16 ms·

The porn industry is in a bind

125 points by nkurz 11y ago

jenmcewen 11y ago
I was just about to share this. That's my company (and me in 2 of the pictures). Thanks for sharing it.
- onedev 11y ago
  You should do an AMA here in this thread about the industry! I'll start. What are some common misconceptions about the industry in general and what do you think about the accuracy of the article and how it paints the industry?
  - matwood 11y ago
    And to add to that, how accurate was the documentary on Netflix, "Hot Girls Wanted"?
    - jenmcewen 11y ago
      I haven't seen it yet. I find most of these "exposes" into the performer world tend to be biased, but I'll check it out.
  - jenmcewen 11y ago
    An AMA sounds fun. :) I think the article covered the misconceptions and the state of the industry pretty well. I think the biggest misconceptions are: 1. No one pays for porn, but we know they do. 2. Selling is a sure-fire way to make a ton of money. It's only sure-fire if you're going to use less than favorable tactics, as with any business. 3. Everyone in porn is a scammer. There are bad apples, but most folks in the adult industry are really great to work with. 4. That porn tube sites are the common enemy. But in many ways it's the big mainstream tech giants that threaten the industry. Take a look at Tumblr. They made it so easy to spread and share pirated content with one click and even if you wanted to claim your content back by adding your affiliate links, they will ban your account and call that "spam".
    - petra 11y ago
      Jen, how do you think the virtual reality porn industry will look like?
- timbowhite 11y ago
  So I just signed up for a Mikandi account, you know, just to explore a little... A couple of things: 1. I tried buying account credit (aka "Mikandi Gold"), but it wouldn't work, looks like jQuery isn't being loaded, error from console: > ReferenceError: $ is not defined [1] 2. Do you guys accept Bitcoin/cryptocurrency? If not, why? Seems like the perfect venue for it, I would think most geeks wouldn't want those types of purchases tied to their credit card. [1] https://mikandi.com/account/buygold https://mikandi.com/account/buygold
  - jenmcewen 11y ago
    Thanks for the heads up. I'll take a look. Most of the activity happens in the Android client, not on the site, so we sometimes don't check the web property as often as we should. We've talked about cryptocurrency but go back and forth on it. Right now, we're mainly focused on streamlining credit card, direct debit, and SMS billing, and carrier where we can get it. We just got approved to use Paypal through Epoch so that's really exciting for us since a lot of people want to buy adult content by Paypal.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  Thanks for joining in. How do you feel about the marginalization of porn by the primary platform vendors?
  - jenmcewen 11y ago
    it's unethical. I love Android because it's open and am happy that Google kept it that way... to an extent. Some of the things they do are backhanded. For example, there's a strong campaign to condition users to only trust Google for apps. Downloading any third party APK from Chrome brings up a scary warning: https://v5j7s7h5.ssl.hwcdn.net/v2/mkstatic/chrome-warning.png/w:480/h:853/image.png https://v5j7s7h5.ssl.hwcdn.net/v2/mkstatic/chrome-warning.pn... If you do a mobile search for porn apps, half the screen is taken up by anti-porn apps available in Play Store. They campaign that Play is the only legitimate and safe source, but malicious apps find their way in Play too. Instead of lumping all third party sources as "Unknown" and potentially dangerous, there ought to be a way for third parties to earn "Known" status and verified as a trusted source. But I doubt we'll ever get that fair treatment. It's not just Google though, obviously. These tech giants have the opportunity and thus responsibility to make a positive difference here. Instead, by blocking one of our most basic human desires, they often chose to devolve and perpetuate the war on sex. I daydream that, one day, tech giants like Google, Amazon, or Yahoo, or VCs and banks will say, “Let’s open our doors to SexTech companies we can trust.” We try to operate everyday as if this is a possibility, because one day I hope it will be. If you have time to spare, I go into a lot of it here https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/sextech-startups-in-a-hostile-business-world https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/sextech-startups-in-a-ho... There's also a long read on our blog about Operation Choke Point and how the government used banks and credit card companies to take down legal industries they deem immoral https://mikandi.com/blog/featured/guide-to-operation-choke-point/ https://mikandi.com/blog/featured/guide-to-operation-choke-p...
    - anigbrowl 11y ago
      Thanks for the comprehensive reply! I'll look through those links tomorrow and may drop you a line. This is a political issue I care deeply about so I'd like to stay in touch.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Hi Jen! I just want to say, it was a nice stunt you did with Google Glass! I think the jokes were even better than the... more explicit part. It was also the first time I heard of MiKandi. Please do something like this with HoloLens as well, such take on up-and-coming technologies is a material for infinite amount of laughter over at watercooler at work.
