Tubes R Not the Death of the Industry
 

I stumbled across this gem, and unfortunately can't link to it. But I think the original author (deemented) makes some good points that frankly are missed in tube hater threads.

Additionally...

You get what you pay for...

This guy, whoever it is ... IS A FUCKING IDIOT.

If people took his DVDs and copied them and handed them out for free outside the porn shop to people as they entered. Let's see how many sales they would do.

When I first came to do business on the Net one of the things that shocked me was the price people were prepared to pay for the product the customer was buying. I had big businesses offer me jobs or custom work at prices that were a joke.

Even today some of the top sites, with the so called top content, either don't value or can't afford to pay a good price for content. There are great shooters around now going into different businesses, why? Because the Adult Net won't pay them enough.

How many top shooters supplying top sites can say they earned $3,000 from a single solo girl set they still own? Without a video. And $3,000 is not an exaggeration or a one off.

But how many can say they turned over $1500 shooting 5 sets and videos in a day, for something they no longer own?

You get what you pay for in all markets.

That's a moronic series of statements:2 cents:

A)There are many high quality studios producing adult videos NOW. Let me list a few.
Girlfriends Films
Evil Angel
Burning Angel
New Sensations
Evasive Angles
Abby Winters
3rd Degree
Anabolic
....i could go on, but the point is this guy doesn't know what the hell he is talking about, and in any case, theft is theft.

And furthermore, noting the title of your thread, are you saying that because a video is deemed "shit" by some people that this is a reason for it to be pirated??

They're not the death but they ant helping!

I always enjoy some Markham.
:)

No. My thread title was taken from the points, and paraphrased remarks, he had made in the discussion. Mainly that you need to focus on the customer, adding value to your product, and stop fighting technology you have no chance of winning against historically.

I did not voice my point of view. The O.P. is quoted verbatim.

There are legal tube sites out there with licensed content.

The writer of this article is coming from a very specific limited point of view. I am sure he has valid points and I would not want to be in the DVD production side of the industry right now. We, as the online part of the industry, produce a consumable and while quality is a great way to separate yourself from the horde of cheap porn, quantity plays a much bigger role.

That is assuming equality in the value of your talent

Agreed.

Just as Paul always talks about the old days, and magazine side of the business. He has some points of view that a lot of the online guys laugh at. It really comes down to your experience, and segment of the industry, that shapes your point of view.

Cant knock his opinion but some of the comparisons are fairly silly . like hagendaz ice cream, we arent selling ice cream , and there isn't guys giving away free hagendaz outside our sites.

The music industry is a much closer comparison in my opinion. Radio stations give away music for free yet people still buy music. The adult industry has value in their product the tube sites have found a way to capitalize offf the copyright materials within, all we gotta do is reverse that information gap. Have a better product, present it better and faster and people will use it. oh and sue sue sue...

What I was talking about was not such a long time ago. When I first came to this side of the porn business was 10 years ago. And that was when I was earning $3,000 a set I still own and was being offered $1,500 for 5 scenes I would not own.

And even today there are great shooters turning there back on the Adult Net because it refuses to pay a decent price. So nothing there about the "old days". :)

"Free" is subjective to the end users perception.

On radio and TV. You have to suffer through the commercials that finance the "free" to the end user. Where some people do not mind commercials, some can't stand them. Hence TiVO and subscription types of radio.

As for your other point in regards to adult. People who were not around in the 90's when the online adult porn industry started are quick to forget the history lesson repeating it's self a decade later.

Now that most higher end, well known, traffic tube sites are making a mint, they are now licensing their content. They can now afford to do it, and the content producers are providing them the material. This is a buyer's market.

While not all are legal out there, many more are moving in that direction.

