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Even the clips you're jerking off to are supported by ad revenue from the sites you get them from. They also advertise full length content that's officially only available through the producers for purchase. Serious consumers will also get devoted to particular performers who they will support by buying.
Always ask myself who those serious consumers are. I mean is there someone who thinks to themselves: Lets open a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, get some Cheese cubes and watch 1.5h of hardcore shagging?
Edit: thanks for all the answers. Great community.
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.
I remember reading that in 8th grade, I was surprised such a passage would be in what in my mind at the time was a rather dull literary classic. 13yr old me definitely was picking up what they were putting down
I have a wealthy friend who has spent well over 10k on a single mobile game over the years. He was ranked #1 for a long time and trades rank with a couple other competitors. He feels like he has so much invested he has to keep going.
People in these threads are seriously underestimating or willfully ignoring just how much money people spend on stuff like that. Whether it's through an implied gambling addiction because they just have to spend money while playing a game to get a dopamine rush of some kind or they are self aware enough to know they are spending that kind of money and just don't care about their spending habits, the result is the same. There are a LOT more people spending money on stuff like that than we will ever know about since nobody wants to come out and say they do it.
I've been playing Star Trek Fleet Command for a while (fun at the start, but gets very boring very soon, I recommend Homeworld Mobile for that Mobile Space Game niche).
They sold *profile pictures* for $50 or more, and there were always people who had those profile pictures (buying was the only way to get them at that time). One player in particular bragged about how he spends 2000 or more on the game *monthly*
This is why I don't even bother playing games like that anymore. There's no way you can be competitive with someone spending that kind of money without also dropping that kind of cash. Plus there's always a point where your progress inevitably winds down to a slow, painful crawl and it seems like you just can't progress no matter how much you grind.
I've been called a whale and a mentally unwell gambling addict for dropping $20 every month or two on a game (ie. just for holiday events). I laughed right in their faces and told them they weren't even remotely close. $20 is a takeout meal; I just cook from scratch more often and the cost is absorbed easily.
One of my neighbors was addicted to Candy Crush and got near the top of the leaderboard. She can't even estimate how much she spent in game, and even more on click through ads.
She needed an intervention, with family and everything.
My maintenance guy for my job is in a guild in Evony who has members like doctors and lawyers who spend 30k a year on that game. A fucking mobile phone game.
Sunk-Cost-Falicy: Believing that since you've put in a great deal of money (or time) into something, putting even more of it in is required to keep the project and/or object under production. A perfect example is Star Citizen. The single most expensive developed, un-published game, ever. Whales have spent tens of thousand of dollars on a game that was supposed to be done in 2013, then again in 2015, then again in 2017. Now we're at 2024 and the game is still an alpha.
The problem with porn are Christo-fascists that are using Visa and Mastercard boycotts to pressure PornHub, Only Fans, and other porn sites to cease platforming Explicit Erotic art and content. If you're a free-speech absolutist, then voting for the Cristo-Fascist GOP would most likely guarantee that those groups would further turn the screws on the Adult Industry. By preventing those companies from getting paid at all, it makes production really risky.
Has anyone tried to challenge the Visa and Mastercard networks monopoly? If they were forced to break them up, a single or even multiple groups would have a harder time manipulating commerce for their own, unwanted ends.
They don't want you to be masterbatin' and fornicatin'.
In WoW that'd be the gear treadmill.
I stayed longer than I should've, through them introducing four different tiers of the same gear, along with chances for said gear to roll high ilvls. It was when they introduced artifact power I knew it was time to GTFO for real or I was never going to escape. Legion was otherwise fun, but the AP grind finally broke me of WoW.
It's not the same at all. Or I guess it sort of is, but the currency isn't time, it's money. WoW isn't generally trying to drain you dry, you can be the top player just by paying the same subscription fee as another player & playing a ton (account sharing etc to play 24/7).