  - jenmcewen 11y ago
    Thanks! We had a ton of fun shooting that. Andy and James ad libbed a lot of it. It was fun to shoot because we had to hide in the back room while they did their thang, otherwise they'd catch us in the Glass footage huddled around the corner laughing. :D The funny thing about shooting Glass POV porn is we thought we could be in the room to help direct, but literally everything you see is recorded, so we were constantly accidentally caught on film. So they kicked us out. :D
nickysielicki 11y ago
> “Anyone can download them. You can. Your kids can. That’s just not a place we want to go.” Steve Jobs was such a piece of work. As if browsers don't exist.
throwaway_exer 11y ago
Jen looks smoking hot in that first photo.
J_Darnley 11y ago
"salaries somewhere in the low six figures" I'm so sorry! At least when the porn industry collapses I will have my stash of torrented porn to rely on. In other news: walled garden are bad for everyone.
yarou 11y ago
Wired really has dropped in quality, publishing articles that state the obvious and do little to advance critical thought. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that the lack of original content has led to content-mill-esque pieces that aren't the least bit provactive or controversial.
- visarga 11y ago
  I'm wondering why they don't mine reddit threads for ideas and then compile them into articles. I often find the comments much more interesting than the articles, so, if they filtered out good ideas they would have an inexhaustible source.
rickdale 11y ago
Back in the day, when porn was in the big online bubble state, sites would offer over $.50/click to their site. When I first started (ab)using that system, the sites immediately bumped it to $.25/click and then $.10/click, and now I think its like $.000034/click, or basically nothing. They would also give you additional money for actual sign ups, and had a bonus day on every month where you made a significant amount more for sign ups. Ultimately I think I cashed in like $7000 when I was 12 before shit hit the fan and the company my buddy and I were using sent him a check that bounced. It was tough explaining it to our parents, but ultimately everyone knew about alladvantage and we would always say it was something similar to that. We also cashed in on alladvantage, I think it was $20/month just to have the thing on for a few hours. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > AllAdvantage was launched on March 31, 1999, by Jim Jorgensen, Johannes Pohle, Carl Anderson, and Oliver Brock.[2] During its nearly 2 years of operation, it raised nearly $200 Million in venture capital and grew to more than 10 million members in its first 18 months of operation. Holy hell! So that's where those companies had money from. As a kid I always wondered how those bullshit "install our app, get paid for surfing" companies got their money; it turns out they were burning VC funds all along...
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Interestingly, India has several AllAdvantage-like mobile apps. Kids install them and do various tasks (mostly watching ads) and take payment in the form of mobile recharges.
- kragen 11y ago
  So, it's your fault that porn is free? :) It's interesting that this article touts "Sandvine, the primary source for internet traffic research," without mentioning the company's unethical astroturfing on Glassdoor http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Sandvine-Reviews-E32683.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Sandvine-Reviews-E32683.htm and their criminal past activities disrupting BitTorrent: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/06/21/1814239/sandvine-ceo-says-internet-monitoring-a-necessity http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/06/21/1814239/sandvine-ceo-...
wodenokoto 11y ago
While the little guys aren't making bank anymore, what about the big guys? It's my impression that the pornhub network is quite healthy, financially.
- jqm 11y ago
  you are talking about the studios not the actors right?
  - wodenokoto 11y ago
    I'm talking about companies. I don't know if pornhub counts as a studio.
rdancer 11y ago
The fine article talks about the losers of the trade war. The winners are OK. If you look where the money is, it's with MindGeek (formerly known as Manwin), a company that has through the years bought bought most of the tube/cam sites, owns Brazzers and other content producers. For sure, tired unattractive content won't make it. But then you have the true artists of fucking, like James Deen, Pierre Woodman, and those guys working at Czech AV. They seem to be doing quite well. The innovation in porn, from what I've seen (hehe), is on the personal level, when a performer interacts regularly with viewers through social networks. To successfully provide illusion of intimacy or a relationship is the next frontier in porn, in my humble opinion.
- wslh 11y ago