I love me some Markham.
:)

The most important thing that he said was basically: "Stop trying to fuck over the surfer for a quick buck and give them value", let them cancel when they want, no tricks and they may stay. Sure we will all have less members then before but we need to build trust. Our industry on the web has pretty much fucked over the trust of the consumer.

isnt that kinda the same as saying tubes arent giving it away free either , its ad supported some can't stand them and pay for memberships :)

but i was kind of pointing more to the fact the labels not only support radio but compete to get their music played first
not sure who you are referring to , but for the record i had PAY porn sites BEFORE there was an internet, thats not a joke. as far as porn and computing go, it would be unlikely to find many people with an older track record

the tube model is a good model , the bad tubes will move closer to the legal tubes and vice versa

Tubes are killing the industry. How can you say giving away a 50 min video ISN'T hurting?

The number 1 duper of adult DVDs-because he was the cheapest-was also the #1 seller of pirated DVDs. Absolute fact.

And nobody did shit about it.:2 cents:

legal tubes are good but those dirty are killers

Not all tube sites do that.

That is like saying that all legal pornographers are also all kiddie pornographers.

You can't have it both ways.

I am sure there was plenty of talk, forum posts, trade mag articles and saber rattling.

Sounds about right.

it's not an either or or situation. a lot has come together to create the current climate, illegal tubes are part of that.

he's also wrong with his thought.

this is simply not true. there are many MANY adult companies that succeed in spite of themselves. same with mainstream. i see it all the time.

Agreed.

However, it's not the only turd in the punch bowl. In the past 2-3 years, you can think of a lot of other things from cross sales, pay sites that never update, and other credit card practices that also have contributed to the decline.

The O.P. also does not take into account the evolution of the web, and there is a lot more to do on it now then there was 10 years ago. Most people have a limited amount of online time, and doing those hours, they have many things trying to get their attention.

yessa.

i believe i have seen a graph charting traffic to adult sites falling proportionately to traffic increasing to social network sites during the same time period

he's so correct about people wanting to pay for a quality product. But he fails to mention that people will also steal a quality product if there's an easy avenue to do it -- and there's still tons of quality porn. It's just his opinion that porn is shit, and he's totally wrong.

...and he doesn't know the difference between the the word "caused" and "cost". That bothers me.

I think his bigger point is that theft is inevitable. Just like in other industries.

If you stop producing content because you are worried about theft. You will be out of business in a short period of time. You are always going to have to try and feed the monster.

There are options available to programs and producers via DRM, streaming only, among other things. But people refuse to use them saying it would piss off a consumer. You could go the gideongallery method and give EVERYTHING away from free and try and find another way to monetize it. If such a way exists.

There's a lot of caca in this thread. I don't know where to start, except to say there is a lot of caca.

the gfy preferred way to state this (and it's easier) is

*pigshit*

that way you can simply & quickly do you drive-by everyone is wrong but me comment and move on, not wasting your precious time.

Another vote for *pigshit*

Yep. :thumbsup

One problem with that authors theory. If you went back to making expensive high quality porn it still would get distributed over the net via tubes/torrents. Now you just spent A LOT of more more to still not make very much.

The fact is quality doesn't mean expensive "professional" looking sets/costumes/make-up scripts with actual plot slick looking boxcovers with big promotion budgets anymore. Maybe back in the old days when guys actually watched porn on the couch or bed with a tape in the VCR and some beer and bottle of Jergins watching porn was an all night activity. Guys mostly watch porn on their computer and more and more often on their phones. Guys want to get off quickly and move on with their day.

We won't have less members, we will have more. Just because he left your site does not mean he will stop buying porn. He will buy from another site and a member from another site will be signing up on your site. Fuck him over and he drops out the loop.

So is trying to sell them a month membership the answer?

Agreed.

Specifically in regards to content production, it's similar to the 80's when the VCR come in and forced the big budget porn productions to cut down on costs. You are seeing more of that now. The internet is cutting out some of the higher end studios because they simply can't compete and get ROI.

