those who fund piracy, will move to funding free tubes and the surfers will follow.

It's not the level of entry that's the problem. It wasn't much more 10 years ago. 15 years ago a little but still very cheap. Most people that don't come in and treat It like a real work/biz fail anyway. Sure you can argue that they are screwing It cause they make more sites available but what does that matter if practically no one sees the sites?

who cares?

A higher entry level would be good for board biz though and less fucking surfmasters on GFY.

YES!! It should only be allowed to people just like you or better. Not big companies, or famous people, or any other arbitrary bars that would exclude you, because that would be just plain wrong. Lets just fix it at you and above, yes, that sounds correct. And certainly lets not allow what the customer wants; let's ignore 400 years of economic theory and market forces.

Seriously, false barriers to entry never last.

problem solved.

Why fear competition.

The point of competition is the stong survive and the rubbish go.

One danger though is that I couild set up a site with 1 million vids andcharge $10, and you can set up a site with 10 vids and charge $15. But both sites look the same.

If customer joins site b he feels let down and probably thinks site a is as bad.

thats the big problem.

in the real world is shop a lets you down but shop b is great people will post on forums and blogs, but its unlikly they will about porn sites.

lets face it, most of those saying a pornsite is good on a forum, is thje forum owner or affiliate trying to get sales.

Scared you wouldn't make it?

Every site getting 2-3 sign ups a day is taking 2-3 away from the ones who are better than them. The customers are spending money on a product that isn't good enough. They get put off from buying. This leads to less sales.

Too many affiliates leads to sponsors main job being selling to affiliates and not customers. When the number one tool for driving traffic is free porn. IT HAS BECOME, the ones who give away the most free content as the winners. Except the elite who looked to the customer first.

Yes it was easier getting into online porn then than getting into offline porn. Still it was hard. You either had to buy content from people like me and we were pricey, or Zmasters, or but a camera and start shooting. Even affiliates had to buy content. Then someone had the great idea of giving them content.

Which everyone copied.

Then it became clear everyone was submitting the same content to the TGP sites. And to keep affiliates happy they had to shoot exclusive, which they couldn't afford to spend the right money for. So they were buying in lots of cheap sets shot by people who had just bought a digital camera and prepared to work for peanuts. But it kept affiliates happy.

Now people tell us Niche is the future. Because mainstream is saturated.

No surprise the poll is evening up. With people who couldn't climb over the bar. LOL

Your first problem is defining 'better'.

for instance just becase its home made does not make it a poor product.

i like home made of real people. i prefer this to sleek pro produced films often of the same model that you see over and over.

just becase you produce somthing of high quality does not mean that the customer wants that.

a site shot on a cheap camera phone could be more popular than say met-art, if thats what the customer wants. no poinr crying if your product does not sell.

so in that sence its not a loss of sales to your site.

its like sugesting that if ford did not exsist then bmw would get more sales. those sales may simply go to honda.

also people have always been abel to do porn.

even when the first camera was invented, people took pics and sold them.

as soon as vid cameras came out people were shooting there own films and selling them. and that was before r18 were legal in the uk.

years ago i used to shoot for a bloke who sold the vids from his flat. they were shot on hi8 but though poor quality, popular as they werre home made rubbish. and i do mean rubbish.

he also sold pirated vhs films from his flat. before you kick off, i have to point out that at this time porn vhs were not legall so people in the uk were buying pirated porn all the time.

he got arrested but as he was in a wheelchaire and had some illness it meant full time care. and so the jugde never sent him to prison due to the cost of 24 hour care he needed.

he only kept a few tapes at his flat as if he got raided he lost nothing much.

he had 2 chaps working full time on £40k a year making copies at there flat. they simply brought the tapes as requested.

he even had a full cataloge from which people chose films.

he did trade in too.

i am not sure if he is still alive.

but the junk we shot sold better than the pro stuff.

ps

my involvement was only shooting the stuff. they sold the tapes. nothing to do with me.

It's not the little guy noob behind Manwin and the other tubes. The File lockers aren't owned by people just breaking into the industry. For the most part it is large companies who have been around for a while. These are the ones giving it all away for free and stealing the content of others.

Most of the new little guys coming in are gone within a couple months because they can't make enough money to justify their time. They don't know what they are doing and can't afford to stumble around for a year while making peanuts.

So if you want to blame someone blame those at the top. The little guys have some of the blame because collectively we never got together and put a stop to this shit. But that's on all of US not the noobs.

Also there are levels of entry.

Level 1. Full free. People take pics of there wives and post the pics on free sites, forums and so on. even upload the films to tube sites. we also see people doing free webcams.

Level 2. Paid (1). People shoot and upload to sites such as tac (network), or do webcam shows. Or upload to sies were they get paid per view. They do content only.

Level 3. Paid (2). a semi pro level. They rub a site on a network were they upload pics and clips and promote. They get a % from sales. Content only.

Level 4. Paid (3). Running there own site 100%. They shoot content but also deal with payment (say ccbill) and server.

The question is, why would somone pay say $20 to join your site?

In the UK we have tv/films on demand that charge £6 for unlimited access. So for £6 I get full million pound hollywood productions of films - Or I join your site for $20 or so to watch a few vids and pics with a production cost of $60.

Very true.

Well,... back then you did not have all of the pre-made scripts and CMS systems you have today. If you wanted shit like that, you had to build it, which means you had to bring more cash to the table.