  > The innovation in porn, from what I've seen (hehe), is on the personal level. Good point but I think there is room for innovation at the film side. Porn is the most conservative genre: films are cloned with different actors.
  - hkmurakami 11y ago
    The film side has innovated in Japan to mimic girlfriend-like settings and interactions to fill the emotional void of young men who feel abandoned by the dating market. Much of anime has followed a similar evolutionary adaptation there.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  There was a comment posted here, that sadly got deleted. I think it raises an interesting topic. Let me reproduce it: --- > illusion of intimacy or a relationship Could that lead to sexrobots as a mass market in, say, five years? Or do you think it would go more into the VR direction? Could / should both be merged? Would that be useful? Perhaps AR would be better in that case. Thoughts on that? --- The response I tried to submit when parent got deleted: I think this is the angle that will try and resist automation for a while. The first world is getting somewhat devoid of genuine relationship experiences, and people seek to fill the hole somehow. Or from a more cynical point of view - we're building a superstimulus, where we can provide stronger emotional satisfaction through porn that you could get in a real relationship. Personally I think VR/AR will make a killing much sooner than sexrobots, even assuming that the latter will become popular at all in the coming decades. One of the biggest constraints on... enhancing your sexual experience, if you're young and lonely, is what if your parents/family/friends/current partner discover your sex toys. Hiding sex dolls from them is a significant OPSEC issue. VR/AR will be as easy to hide as video porn today is - the device you're using is a general purpose, you could always say you bought it for World of Warcraft 2 or something. The porn component is just data, which is trivial to hide from less technical friends and family.
mindcrime 11y ago
Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story: VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations. Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens. Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it through official channels and maybe not at all. And it isn't even just about VR... the point is, we, collectively, are losing control of our use of computing and technology. Remember the early 80's, when anybody could buy a handful of 8086 processors, a Phoenix or Award BIOS, some cases, etc., and start pumping out IBM compatible PCs? That was pretty amazing, and arguably led to amazing things. How about the way you could take your PC and install ANY operating system on it: DOS, Xenix, Solaris x86, Windows, OS/2, BeOS, BSD Unix, various flavors of Linux, etc. Great opportunity for invention and creation there... and now? When was the last time you installed a new OS on your smartphone? Your game console? Your VR device? Your smart watch? Etc? Yeah... thought so. Look, I'm not saying anything terribly new here, and I don't claim to be. Cory Doctorow said it all better, and before: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html But we need to take this seriously. I don't want to live in a world where Google, Facebook, IBM, HP, Twitter, Microsoft, EMC, Cisco, Snapchat, etc., decide what content I can consume, what programs I can run, etc. And I doubt most of you do either.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Right this moment I'm sitting in an office in the place that represents our hope, a capital of continued progress[0] - Shenzhen, China. Everything Facebook, Google and Microsoft designs gets built here (or nearby) anyway. China has a... quite healthy attitude towards copyright and trade secrets. That is, they don't give a flying fuck here. There was even a term for that, that eludes me at the moment, which described the idea of "I share my specs today with you, you'll share your specs tomorrow with me". And in the ongoing war on general-purpose computing, for better or worse, this seems to be our only recourse. I'm gonna ask around if they have any Google Glass knockoffs or components handy. [0] - built on the backs of abused and impoverished people, but that's a topic for another day.
DiabloD3 11y ago
Okay, so, silly question time: why can't we just have a Paetron for porn actors and actresses? Cut out all of the middle men, pay them directly?
- laundrysheet 11y ago
  Something like this? http://pledgex.net/ http://pledgex.net/
- kragen 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure there are camgirls who take payment directly, not even including GirlsGoneBitcoin. But the ones I know personally were working more or less as employees of a middleman.
- jenmcewen 11y ago
  Some performers do use Patreon. But if you want to promote your erotic work, Patreon doesn't accept accounts promoting porn with live actors, only drawn art.
  - hugh4 11y ago
    So there's a huge gap in the market for a nsfw patreon? (Porntreon?)
    - jenmcewen 11y ago