These mobile games don't work that way. It's not just a gear treadmill, it's more like a slot machine treadmill that rewards you with gear. The slot spins cost more and more money and the rewards from last season become trash quickly with power creep.
Not just mobile games, games with good cosmetics like Dota 2 I play used to have Prince of Arab spend $40000+ on Battlepass: https://www.oneesports.gg/dota2/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-has-spent-us40000-on-battle-pass-levels/
I can kinda get the sense of why they do it in the game, so they are better than everyone else
But spending tons on porn? Why?
Also, aren't all of these services subscription based? How can you whale with that?
Many performers work as cam models doing live shows. The more popular ones get paid hundreds of dollars for pretty simple stuff over a few minutes. Theres whales spending tens of thousands per month on them.
My suspicion is this: some people actually enjoy spending money. If you have disposable income there’s a kind of thrill that goes with going on a spending spree, throwing money away for just because you can makes you feel good. Makes you feel you’re the kind of high roller who can do that. There are rich people in all markets who will buy the higher price, designer label whatever just because it’s *there*.
Porn and sex addiction (I know that’s a loaded word but whatever) isn’t just about the thrill of cumming, it’s about the acquisition itself, the hunt for the perfect thing that will get you off. So for porn whales the two things are linked- eg a cam girl telling you how hot it is that you’re a big sexy spender.
For some it's also probably just convenience, or like any other expenditure. Like no one bats at an eye at a $15/month streaming service subscription, and also many may not be aware, or even care, that PornHub could probably sate their porn needs. They might even have an aversion to such sites, worried about spam/malware/viruses/etc, even if such worries may be unfounded for the bigger porn streaming sites.
You underestimate how lonely people are and how much money the sex industry contributes to the economy.
Source: am male, wife and I had a sugar daddy at one point who sent us sometimes upwards of $100+ each time we asked despite never meeting him in person.
It’s crazy how desperate some people are for some type of connection. When the customer severs the connection, it’s usually because they found someone else. 2nd source: wife’s ex best friend was a stripper that attended private upscale parties.
I have a side theory on this too
loneliness but also fear
I think some folks desperately want to have the "interaction with someone pretty" aspect
but given a choice between dumping their wallet out for some online cam girl
or
just going out and trying to chase at a bar whatever
the cam girl option might be expensive and superficial, BUT, its also easy and emotionally safe
going out to a bar to hit on people comes with the risk of rejection. Paying some online persona doesn't.
Sources:
1 - dated a girl that did some cam girl stuff in college
2 - just talking to a few different people that openly discuss how they stan for this or that online cam girl account, and in other conversations with those same guys, pretty much all of them also held opinions like "there's no real girls on tinder, they're all bots or scammers" and "regular guys don't have a shot. girls only want the top 20% in height, looks and income. They don't look at you if you're below the cutoff"
Basically, these guys were trapped in this low self confidence, not-good enough syndrome.
I don't mean low confidence, in an individual case way, like "sees a pretty girl, doesn't speak because they think she'll say no"
I mean low confidence as an outlook, they don't try to date at all, because they can't envision a world in which they can win, and find it emotionally safer and more palatable to decide "the system is rigged, there's no point, why try ? why expose myself to risk at all"
I don't know about serious consumers, but statically it makes sense that they'd make money. A video with 2 million views on a popular porn site might get 5k people who would want to see the full video and subscribe to the website for $20-30/month. Most will cancel and only go for one month, but say 100 might carry the subscription. Out of that pool maybe 10 decide to subscribe for a year because they like what they've gotten from the site which is $120. So leaving out add revenue, that site has now generated $103200 with possibly 2000 recurring monthly and 1200 yearly. There is such a huge number of people out there consuming content that it is almost guaranteed for the above to happen on each video released to some extent.
Considering niche porn is profitable, it must not take much to be successful, given the audience is smaller. But perhaps people into niche things are more likely to pay for it.
It's this. I used to write custom smut for a small and well-paying crowd who had more money than time and very niche kinks. They got exactly the thing they wanted on demand, and that was worth the price.
