The entertainment industry is experiencing a few turbulent days to say the least, faced with the challenge of continuing to adapt to new technologies. Internet is here to stay and it is no longer an experiment in the future, but a reality that completely marks our lives. The brutal change that the arrival of the network of networks has brought to our daily lives has been noticed in everything. Online shopping has made things a lot easier for us. Remote work is now much easier. But above all, the way we communicate, get information and entertain ourselves has also changed. The thing about sitting in front of the TV every night, as a family, waiting to see any series and enduring the commercials already seems like something ancient. Streaming platforms have given us absolute freedom to watch our favorite series whenever and however we want, without imposing impossible schedules or schedules.
Video games are already the most powerful entertainment industry, above movies or music. These two specifically have been fighting against the Internet at first, considering that this tool was against them. They discovered not much later that it was impossible to put doors to the field, and whether they wanted it or not, the Internet was going to keep expanding. That’s why they ended up joining the enemy and looking for a way to use that tool to reach more people. From Napster to Spotify there are barely a decade and a half, but they are totally different realities. As for the cinema, the situation in theaters is increasingly worrying, especially when the films are only a few weeks away on subscription services. There is a lot of debate about how the Internet has changed things, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. We are the generation of immediacy, of wanting everything now, at the moment, and also for free, or at a reasonable price. Before we paid ten euros for tickets. Now, with that money we have a monthly subscription to any streaming service. In the same way, many used to pay to watch porn on the net, or get video tapes or DVDs with their favorite scenes. Has the internet killed paid porn?
We talk about pornography and the Internet as a totally consolidated and, in fact, symbiotic relationship. The internet has completely changed the porn industry, but the thing is that the internet wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for adult movies. Already in the embryonic stage of the network, at the beginning of the 90s, forums on porn cinema and eroticism were very popular. The first images that were digitized were also the photos of erotic magazines. And the same thing happened with the videos. As soon as the internet got speed enough to load larger videos, porn took over. Production companies still distrusted this business, and continued to record films to offer them in physical format. That wouldn’t last too long…
Already in the mid-2000s some platforms began to appear that offered porn videos for free. At that time, it was common for everything on the Internet to be free, from music to movies. The files were digitized and uploaded to the network to be shared on P2P networks, or in different forums. These platforms gained popularity at the end of the decade, as XXX versions of the famous YouTube portal. They were video libraries where users uploaded the scenes they liked the most, even if they didn’t have rights. The porn industry understood that this could be the end of the business and knew how to move quickly. He bought the main portals and turned them into a sampler of scenes that were then complete on their pages, through payment.
However, the free video platforms have really changed the way we understand and, above all, consume porn. Most of them don’t need half an hour or forty minute scenes, just one of ten, or fifteen at the most. Despite not being full scenes, these are very popular among those who don’t want to pay anything to watch porn. They are used as bait to lure users to full videos, which are paid for, but also to attract advertising. The companies that offer banners on these websites usually take into account the type of public that approaches them, and offer interesting earnings. In this way, everything stays at home. The producers own these websites and reach agreements with the others to share the advertising profits. But there is much more, of course.
The digital porn business continues to be sustained by subscriptions and customer payments. Advertising is fine, but it is too variable and fluctuating an income. That is why we must seek that users continue subscribing to paid services, to see the complete material. Upload exclusive scenes to the web, special interviews, extra content… Everything is welcome so that that boy who has seen this or that scene on the free site becomes interested in the producer and end up paying your monthly or yearly subscription. These are usually quite a bit larger than for streaming services, but it is compensated by the number of new scenes that are uploaded.
Of course, the industry has entered a point where it must generate a lot of content for those users. Having it free, albeit cut, on other pages, they must do very well to be worth paying for subscriptions. The scenes are more careful, the production companies are more attentive to what the clients ask for… In short, the aim is to connect much more with the user and offer them what they are looking for, to ensure that porn continues to be profitable >in these times. Sometimes, the simplest is what ends up triumphing, such as webcams or handheld camera scenes without much paraphernalia. But tastes vary too much, and a producer must always be aware of how they change to adapt.
Answering the question that gives the article its title, today porn is still profitable, even in the days of Internet. The easiest way to check is that scenes are still being shot, and the major production companies are still making a lot of money. As much as before? Maybe not, but at least the situation allows them to stay well and keep looking to the future. The industry maintains its foundations but adapts to new technologies, to new options that appear through the network. On the one hand, platforms like Onlyfans, which are showing that the customer pays if necessary for really good content. On the other, virtual reality, sensitive connectivity and the new technologies that are already landing in the world of sex, to take porn to a new level.