      oh yeah, lots of creators use Patreon. Fenoxo, the creator of the text based RPG Trials in Tainted Space (he sells it in MiKandi), uses Patreon and brings in $20K a month. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=121401&u=121401&ty=h https://www.patreon.com/user?u=121401&u=121401&ty=h So far it's a great service for adult art and fiction creators. But as with any mainstream service and adult content, you can't ever be sure how long it'll last. Past experience has shown it's a matter of time before adult gets kicked out of the party. I hope that won't be the case with Patreon.
- lcswi 11y ago
  There are quite a few people on reddit doing direct business
sandworm101 11y ago
Never trust articles about porn. I've never seen one that represented more than a myopic view. It's a very diverse industry. I hope that Kink implodes. That side of the industry started as an almost joke. Bush, pre-911 Bush, talked about going after violent porn. So a couple producers got together and said: "Well, lets give them a target." They had first amendment lawyers primed for battle. Then 9/11, and the feds never showed up. Fast forwards a decade or so, and the violent porn meant to trigger a freedom of speech battle is practically mainstream. Kink.com is now a giant and customers are leaving for content that even Kink wouldn't touch. The old hats are aghast at the beast they've unleashed. I've got clients that come to me when employees are caught downloading things they shouldn't. I'm the guy that has to go through this material and figure out whether anything is illegal, whether we have to bring in the cops. It isn't fun. (But i did once practically fall out of my chair at a client meeting when I was introduced as "the external expert on child porn". I was in fact the guy there to explain that the material wasn't such. The employee was fired, but the police were not involved.)
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Ouch. This job must really suck. Still, you probably have lots of interesting stories and insights to share; I'd love to hear some if you have a moment to tell.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    It isn't my all-day job. I just know a thing or two about filesharing. So people see articles I've written for trade journals and occasionally bring me on board when filesharing is involved. The real question is often whether the sharing has created any potential liability for the company (p2p v cyberlockers etc).
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Kink is actually relatively tame as far as "violent porn" goes. Insex set the standard in hardcore S/M during its day and was actually forced to close over scrutiny from its perceived obscenity. Many modern S/M sites owe their style and aesthetic to Insex's grisliness. Speaking of which, a documentary I'd recommend viewing on the topic is Graphic Sexual Horror. Be sure to watch it during the day. Of course, I'm not counting things like guro, crushing or vore. S/M is a long established subculture, though I suppose the more hardcore stuff is relatively recent in practice. I don't think it should be marginalized in the slightest. It's certainly not a joke, however.
fiatmoney 11y ago
The problem is that with the legalization & wide dissemination of free pornography, the "market" in terms of dedicated commercial potential shrank from anyone with a passing case of onanism to the population of hard-core addicts. Just about all new development is dedicated to better serving that demographic. Sadly for the porn industry in aggregate, that demographic has a very limited total pool of money.
Axsuul 11y ago
It was interesting to see this post on the front page a minute ago and then get pushed to the third page just now. Is this type of content discouraged from being discussed here?
- dang 11y ago
  No, it's not that. HN's software misidentified the thread as a flamewar. It was actually a remarkably substantive, active discussion. We've turned the penalty off.
trhway 11y ago
>“The first fiction ever published on a printing press was an erotic tale. And from there: super 8 film, Polaroid, home video, digital, video on demand—” what do you think these figurines were 20000 years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines "Most of them have small heads, wide hips, and legs that taper to a point. Various figurines exaggerate the abdomen, hips, breasts, thighs, or vulva. In contrast, arms and feet are often absent, and the head is usually small and faceless."
lmm 11y ago
I always felt it was weird that in the west there's this clear sharp line between porn and not, whereas in Japan things seemed a lot more blurred - it was normal for celebrities to become porn stars and vice versa, for game franchises that started as porn to get a cleaned-up Playstation instalment, for manga artists to release unofficial porn versions of their own work. I remember watching the movie Swordfish and being struck by how much the one incongruous topless scene felt like something you'd see in a Japanese work. So maybe we're seeing some kind of convergence?
- beeglebug 11y ago
  > whereas in Japan things seemed a lot more blurred or pixelated
denniskane 11y ago
I've read most of this thread, and have been feeling increasingly more like Nick Cage's character in 8mm as he followed the trail of clues until he finally got to that guy with the heavy accent who put Steve Buscemi into the woodchipper in Fargo. Ugh. Talk about slippery slopes...

