Tough times in the porn industry

[walrus]

Originally Posted by Cleo

While I'm sure tube sites and other sources of free porn hurt sales I believe the major reason that sales are so bad is we are in a major recession and credit has dried up along with very restrictive scrubbing by the credit card companies.

When times are good expensive bottled water sells well despite water being freely available.

I agree the recession has had a major impact. I personally think the recession is helping in driving people to the tube sites.

Those people will leave the tubes once the economy picks up.

It might be free porn but the quality is horrible. People will return so that they can actually watch video's full screen rather than pixelated crap at 400x300

[virgohippy]

Originally Posted by walrus

It might be free porn but the quality is horrible. People will return so that they can actually watch video's full screen rather than pixelated crap at 400x300

Especially considering high definition screens are reasonably affordable and will become even more so over time and consumers are already demanding quality products which display well on their HD screens.

[LD]

Originally Posted by virgohippy

Especially considering high definition screens are reasonably affordable and will become even more so over time and consumers are already demanding quality products which display well on their HD screens.

All true, but will people pay for quality? When mp3's became popular, no one cared they sounded like crap compared to CD's...people downloaded them, illegally, and quit buying CD's because CD's cost money and mp3's were free.

And what's to stop illegal tubes from upgrading their quality? Hollywood has the right idea..it's fucking HARD (at least for me) to make a copy of HD movies. Even my DVR charges me $5.99 everytime I want to watch a PPV. Does porn have a similar digital license encoded in the content yet? If not, it should...

[walrus]

Originally Posted by LusciousDelight

All true, but will people pay for quality? When mp3's became popular, no one cared they sounded like crap compared to CD's...people downloaded them, illegally, and quit buying CD's because CD's cost money and mp3's were free.

Actually, that might not be a good example. People were still buying CD's until the music industry went after the pirates. CD sales nose dived shortly after Napster was shut down.

And quality sound has really never been the primary force in peoples buying habits when it comes to music. The 8 track tape was a much better sounding medium but cassettes sounded ok and were cheaper and more robust.

CD's may be a higher quality, ie. higher bit rate but I'd bet the average person couldn't distinguish the difference in a blind side by side test.

The CD is now basically dead for the same reason as every other format in the music industry died. Something acceptable came along that was more convenient.

Carrying an iPod is much easier than carrying a CD player especially when you can carry your complete library of music on it.