Do we, as an adult webmaster community, oppose supporting adult versions of YouTube?

[jayeff]

Originally Posted by Trixie

we've had to resign ourselves to that being the reality

The over-riding reality is that the internet is an entirely different marketplace than the bricks-and-mortar world. Some people have exploited those differences almost by accident (solo model site owner/operators) and a handful of others - such as the developers of YouTube and MySpace - have set out to profit from those differences.

The vast majority of us (and I am guilty as charged) depend on business models which fail to recognize these differences at all. That, if you like, is Web 1.0. The Emperor's Clothes are beginning to look decidely translucent, even for the minority who execute their chosen business models well, because supply and demand are closing and because Web 2.0 is moving in. Web 2.0 - in online porn terms - isn't only represented by adult versions of YouTube and MySpace, but also by torrent sites and sites such as "I Shot Myself" and "Suicide Girls".

The internet is about interactivity. Interactivity between individuals and also interactivity between customer and product. If I order books from Amazon, the site will in future suggest books I might enjoy. If I rate movies at Netflix, other movies I might like are displayed. Interactivity on adult sites is largely restricted to dating and webcams, but the success of both those areas should be telling us something.

Another consideration is that there are two fundamental marketing models in any kind of business: low-margin/high-volume and high-margin/low-volume. Ford vs Ferrari. These are not arbitrary choices dictated by producers/sellers (although some, such as champagne producers and diamond merchants, restrict their product to keep prices high). They are also a consequence of market reaction: while some people will buy PC's from independent stores and pay a higher price for the extra service and attention they perceive, most are willing to buy boxes as cheaply as possible.

Online porn, by the very nature of the internet, should be a high-volume/low-margin business. There is a reluctance to accept that, because so many people still influential in the business, have enjoyed unrealistically high margins and obviously do not want to let them go. They are dwindling anyway, the snag is that the customer isn't seeing much benefit because increasing cost-of-sales and static/declining volumes are getting in the way.

Affiliates are paid too much. Never mind newbie webmasters, most of whom begin with no relevant skills whatsoever. We have hundreds of "experienced" webmasters who have no more real skills or business knowledge than the day they started. Sure they learn how to improve their chances of getting a free-site listed in a links list or they buy a script and find out how to avoid the worst pitfalls of traffic trading. But mostly all they bring to the table is labor and labor is a cheap commodity. In a mature market the average affiliate would be damn lucky to make even $20 an hour.

Agree or disagree, what does this have to do with free porn?

In the 90's there were millions of people coming onto the internet, most of whom didn't even have easy, embarassment-free access to anything raunchier than H*stler. For a while at least, there wasn't a lot of free porn available except to the denizens of news groups, and most of what there was, was crap. Surely paysites and AVS programs offered more? They rarely did, but the hope produced a goldrush.

Over the past 10 years we have done an excellent job of educating people that 9 times out of 10, sites will take their money and barely attempt to deliver what was promised, let alone anything substantially better than can be had for free. At the same time, the amount of free content has rocketed and the sites delivering it have become far easier to locate and use. If all you want to do is see pics of naked women or watch a movie of people f*cking, why pay for it is a very valid question.

But we cannot put the lid back on free porn even if we want to. The problem anyway is not free porn per se, but the ridiculous idea that once people have checked to see what all the fuss is about, more than a relatively tiny percentage of the total will be willing to pay $30, $40 and even $50 a month to see more of the same. People will not pay for a Ferrari and be satisfied if they are delivered a Ford.

That message has been delivered loud and clear in every market out there, yet somehow we still ignore it. Essentially we deliver what is cheap and easy for us to deliver and offer it at the prices we want to charge, not the prices that a mature market will bear. We are still, to an extent getting away with it, solely because it might be another 5 years before supply and demand are fully equalized. The fact remains that we are not adding value.

IMO, within 5 years almost all non-interactive porn will be given away and only used to attract traffic. We will see the cost of hiring still photographers and licensing DVD's as no different than other industries view their marketing costs. We shall focus almost entirely on selling interactivity, with just a few specialist sites and those which genuinely deliver ease-of-use and top-quality content, able to charge for anything else.

That interactivity will include live video, but we shall move away from bored models charged at high rates per hour, sitting idle for hours at a time, to something which Mr. Average can afford on a regular basis and we will present it imaginatively enough for him to want to do so. Solo models are also here to stay: not the kind of sites for which someone shot a couple of years' updates in a weekend, but the ones with real interaction between models and visitors. Nor is there any reason that principle needs to be restricted to solo models...

Above all, we will be seeing Web 2.0 sites (btw I hate the term and a lot of it is marketing hype, but it is convenient shorthand) which let surfers interact with each other as well as the content. Adult dating sites will blur into adult community sites, some with a broad appeal and others much more specific. We shall effectively make content sharing legal, because instead of kidding ourselves we can shut it out, we will make it easy for members to share the content we are no longer trying to monetize. That will become just another aspect of interactivity.

The lines will also blur between affiliate sites and sponsor sites because with both heading towards the community model and both giving a lot away, outwardly they will look very similar. That is also what will effectively raise the entry bar for new webmasters. It never can cost more than the price of a PC and an internet connection to want to be an adult webmaster, but the knowledge and investment needed to build sites with the potential to earn serious money in future, will increase dramatically.

At the risk of getting even further off topic, I think we shall see other changes in the sponsor-affiliate relationship. Payments will more often become related to volume but also there will be more discrimination. The shotgun approach to attracting affiliates is increasingly expensive and less productive and even though many affiliates earn little or nothing for the majority of sponsors, their existence makes life more difficult for productive affiliates. So just as in other industries, we are going to see the top names becoming much more selective about their affiliates, both to reduce recruitment costs and to encourage those who can generate volume to join them on the promise of less competition. New webmasters will have to settle for new or otherwise struggling programs. More of the money now being spent on newbie recruitment, shows, etc., is going to go instead on affiliate development and practical support, because sponsors need to start taking control of their businesses, instead of merely hoping that a high profile will produce results.

I haven't looked at the poll, but I would guess that 80%+ are opposed to adult versions of YouTube. If you want to be making money 5-10 years from now, instead of opposing YouTube, you should be embracing it and whatever is going to be coming next. The Web 2.0 developments of the past few years are just the beginning...