125 points by nkurz 11y ago

jenmcewen 11y ago

I was just about to share this. That's my company (and me in 2 of the pictures). Thanks for sharing it.

onedev 11y ago
You should do an AMA here in this thread about the industry! I'll start. What are some common misconceptions about the industry in general and what do you think about the accuracy of the article and how it paints the industry?
- matwood 11y ago
  And to add to that, how accurate was the documentary on Netflix, "Hot Girls Wanted"?
  - jenmcewen 11y ago
    I haven't seen it yet. I find most of these "exposes" into the performer world tend to be biased, but I'll check it out.
- jenmcewen 11y ago
  An AMA sounds fun. :) I think the article covered the misconceptions and the state of the industry pretty well. I think the biggest misconceptions are: 1. No one pays for porn, but we know they do. 2. Selling is a sure-fire way to make a ton of money. It's only sure-fire if you're going to use less than favorable tactics, as with any business. 3. Everyone in porn is a scammer. There are bad apples, but most folks in the adult industry are really great to work with. 4. That porn tube sites are the common enemy. But in many ways it's the big mainstream tech giants that threaten the industry. Take a look at Tumblr. They made it so easy to spread and share pirated content with one click and even if you wanted to claim your content back by adding your affiliate links, they will ban your account and call that "spam".
  - petra 11y ago
    Jen, how do you think the virtual reality porn industry will look like?
timbowhite 11y ago
So I just signed up for a Mikandi account, you know, just to explore a little... A couple of things: 1. I tried buying account credit (aka "Mikandi Gold"), but it wouldn't work, looks like jQuery isn't being loaded, error from console: > ReferenceError: $ is not defined [1] 2. Do you guys accept Bitcoin/cryptocurrency? If not, why? Seems like the perfect venue for it, I would think most geeks wouldn't want those types of purchases tied to their credit card. [1] https://mikandi.com/account/buygold https://mikandi.com/account/buygold
- jenmcewen 11y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. I'll take a look. Most of the activity happens in the Android client, not on the site, so we sometimes don't check the web property as often as we should. We've talked about cryptocurrency but go back and forth on it. Right now, we're mainly focused on streamlining credit card, direct debit, and SMS billing, and carrier where we can get it. We just got approved to use Paypal through Epoch so that's really exciting for us since a lot of people want to buy adult content by Paypal.
anigbrowl 11y ago
Thanks for joining in. How do you feel about the marginalization of porn by the primary platform vendors?
- jenmcewen 11y ago
  it's unethical. I love Android because it's open and am happy that Google kept it that way... to an extent. Some of the things they do are backhanded. For example, there's a strong campaign to condition users to only trust Google for apps. Downloading any third party APK from Chrome brings up a scary warning: https://v5j7s7h5.ssl.hwcdn.net/v2/mkstatic/chrome-warning.png/w:480/h:853/image.png https://v5j7s7h5.ssl.hwcdn.net/v2/mkstatic/chrome-warning.pn... If you do a mobile search for porn apps, half the screen is taken up by anti-porn apps available in Play Store. They campaign that Play is the only legitimate and safe source, but malicious apps find their way in Play too. Instead of lumping all third party sources as "Unknown" and potentially dangerous, there ought to be a way for third parties to earn "Known" status and verified as a trusted source. But I doubt we'll ever get that fair treatment. It's not just Google though, obviously. These tech giants have the opportunity and thus responsibility to make a positive difference here. Instead, by blocking one of our most basic human desires, they often chose to devolve and perpetuate the war on sex. I daydream that, one day, tech giants like Google, Amazon, or Yahoo, or VCs and banks will say, “Let’s open our doors to SexTech companies we can trust.” We try to operate everyday as if this is a possibility, because one day I hope it will be. If you have time to spare, I go into a lot of it here https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/sextech-startups-in-a-hostile-business-world https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/sextech-startups-in-a-ho... There's also a long read on our blog about Operation Choke Point and how the government used banks and credit card companies to take down legal industries they deem immoral https://mikandi.com/blog/featured/guide-to-operation-choke-point/ https://mikandi.com/blog/featured/guide-to-operation-choke-p...
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    Thanks for the comprehensive reply! I'll look through those links tomorrow and may drop you a line. This is a political issue I care deeply about so I'd like to stay in touch.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Hi Jen! I just want to say, it was a nice stunt you did with Google Glass! I think the jokes were even better than the... more explicit part. It was also the first time I heard of MiKandi. Please do something like this with HoloLens as well, such take on up-and-coming technologies is a material for infinite amount of laughter over at watercooler at work.
- jenmcewen 11y ago
  Thanks! We had a ton of fun shooting that. Andy and James ad libbed a lot of it. It was fun to shoot because we had to hide in the back room while they did their thang, otherwise they'd catch us in the Glass footage huddled around the corner laughing. :D The funny thing about shooting Glass POV porn is we thought we could be in the room to help direct, but literally everything you see is recorded, so we were constantly accidentally caught on film. So they kicked us out. :D