Now, people can buy MB, or some other CMS, grab WP and a few templates and tada. They are in the porn business. It was a bit different when you did not have all of the ready made shit just laying around.

Indeed.

oh fuck off.

I'll never get you Paul Markham. You spend half your time here complaining about piracy and everyone giving away their content and stealing it with most of those people being the large powerhouses of the industry. Then you start a topic like this suggesting some unemployed guy in his basement with $100 in his pocket who decides to submit a couple galleries to the Hun (but is probably gone within three months) is one of the major problems in the industry today. Come on are you serious?

I would sy home made is a lot better than what some professionals try to con the audience with as "home made".

The camera and abilities of the cameraman to get the image in focus isn't what home made is about. Honda and Ford produce good products.

So you fail on those arguments.

anyone can start a blog. can everyone get as much traffic as techcrunch, perez hilton or boing boing?

no. look at your failed attempt at a "blog."

it's called the internet you self-centered old blockhead. anyone can enter. not everyone can thrive.

Well that's simply not true. Look above you at the poster. Look around you at some of the people who don't really show they have a clue, making a living. Online porn is saturated and a lot wouldn't get in and last if it wasn't for the low requirements.

The big guys have played to the little guys tune for too long.

If sponsors hadn't of given affiliates so much, they wouldn't have lost traffic. Would just have less little guys sending little numbers of sign ups. The level above them would have sent the sign ups. I don't blame affiliates, look around on the board at the threads. Affiliates demanding too much and sponsors offering too much.

I don't think it would of been any different, it wasn't obvious until it was too late. Now the big sponsors are looking for ways to go direct. The sad part is it kills more sales than it gets.

holy fuckkkkkkkkkkkkk

what the fuck is this idiot talking about

i`d rather be clueless and making a living instead of knowing everything and living off state`s benefits, like you.

There's tons of fast food burger joints out there but yet McDonald's can outsell every one of them. Is there product better? Hell no. They're much better at marketing. You can rephrase the same question over and over, content vs traffic, in the end, traffic will win.
WG

YES, but... What? Do you consider that a bad thing?

It can actually be a good thing.

I started with 0 bucks in this business 10 years ago, and with a 56K modem.

I am living in my own nice HOUSE thanks to this business.

Of course, what happened to adult in the last 3 years is pathetic. We destroyed our own business. Our Chicken of the gold eggs.

i fucking dont understand what are you talking about, with all respect, sorry ... you think it is easy to get into porn and make money? do you see the posters on gfy, how much is successful and registered in last few years? ten? or five? time where every dumbhead put banner is no more, and you see it, so what are you talking about, easy making money, if you make a shit? sorry paul, with all the respest, get your shit together

Are you sure?

Consumers vote with their dollars. If they are giving you money, you are good. If they're not, you suck and go work elsewhere. That has always been the case in every industry.

The entry level to join the online porn industry has always been too low... Anyone with magic join pages can join.

Well said.

Agreed. That's why we convert 1-1,000s and the business is declining. Even in the good days online the only thing that made figures look good were the new surfers coming online and the lack of choices to paying. Now they have the choice they do vote with their feet.

We fail to come up with anything new, innovative and that sells better than copying ideas from others and all doing the same.

And why so many are now going elsewhere to earn a living. Well said Epitome.

It has nothing to do with entry level and more to do with entry cost. Basically, it costs nothing to "get into" online porn for anyone who has the motivation to do so. No cost, no risk, plus you get to jerk off as you please, so it's more like a game and difficult for most people to treat it like a real business.

If "real world" businesses like car dealerships, restaurants, and electronics stores required zero investment or risk, the economy would be fucked.

You clearly don't understand business and marketing, or using a bad excuse for our marketing by pointing out Macdees are big. without looking for other reasons. Here's a few.

Perceived enjoyment of the product.
Value.
Not giving away 1,000s of free burgers to sell 1.
Availability.

Traffic will never win anything if the content doesn't convince them to buy over others. Or over free.

This is where we are today. Justifying giving the product away in tons to sell ounces, by pointing at an industry that does real marketing. Or saying people vote with their feet when it's clear they vote not to buy.

now youre a hamburger expert

good shit dickhead because you will be flippin em soon

Mcdonalds gives away TONS of free food especially the ones in malls, they're forever having trays with free chicken selects and stuff out not to mention all the free doublecheese burger coupons they send out everywhere.

I have 6 McDonalds coupons in my wallet right now. 2 chicken strips, 2 coffees, and 2 cheeseburgers. 100% free, the only catches are that you can only use 2 coupons at a time and they have an expiration date. I got them last time I went in for a double quarter lb'er with cheese... no ketchup, lettuce, or onions yo.

They were giving them out with every order. Set of 6 fucking coupons for free, awesome. Smart people and families who were going there to eat anyway could hit the drive-thru for one item at a time and milk the system.

They also print free cheeseburger coupons in the paper sometimes, and have digital coupons for free coffees and so on for people who signed up for their email newsletter.

You mean Paul's wrong? Surely not.

the genius of evolution is that it weeds out the clueless.

the entry level for having kids is to low imho

Yes, you are right, but to be honest that happens in every business in planet.

Someone makes PROPECIA for male pattern baldness.. and you have 100 other laboratories copying it..

Someone makes the iphone, and you have 50 other companies doing a touchpad cell phone with similar features.

Someone makes a good rating TV show, and you have 1000 other channels doing the same shit.. So I can't really blame adult from that perspetive.

But I can blame all of us, for destroying our own business.