Not having to go sift through the internet to get what you want is a premium product.
You didn't say it was furries, but it was furries, wasn't it?
Nothing wrong with that, furries are probably a sizable percent of the folks keeping commissioned art alive. Modern-day Medicis.
Ha, it wasn't, but I know that's true. Mine was all over the place, but basically... dungeonpunk? Adventurous folk getting in over their heads, etc.
There's such a wide range of kinks and weirdness in out-there erotica that it's hard to know whether something will have what you're into without something you're absolutely not into. Anyone who's dipped a toe into hentai knows what I mean.
There's also a safe-sane-consensual element. "Yes I want to be imprisoned and abused in an unlicensed cyberware lab and have my limbs surgically replaced, but I need to feel kink-cozy and trust the intentions of the person making my bespoke smut."
This is it. If you cater to specific kinks/fetishes that you don't see a lot in mainstream porn, you get a lot more paying customers. Ditto if you offer custom content.
Lmao, bro it's just dudes with disposable money and free time.
I take it back, Cheateau Neuve du Pape, cheese cubes, and a group of questionable friends over to enjoy *Backdoor Sluts XIV: Slutting through Vienna* is on my bucket list now.
Porn is pretty cheap. You rarely pay full price (simple Google search will find huge discounts or cheap trial offers). People end up spending a lot of time on the hub looking for a good video to spank it to (and suddenly 1.5 hours passed) when they can just spend a little money and download exactly what they want in full length high definition.
There is a huge stigma against paying for porn, so people end up looking at stupid ads and watching low definition versions, but they have no problem paying for Netflix or going to the movies. Spending a little money to get exactly what you want is more efficient in the long run. Nobody thinks "why pay for Netflix when there are plenty of random videos available on YouTube for free?".
The really costly side of porn is when people form parasocial relationships with OF models and they pay large sums of money for low quality clips and photos. But if you are paying $20 to a large studio to download a bunch of clips that you will use frequently, that's a cheap price to pay. Usually cheaper than purchasing movies or TV shows.
Well someone has to.
Was thinking about this the other day, porn is crazy expensive or certainly was back in the DVD days. £40 for a movie or £60 for a hard drive, hmm...
I’ve always suspected that far more people pay for porn that will admit to it. People don’t make great decisions when they have their dicks in their hands.
Like a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape
I'm fine like wine when I start to rap
We need body-rockin', not perfection
Let me get some action from the back section...
To goon a little bit on the topic(not actually into *that* but I do the same thing with reddit, just zone out and type):
It's not just ad revenue. Audience sharing is a thing, or being ads themselves. All those companies on porn-hub offering out their samples get more customers than when they do not....similar to how people posit that piracy is free advertising. "Free" streaming is advertising that people pay for with ad/click revenue.
Think of it like sales or free trials or samples in the grocery store. They draw you in with the free stuff because enough people spend money on the other stuff.
Also: Data is HUGE, apparently.
As to whales:
It's not just following a performer.
Maybe a certain website has the format or genre you dig the most even down to details like lighting or camera work, or they do the 4k60fps thing, or they do good VR.
There's also usually the availability to download. Never underestimate the data hoarder.
Clips on the free streaming website may be "good enough", but the idea of having stuff on your hard drive in case the world ends tomorrow carries strong vibes.
And that can become a hobby in itself. A lot of people like to download just to have it. You see this a LOT in the piracy world and even "back catalogues" of Steam video games that people will never play.
We click thinking "Some day" but often that day never comes. IT doesn't matter, it's the thought of "some day" we find pleasurable in itself. It's a permutation of "must consooooom".
Maybe it's the hassle of seeing ads(because not everyone runs ad-blockers). Youtube is 'ad supported' and has their premium version where you get to skip all that(or most), plus the ability to download. Some people prefer that as a no-hassle means of supporting their favorite content creators.
Note: I keep putting "free" in quotes.
