Tubes, torrents, and piracy. A webmaster's take
Last night as I was walking my dog, I was listening to an interview with Steve Knopper, author of Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age
It got me to thinking about the parallels between what the record industry has gone through (and is still going through) and what the adult industry is now starting to experience.
Some of the biggest mistakes the record industry made were
1) Eliminating the "single" in the early 90's
This forced consumers to pay $18 for a full CD, even if all they wanted was one song. This is fairly similar to our business model that requires customers to pay 25-49 per month to access our entire members area, even if all they want is one scene.
2) Not offering anything to compete with Napster.
You may be thinking "how could they compete with something that was free?", but I'm not talking about price. For several years the ONLY WAY you could get digital music was illegally. It wasn't until Steve Jobs came along with the iPod and iTunes that customers were able to purchase digital songs that they could keep forever and listen to anywhere on any device they chose.
Now, you may be thinking what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? I'm getting there.
In the digital evolution of the music industry, the key players are the artists, the record labels, the pirates, and Steve Jobs (and others who have offered alternatives to his service)
Artists - have always made most of their money by touring. I'm sure they're hurt a little bit by music piracy, but they've been getting fucked over by the record labels for years, and in some ways mass distribution of their wares can end up making them more money.
In our business the "Artists" are the talent and the shooters. They get paid per scene anyways, and the talent can always shake their tits and asses in strip clubs as headliners to make money....so porn piracy isn't going to force any of these folks into the poorhouse.
The Record Labels - These guys started by suing everyone and anyone, and they had some big victories (Napster), only to see something else pop up in it's place. They can't sue their way back to prosperity, it's like pushing against the ocean.
Eventually they smartened up and signed a deal with Steve Jobs, and have since sold 6 billion tracks on iTunes. Their margins are much much smaller, but they're going to survive. I think we all know who these guys are in our business.
The Pirates - Napster, Kazaa, Limewire, Bit torrent, etc. The biggest problem for these guys is that they don't make any money. Can't make any money.
They became wildly popular in a very short period of time, but that popularity and user base never turned into money.
In our industry we feel the effects of torrents, plus the infamous illegal tube site. I also don't see how these sites can be profitable in the long term.
They can become wildly popular and heavily trafficked in a very short period of time....but the "give everything away for free and make money on the advertising" model has failed many times over. Most of the nation's newspapers are going bankrupt after following this model. (And I'm going to guess that the people running the New York Times etc are smarter than the guys running the average porn tube site)
This is even more true when the nature of your business severely limits the type of advertisers you can get. Once the dating sites with fake profiles and the foreign girls on cam for $2+ per minute have run their course, there's really nothing else for them to sell. Not many advertisers want to jump into bed with porn sites built on piracy.
Before you jump up and down and cheer about the imminent demise of these sites, realize that Napster shutting down didn't bring back the popularity of the $18 CD. It just opened the door for the next technology that gave the end users what they really wanted, rather than what the record labels wanted to sell.
Steve Jobs - the right guy in the right place at the right time with the right idea and the ability to execute it. He's the one guy (other than consumers) who truly benefited from this situation. I wish I could tell you I had the equivalent idea for our industry...but if I did I'd be working on it, not writing this post.
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It got me to thinking about the parallels between what the record industry has gone through (and is still going through) and what the adult industry is now starting to experience.
Some of the biggest mistakes the record industry made were
1) Eliminating the "single" in the early 90's
This forced consumers to pay $18 for a full CD, even if all they wanted was one song. This is fairly similar to our business model that requires customers to pay 25-49 per month to access our entire members area, even if all they want is one scene.
2) Not offering anything to compete with Napster.
You may be thinking "how could they compete with something that was free?", but I'm not talking about price. For several years the ONLY WAY you could get digital music was illegally. It wasn't until Steve Jobs came along with the iPod and iTunes that customers were able to purchase digital songs that they could keep forever and listen to anywhere on any device they chose.
Now, you may be thinking what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? I'm getting there.
In the digital evolution of the music industry, the key players are the artists, the record labels, the pirates, and Steve Jobs (and others who have offered alternatives to his service)
Artists - have always made most of their money by touring. I'm sure they're hurt a little bit by music piracy, but they've been getting fucked over by the record labels for years, and in some ways mass distribution of their wares can end up making them more money.
In our business the "Artists" are the talent and the shooters. They get paid per scene anyways, and the talent can always shake their tits and asses in strip clubs as headliners to make money....so porn piracy isn't going to force any of these folks into the poorhouse.
The Record Labels - These guys started by suing everyone and anyone, and they had some big victories (Napster), only to see something else pop up in it's place. They can't sue their way back to prosperity, it's like pushing against the ocean.
Eventually they smartened up and signed a deal with Steve Jobs, and have since sold 6 billion tracks on iTunes. Their margins are much much smaller, but they're going to survive. I think we all know who these guys are in our business.
The Pirates - Napster, Kazaa, Limewire, Bit torrent, etc. The biggest problem for these guys is that they don't make any money. Can't make any money.
They became wildly popular in a very short period of time, but that popularity and user base never turned into money.
In our industry we feel the effects of torrents, plus the infamous illegal tube site. I also don't see how these sites can be profitable in the long term.
They can become wildly popular and heavily trafficked in a very short period of time....but the "give everything away for free and make money on the advertising" model has failed many times over. Most of the nation's newspapers are going bankrupt after following this model. (And I'm going to guess that the people running the New York Times etc are smarter than the guys running the average porn tube site)
This is even more true when the nature of your business severely limits the type of advertisers you can get. Once the dating sites with fake profiles and the foreign girls on cam for $2+ per minute have run their course, there's really nothing else for them to sell. Not many advertisers want to jump into bed with porn sites built on piracy.
Before you jump up and down and cheer about the imminent demise of these sites, realize that Napster shutting down didn't bring back the popularity of the $18 CD. It just opened the door for the next technology that gave the end users what they really wanted, rather than what the record labels wanted to sell.
Steve Jobs - the right guy in the right place at the right time with the right idea and the ability to execute it. He's the one guy (other than consumers) who truly benefited from this situation. I wish I could tell you I had the equivalent idea for our industry...but if I did I'd be working on it, not writing this post.
<< continued >>
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