nickysielicki 11y ago

> “Anyone can download them. You can. Your kids can. That’s just not a place we want to go.” Steve Jobs was such a piece of work. As if browsers don't exist.

throwaway_exer 11y ago

Jen looks smoking hot in that first photo.

J_Darnley 11y ago

"salaries somewhere in the low six figures" I'm so sorry! At least when the porn industry collapses I will have my stash of torrented porn to rely on. In other news: walled garden are bad for everyone.

yarou 11y ago

Wired really has dropped in quality, publishing articles that state the obvious and do little to advance critical thought. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that the lack of original content has led to content-mill-esque pieces that aren't the least bit provactive or controversial.

visarga 11y ago
I'm wondering why they don't mine reddit threads for ideas and then compile them into articles. I often find the comments much more interesting than the articles, so, if they filtered out good ideas they would have an inexhaustible source.

rickdale 11y ago

Back in the day, when porn was in the big online bubble state, sites would offer over $.50/click to their site. When I first started (ab)using that system, the sites immediately bumped it to $.25/click and then $.10/click, and now I think its like $.000034/click, or basically nothing. They would also give you additional money for actual sign ups, and had a bonus day on every month where you made a significant amount more for sign ups. Ultimately I think I cashed in like $7000 when I was 12 before shit hit the fan and the company my buddy and I were using sent him a check that bounced. It was tough explaining it to our parents, but ultimately everyone knew about alladvantage and we would always say it was something similar to that. We also cashed in on alladvantage, I think it was $20/month just to have the thing on for a few hours. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> AllAdvantage was launched on March 31, 1999, by Jim Jorgensen, Johannes Pohle, Carl Anderson, and Oliver Brock.[2] During its nearly 2 years of operation, it raised nearly $200 Million in venture capital and grew to more than 10 million members in its first 18 months of operation. Holy hell! So that's where those companies had money from. As a kid I always wondered how those bullshit "install our app, get paid for surfing" companies got their money; it turns out they were burning VC funds all along...
yummyfajitas 11y ago
Interestingly, India has several AllAdvantage-like mobile apps. Kids install them and do various tasks (mostly watching ads) and take payment in the form of mobile recharges.
kragen 11y ago
So, it's your fault that porn is free? :) It's interesting that this article touts "Sandvine, the primary source for internet traffic research," without mentioning the company's unethical astroturfing on Glassdoor http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Sandvine-Reviews-E32683.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Sandvine-Reviews-E32683.htm and their criminal past activities disrupting BitTorrent: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/06/21/1814239/sandvine-ceo-says-internet-monitoring-a-necessity http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/06/21/1814239/sandvine-ceo-...

wodenokoto 11y ago

While the little guys aren't making bank anymore, what about the big guys? It's my impression that the pornhub network is quite healthy, financially.

jqm 11y ago
you are talking about the studios not the actors right?
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  I'm talking about companies. I don't know if pornhub counts as a studio.

rdancer 11y ago

The fine article talks about the losers of the trade war. The winners are OK. If you look where the money is, it's with MindGeek (formerly known as Manwin), a company that has through the years bought bought most of the tube/cam sites, owns Brazzers and other content producers. For sure, tired unattractive content won't make it. But then you have the true artists of fucking, like James Deen, Pierre Woodman, and those guys working at Czech AV. They seem to be doing quite well. The innovation in porn, from what I've seen (hehe), is on the personal level, when a performer interacts regularly with viewers through social networks. To successfully provide illusion of intimacy or a relationship is the next frontier in porn, in my humble opinion.

