Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbie
You're right about that. But I'm not sure anybody is suggesting that at all. For instance, I specifically said that every paysite owner I spoke with to a man at Internext, Phoenix Forum, LA Webmaster Access, and XBiz Summer Forum....ALL reported big losses in revenue from piracy.
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lets look at that from a logical perspective.
to make the claim that you have "huge losses from piracy" means being aware of every possible source of loss, or cause and then being able to apportion some blame to each potential cause... and being able to objectively analyze yourself and your business and determine how to apportion blame to each.
it means also understanding what was previously being lost to piracy since 1996, (usegroups, stolen members areas, p2p networks etc), and what the total net positive change is currently.
the fact of the matter is i can think of many many many reasons who so many are losing money. piracy has always existed and free porn has always existed. these things have ALWAYS been the blame for failure. its not a new "cause". there are many factors.
i have yet to see any real webmaster stand up and say "i failed" as they quietly go from boom to bust. there is always a "cause" and its always "something else"
interestingly, no on wants to talk about how sites like youporn.com, keezmovies.com, pornhub.com, tube8.com etc have totally out SEO'ed them and are generally taking an increasingly larger % of total adult traffic (and general adult PR) by working SMARTER. their traffic gains as an example, have nothing to do with "piracy" or "stolen videos" but that just sounds good.... and while everyone is playing "who's causing my failure besides me"... others are quietly growing and taking advantage of everyone's ignorance of search engines and traffic and are now the ones ranking for porn movies, free porn, porn etc etc etc etc etc.
these arguments also assume that everyone in this business is a solid, competent business person. that the playing field is even, that everyone is quietly making pencils with their pencil factories and are at the mercy of the total market demand for pencils. the honest truth is that this business is full of absolute retards who abuse surfers, their credit cards and their trust and full of people who's very success is from abusing others, lying, cheating, stealing and so on.
no one can cause ones failure but himself. like life, business is a very dynamic and fluid environment full of changes and challenges. many will rise to meet them. many will be on the cutting edge, many will blaze entirely new trails and
MOST will simply wither away and die as change occurs.... as has ALWAYS been the case.
my personal pet peeve with people in this industry is that people always blame something else as a "cause". anyone that blames something else has quietly admitted that they have failed themselves.