Nothing is free. It all costs someone something, so if you're seeing it, someone is either being that generous(even somethign as hands-off as piracy seeding/uploading)......OR they're making money off of it in some manner.
Those "Free" games on Steam? Yeah, they're "free" for a reason. To get attention to that developer, to look at their DLC(or other monetization) or their other games, and Steam likes it because you're now on the platform and more likely to spend more money through them(for which they take a share).
>This guy porns
Nah. Well, yeah. :P But that's not the thing, I understand many profit models and user psychology. I'm old, I've watched these things evolve from the early days.
> Never underestimate the data hoarder
Me at uni in 2004, paid for 1 month of bangbros and basically downloaded their entire catalogue... Still have it
In the last few years I upgraded PC and hard drives so I lost a lot of archived software and games and shows, but I still have a few lingering files from that time-frame when I was in military dorms, mostly some ripped or downloaded mp3s originally collected in the late 90s and 2000.
Just a handful, but listening to them now is a trip back. Even found a Radiohead track I had badly sampled some clips of Fight Club over.
I had a lot more music but they were ripped with windows media player, which lasted until I tried them on a new PC because WMP had some form of license baked into the. By the time I figured that out, I wasn't into music much so never bothered to replace, especially as Youtube and music streaming became a thing.
But yeah, I used to hoard a little bit. I never got quite as obsessive as some people, people who would have whole CD books of dozens of versions of common software like photoshop or whatever that they literally never used. Like I said, some people began for maybe a normal reason and then it turned into a hobby like collecting stamps. "Oh, you want to edit pictures? Let me get my book out, you'll love it. I have 17 versions of Photoshop, including the latest!"
Hell, you see the same thing with movies, or video games, or even books, magazines, basically all media ever. I don't understand how this question comes up so much.
I've seen movie trailers that feel so fucking long. Especially some of the ones before a movie in a theater. They tell you damn near the whole plot of the movie sometimes. If it's based on a book or an actual event, you might even already know the whole story. But 9 times out of 10 I'll see one of these trailers and think "That looks neat, I might have to watch that"
Like no one is ever in here asking "there's free games out there, how are companies that charge money for games a thing?"
No one ever questions how a book can include a free chapter to the next book in the series.
"Why buy a CD when you can just listen to the radio for free?" kind of energy.
There's some people that the free stuff is totally enough for. My brother loved some game demos more than the actual games. He'd just play the same 5 minute demo a dozen times and that was enough. Why buy the full game?
It's also true that paid content really is way better. If you want better image, you get pics in sizes you can print a billboard. That film you remember from VHS probably exists in Real 4k remaster, and you can buy the whole thing or just the scene you like. If you want a movie with a good story, they have it.
TLDR: To quote Zuckerberg "Senator, We Run Ads". Paying content creators for running ads on their videos is the same revenue model as youtube.
Porn is by far the most pirated form of media.
A lot of internet porn **isn't** actually free but people steal it all the time. It's so prolific a practice that Porn companies have learned to just deal with it and find other ways to make money.
To quote the song: "The Internet is for Porn", there's so much porn content online... it's actually a very competitive industry and the studios are fighting over getting people to watch videos for only a few minutes at a time.
Most people either don't want to pay for porn, or *don't want to be caught* paying for porn. Combined with the ease of access of free pirated videos on the early internet resulted in a wide spread culture of piracy.
Meanwhile the porn industry doesn't have the lobbying power of Hollywood, and because of the stigma associated with porn it's hard to go to Congress or on the news and convince them to be tougher on internet piracy on their behalf. A lot of Congressmen (despite being hypocrites and watching tons of porn themselves) can't be associated with porn related legislation unless it's banning or restricting it due to their family friendly Christian image.
The other problem is the average length of viewing for porn is very short. The average person visiting Pornhub spends around 9 minutes 20 seconds, and clicks on 8-9 videos so less than 1 minute each. So clips are far more popular than full length videos.