wslh 11y ago
> The innovation in porn, from what I've seen (hehe), is on the personal level. Good point but I think there is room for innovation at the film side. Porn is the most conservative genre: films are cloned with different actors.
- hkmurakami 11y ago
  The film side has innovated in Japan to mimic girlfriend-like settings and interactions to fill the emotional void of young men who feel abandoned by the dating market. Much of anime has followed a similar evolutionary adaptation there.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 11y ago
There was a comment posted here, that sadly got deleted. I think it raises an interesting topic. Let me reproduce it: --- > illusion of intimacy or a relationship Could that lead to sexrobots as a mass market in, say, five years? Or do you think it would go more into the VR direction? Could / should both be merged? Would that be useful? Perhaps AR would be better in that case. Thoughts on that? --- The response I tried to submit when parent got deleted: I think this is the angle that will try and resist automation for a while. The first world is getting somewhat devoid of genuine relationship experiences, and people seek to fill the hole somehow. Or from a more cynical point of view - we're building a superstimulus, where we can provide stronger emotional satisfaction through porn that you could get in a real relationship. Personally I think VR/AR will make a killing much sooner than sexrobots, even assuming that the latter will become popular at all in the coming decades. One of the biggest constraints on... enhancing your sexual experience, if you're young and lonely, is what if your parents/family/friends/current partner discover your sex toys. Hiding sex dolls from them is a significant OPSEC issue. VR/AR will be as easy to hide as video porn today is - the device you're using is a general purpose, you could always say you bought it for World of Warcraft 2 or something. The porn component is just data, which is trivial to hide from less technical friends and family.

mindcrime 11y ago

Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story: VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations. Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens. Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it through official channels and maybe not at all. And it isn't even just about VR... the point is, we, collectively, are losing control of our use of computing and technology. Remember the early 80's, when anybody could buy a handful of 8086 processors, a Phoenix or Award BIOS, some cases, etc., and start pumping out IBM compatible PCs? That was pretty amazing, and arguably led to amazing things. How about the way you could take your PC and install ANY operating system on it: DOS, Xenix, Solaris x86, Windows, OS/2, BeOS, BSD Unix, various flavors of Linux, etc. Great opportunity for invention and creation there... and now? When was the last time you installed a new OS on your smartphone? Your game console? Your VR device? Your smart watch? Etc? Yeah... thought so. Look, I'm not saying anything terribly new here, and I don't claim to be. Cory Doctorow said it all better, and before: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html But we need to take this seriously. I don't want to live in a world where Google, Facebook, IBM, HP, Twitter, Microsoft, EMC, Cisco, Snapchat, etc., decide what content I can consume, what programs I can run, etc. And I doubt most of you do either.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Right this moment I'm sitting in an office in the place that represents our hope, a capital of continued progress[0] - Shenzhen, China. Everything Facebook, Google and Microsoft designs gets built here (or nearby) anyway. China has a... quite healthy attitude towards copyright and trade secrets. That is, they don't give a flying fuck here. There was even a term for that, that eludes me at the moment, which described the idea of "I share my specs today with you, you'll share your specs tomorrow with me". And in the ongoing war on general-purpose computing, for better or worse, this seems to be our only recourse. I'm gonna ask around if they have any Google Glass knockoffs or components handy. [0] - built on the backs of abused and impoverished people, but that's a topic for another day.

DiabloD3 11y ago

Okay, so, silly question time: why can't we just have a Paetron for porn actors and actresses? Cut out all of the middle men, pay them directly?

laundrysheet 11y ago
Something like this? http://pledgex.net/ http://pledgex.net/
kragen 11y ago
I'm pretty sure there are camgirls who take payment directly, not even including GirlsGoneBitcoin. But the ones I know personally were working more or less as employees of a middleman.
jenmcewen 11y ago
Some performers do use Patreon. But if you want to promote your erotic work, Patreon doesn't accept accounts promoting porn with live actors, only drawn art.
- hugh4 11y ago
  So there's a huge gap in the market for a nsfw patreon? (Porntreon?)
  - jenmcewen 11y ago
    oh yeah, lots of creators use Patreon. Fenoxo, the creator of the text based RPG Trials in Tainted Space (he sells it in MiKandi), uses Patreon and brings in $20K a month. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=121401&u=121401&ty=h https://www.patreon.com/user?u=121401&u=121401&ty=h So far it's a great service for adult art and fiction creators. But as with any mainstream service and adult content, you can't ever be sure how long it'll last. Past experience has shown it's a matter of time before adult gets kicked out of the party. I hope that won't be the case with Patreon.
lcswi 11y ago
There are quite a few people on reddit doing direct business

