4 ms·

> but that porn drives consumer adoption of new tech sure. where's the evidence? anything that can serve video can serve porn. where's evidence that porn in pa

> but that porn drives consumer adoption of new tech sure. where's the evidence? anything that can serve video can serve porn. where's evidence that porn in particular is somehow unique? YouTube for example as more active users than all porn sites combined, yet porn is not even available on YouTube. being able to play videos in XR I think will be a real use-case, but this idea that porn in particular is the real usecase is probably wrong, imho. this is not to say that people won't use it for that.

brookst 3y ago
The most dramatic case is older — VHS literally won because of porn. And there was video porn long before YouTube was founded. The claim is that porn drove people to get computers capable of showing video, to buy internet connections fast enough for video, etc. It is not that video sites must serve porn, but that the grassroots interest in porn created the market conditions that made YouTube possible. It’s hard to substantiate because how would you? Other than just having lived through that time and observed (VHS was before my time, but The DVD market was similar). Maybe that era has stopped and horny people are no longer seeking out the newest best way to consume porn, and technology is now pure. I’m just not seeing it, but maybe that’s my cultural bubble.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  why are we discussing 50 year old tech. if porn is so amazing a use case surely there's something in the past 10 years you can point to? also, I looked and did not see anything substantiating your statement that VHS beat betamax because of porn. the reasons I remember and corroborated online were due to longer playback time and cheaper playback devices and more content, which was the result of the cheaper production costs.
  - brookst 3y ago
    I don't know how in the world you got "porn is an amazing use case". I just said it influences purchasing decisions in ways that prepare markets for more mass-market scenarios. I also don't think you looked super hard since a Google search for "betamax vhs porn" turns up nothing but arguments for (and in some cases, against) the proposition.

brookst 3y ago

The most dramatic case is older — VHS literally won because of porn. And there was video porn long before YouTube was founded. The claim is that porn drove people to get computers capable of showing video, to buy internet connections fast enough for video, etc. It is not that video sites must serve porn, but that the grassroots interest in porn created the market conditions that made YouTube possible. It’s hard to substantiate because how would you? Other than just having lived through that time and observed (VHS was before my time, but The DVD market was similar). Maybe that era has stopped and horny people are no longer seeking out the newest best way to consume porn, and technology is now pure. I’m just not seeing it, but maybe that’s my cultural bubble.

endisneigh 3y ago
why are we discussing 50 year old tech. if porn is so amazing a use case surely there's something in the past 10 years you can point to? also, I looked and did not see anything substantiating your statement that VHS beat betamax because of porn. the reasons I remember and corroborated online were due to longer playback time and cheaper playback devices and more content, which was the result of the cheaper production costs.
- brookst 3y ago
  I don't know how in the world you got "porn is an amazing use case". I just said it influences purchasing decisions in ways that prepare markets for more mass-market scenarios. I also don't think you looked super hard since a Google search for "betamax vhs porn" turns up nothing but arguments for (and in some cases, against) the proposition.