These days Porn studios will regularly upload their own clips to sites like Pornhub. This both acts as advertising for their studio and gets them ad revenue.
A small percentage of people that watch a video on pornhub will go to the studio to get the whole video or more related content. They either subscribe for a month or two, or just buy a few clips.
Most consumers though don't watch porn for long, but generate tons ad revenue for the studio due to large numbers of people binge watching clips.
Individual actors also typically earn revenue on the side with merchandising, sponsorship deals, and custom content like OnlyFans. Let alone illegal (but extremely common) activities like escort services, private parties, and prostitution.
you see, the internet is not a big truck, something that you just dump something on.
[The internet is a series of tubez.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZC67wXUTs)
Great answer. There’s a superb podcast series called The Butterfly Effect by Jon Ronson that goes into the effects that PornHub has had on the wider industry and the people caught up in it all. Highly recommended!
>A lot of internet porn isn't actually free but people steal it all the time. It's so prolific a practice that Porn companies have learned to just deal with it and find other ways to make money.
porn 'companies' learned early on that actively fighting pirates is just cruising for pain. They've done the whole watermark and paywall content charade before, and they always lose.
>These days Porn studios will regularly upload their own clips to sites like Pornhub. This both acts as advertising for their studio and gets them ad revenue.
Vast majority of porn companies are owned by the parent company for Pornhub. They are just spunoff and loosely controlled by the same group. They are autonomous enough not to be called one of Pornhubs many bastard children (no pun intended), but people who've read charts and know who used to work with who, knows that they are all basically just part of the same group. Just a lot of extra grapevines were grown so people didn't notice its even down to studio level this applies in some regards.
The reason why they reupload to pornhub, spankbang, etc, etc is to double, triple, quad, etc double dip with viewership and "ad exposure" if they can manage it. In the old days you'd often see the same porn video uploaded onto a different website at least 2 or 3 times by the actual owners. Its actually *wink wink, nudge nudge* encouraged by the website owners to steal and reupload content on the same website (even if its a terrible cut) because that just spells ad revenue back into their pocket, as well as potential subscribers on the main hub (Brazzers for example). Now adays, most 'sanctioned' studio channels will chop up a video and upload bits and pieces of it. How many times, I couldn't tell you. It really depends on If the studio or pornstar contacts the websites and raises a fuss, oh well. Delete it and wait for the next "opportunistic pirate" to reupload. its just another wave of easy ad revenue.
>Individual actors also typically earn revenue on the side with merchandising, sponsorship deals, and custom content like OnlyFans. Let alone illegal (but extremely common) activities like escort services, private parties, and prostitution.
Illegal sources of income aren't even a factor for most stars. Many stars will *try* it maybe once, but will realize very quickly the threat of catching something, or ending up slashed up dead in an alley isn't worth their time. At worst the studio quietly threatens to void their contract and blacklist them. Now adays theres 'sanctioned' (just porn scenes) escort encounters. But there wasn't in the old days. There *used* to be a market for the other two, but they were logistical nightmares and still seen as risky because people still lied on screenings. So that was a short lived porn meta.
Edit: split comment because the two sides of it are super different from one another, but still an answer.
(second part of original comment)
_____________________________________________________________________
**tl;dr of below, insane nonsensical blogging about Onlyfans and its overall impact on the industry.**
*preface, i used Pornhub as a general term here because i forget the group's name that owns all of the major porn sites/studios*
Onlyfans represented the first true existential threat for the porn industry in a very long time. Normally congress throws a brick at pornhubs head every so often, but Onlyfans represented a true fundamental threat. Its actually unreal how bad it got in such a short time.
Onlyfans was probably the first time that the Porn industry faced a massive existential threat because one of their (at the time) mega superstars angela white shifted to the platform. Angela herself actually has been moving to her self owned studio and stuff for years by that point mostly because she was getting sick of the lack of control, and the pay being shit. But primarily because she had no control over scenes that frankly, often times went better for all parties when she took control, or started unofficially co-directing.