Two basic truths are:

1) people will always prefer to get something for free
2) it's a lot easier to find free porn now than it was ten years ago

Which means exclusive is a lot more important, and protecting your content is hugely important.

in our business, a good way to think of quality is to think of it as niche. if you provide niche content that you are familiar with and enjoy creating, that is quality content and people will buy it.

Well said.

My content is not the best by any means. The girls are not super hotties, they are not naked, the lighting is not studios JimGunn style type of professional quality. That said, my stuff still sells and retains like a mofo as the stats is sig show.

Why?

Because the passion for what I shoot comes through. I also get feedback from members, their ideas and scripts, so that further leads to success when you are shooting with direct input from members and patrons.

Niche porn will always sell and always convert. It is not profitable for big studios to produce, and mom and pops of small production companies will always have a place to feel the niche people. They are going to PAY FOR what they want. If you do not have a fetish, you simply will never understand how you must feed that need.

I will agree with the intent of your statement that tubes in general are not killing the industry... people giving away full length movies and pirated movies ARE and HAVE effected sales overall. Noone who is credible has claimed that they are the ONLY reason for revenue decline... there are many reasons including higher social network activity, the economy, etc etc. To claim that tubes that carry high quality full length movies for free (even with advertising) haven't negatively effected our business is just intellectually dishonest and the logic used in trying to justify their existence is fundamentally flawed at it's base.

No did I say that? My point was the author infers that if you make these super HQ porn movies with high production values people will pay. That's simply not the case.

It amuses me no end you do not think 10 years ago is a long time in terms of the internet. That's sweet.

It amuses me no end that you know so little about the market you work in. Try marketing a product you understand.

The figures I posted were true until a few years ago. But that was when the decline set in, when sites thought all they needed to do was fill their site with content shot on the cheap. Sites producing a quality product are keeping members a lot better than sites churning out content that is not quality.

Yes you still have to protect it from the pirates, but you have something worth protecting.

The author of the articles offered a solution and I see no one here offering a solution that will work. Lots of crying about what we already know and some self promoting but no solutions.

The Adult Net went largely exclusive and it was not the solution, sales still fell.

The future for the industry is not to all go niche, it works for Mom & Pop sites and not for the big sites.

A lot of customers have rejected what we are selling.

So what's the answer?

Yeah, I haven't got a clue. That is why I was asked to contribute to the GFY educational series and you spam rehashed cut and paste out of date waffle here.

I don't give two hoots about the figures Paul. I was laughing at you suggesting 10 years ago 'online' isn't a long time. It is Paul. Very long.

You can't protect anything from filesharers, Paul. Haven't you realised that yet? Stop wasting your time with that pointless persuit and start another thread spamming your pictures pretending you need 1000 for glasses. That was a winner.

i second that

I do not think anyone has a definitive answer.
:disgust

Additional remarks from O.P.

What solution did he propose? I guess I missed that.

Ok here's an anology. All these porn companaies are like blackmsiths 100 years ago. They did fine for along time when everyone used horses to get around, but then 100 years ago people started buying cars. Instead of accepting that and perhaps start selling tires the industry is acting like blacksmiths who try to get people to stop buying cars and go back to horses. Well that wasn't going to happen. And stopping tubes and torrents and free porn in general isn't going to happen either. If it was that easy it would have been done years ago. Now you can be a balcksmith that tries to still sell horseshoes and eventually go out of business or you can start selling tires.

The porn industy is just like the music and mainstream movie/TV industry and has it head in the sand and refuses to adapt because that means accepting the fact your product isn't worth as much as it used to be. For example eventually the music industry will have to realize that the money in music isn't from selling songs or albums. The songs will be used to promote the concert tour of the artist and thus be given out for free. I will be shocked if in 20 years music is actually still being sold.

Let me ask you this question: do you still surf the web the same way you did 5 years ago?

What sites do you still visit? And why?

That's all the answer you need in my humble opinion.

Well said. :thumbsup