sandworm101 11y ago

Never trust articles about porn. I've never seen one that represented more than a myopic view. It's a very diverse industry. I hope that Kink implodes. That side of the industry started as an almost joke. Bush, pre-911 Bush, talked about going after violent porn. So a couple producers got together and said: "Well, lets give them a target." They had first amendment lawyers primed for battle. Then 9/11, and the feds never showed up. Fast forwards a decade or so, and the violent porn meant to trigger a freedom of speech battle is practically mainstream. Kink.com is now a giant and customers are leaving for content that even Kink wouldn't touch. The old hats are aghast at the beast they've unleashed. I've got clients that come to me when employees are caught downloading things they shouldn't. I'm the guy that has to go through this material and figure out whether anything is illegal, whether we have to bring in the cops. It isn't fun. (But i did once practically fall out of my chair at a client meeting when I was introduced as "the external expert on child porn". I was in fact the guy there to explain that the material wasn't such. The employee was fired, but the police were not involved.)

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Ouch. This job must really suck. Still, you probably have lots of interesting stories and insights to share; I'd love to hear some if you have a moment to tell.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  It isn't my all-day job. I just know a thing or two about filesharing. So people see articles I've written for trade journals and occasionally bring me on board when filesharing is involved. The real question is often whether the sharing has created any potential liability for the company (p2p v cyberlockers etc).
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Kink is actually relatively tame as far as "violent porn" goes. Insex set the standard in hardcore S/M during its day and was actually forced to close over scrutiny from its perceived obscenity. Many modern S/M sites owe their style and aesthetic to Insex's grisliness. Speaking of which, a documentary I'd recommend viewing on the topic is Graphic Sexual Horror. Be sure to watch it during the day. Of course, I'm not counting things like guro, crushing or vore. S/M is a long established subculture, though I suppose the more hardcore stuff is relatively recent in practice. I don't think it should be marginalized in the slightest. It's certainly not a joke, however.

fiatmoney 11y ago

The problem is that with the legalization & wide dissemination of free pornography, the "market" in terms of dedicated commercial potential shrank from anyone with a passing case of onanism to the population of hard-core addicts. Just about all new development is dedicated to better serving that demographic. Sadly for the porn industry in aggregate, that demographic has a very limited total pool of money.

Axsuul 11y ago

It was interesting to see this post on the front page a minute ago and then get pushed to the third page just now. Is this type of content discouraged from being discussed here?

dang 11y ago
No, it's not that. HN's software misidentified the thread as a flamewar. It was actually a remarkably substantive, active discussion. We've turned the penalty off.

trhway 11y ago

>“The first fiction ever published on a printing press was an erotic tale. And from there: super 8 film, Polaroid, home video, digital, video on demand—” what do you think these figurines were 20000 years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines "Most of them have small heads, wide hips, and legs that taper to a point. Various figurines exaggerate the abdomen, hips, breasts, thighs, or vulva. In contrast, arms and feet are often absent, and the head is usually small and faceless."

lmm 11y ago

I always felt it was weird that in the west there's this clear sharp line between porn and not, whereas in Japan things seemed a lot more blurred - it was normal for celebrities to become porn stars and vice versa, for game franchises that started as porn to get a cleaned-up Playstation instalment, for manga artists to release unofficial porn versions of their own work. I remember watching the movie Swordfish and being struck by how much the one incongruous topless scene felt like something you'd see in a Japanese work. So maybe we're seeing some kind of convergence?

beeglebug 11y ago
> whereas in Japan things seemed a lot more blurred or pixelated

denniskane 11y ago

I've read most of this thread, and have been feeling increasingly more like Nick Cage's character in 8mm as he followed the trail of clues until he finally got to that guy with the heavy accent who put Steve Buscemi into the woodchipper in Fargo. Ugh. Talk about slippery slopes...