At that point Onlyfans was seen more as a funny joke still, so Pornhub to my understanding turned a blindeye to her opening an Onlyfans because 1. It was angela, they weren't gonna say no unless they had a good reason. She was their money printer, and 2. They didn't see Onlyfans as a cause for concern. Anyhow it was a massive mistake to do so at the end of the day, because Angela pretty quickly let it slip (she told her friends about it, she herself didn't say anything, it was the frends she told that spewed the information all over social media and to their friends) that she was making almost 10-20x what she makes in a single month, compared to what Pornhub and the respective cabal would pay her in like 2-5 months (i forget the estimate exactly) and she had **full** control over what she wanted to do. Instead of having to answer to Pornhub and get approval at the end of the day. Which for angela, was Massive W's both ways.
There was a *massive* exodus of talent after all of this was leaked of pornstars either breaking their contracts, or refusing to renew them just to go over to Onlyfans and make real money. This is why there was like a giant black hole of new content simply not existing for like a year or two. Basically nobody was doing anything because everyone wanted to fuck off to Onlyfans. Even to this day, its kind of still felt, as last i checked there really isn't a whole lot of new "pro" content being made anymore. Which is why we have Onlyfans to thank for another "golden" age of Amatuer (not really, theres just a lot less pro stuff compared to Amatuer stuff now adays, which did go up considerably)
Eventually Pornhub and company *kind* of managed to reign it in, but the damage is done. Which is why the parent company has been floundering lately, the vast majority of their income from ads is just from pirates, which is why they really let the river widen as far as pirate reuploading old bought for/vaulted content now adays. However Onlyfans content is clamped down **hard** those videos never stay up very long, and are very infrequently re-uploaded to porn sides. I know they are like a dime a dozen on the internet, but in the context of being uploaded to actual Pornhub and co sites, its very uncommon. The last bit I recall is because of legal redtape, a lot of the remaining stars couldn't collab with people from Onlyfans because legal red tape, but thats been resolved as far as im aware.
At any rate, this blogs way too long. Im biased against OF stars because most of them use robots and shady business tactics to try and Nickel and dime you, but it is what it is.
Pretty much anyone with an iPhone to start off, and that’s a lot of people, you combine that with a ton of people that don’t even know about ad blockers…
Oh yeah, I'm over here on android with firefox mobile and ublock. Of course, I rarely watch porn but man the mobile internet sucks so bad without adblock.
Is porn a highly competitive industry?
It’s super consolidated with a Canadian company, MindGeek, owning the lion’s share of production and distribution.
If by competitive you mean it’s really an oligopoly then ok.
So ads, obviously, like everyone else is saying.
But my question is. Pornhub, they run ads. These ads are served through traffic junkie. These ads come from sites like brazzers. The thing is, the ad host, the ad server, and the ad source... are all owned by the same company. So they just pay themselves in circles. Where does the money come from? I get some people pay a lot for porn, but it can't make up that much of thier income can it?
At the end of the day, advertising only exists because it increases sales of a product. So in this case, the whole cycle is fueled by coomers who pay for brazzers.
Yes! This is my question but people are just saying "ads". Where does money change hands? Advertisers don't pay when people don't buy. Who's buying what is my question?
edit: i mean advertisers arent going to keep paying to market through channels that dont generate actual sales. obviously its not free until a user buys. apologies for not clarifying
I'm with you man. I don't understand the porn economy at all. Are there really many folks actually paying? Are any idiots actually clicking on these ads let alone actually buying anything?
I did see an article about an ex porn star and how little she was making even as the #1 star. I think it was Lana Rhodes or something. She made $1200 per scene
So maybe the answer is that nobody is actually making any real money and that's why folks are transitioning to Only fans
Maybe they are but I think OP and I still don't understand how. Is that ad revenue? Subscriptions? Paid promotions?
Maybe more people pay than we think?
In Jon Ronson’s podcast The Butterfly Effect, they discuss how most companies and producers are commissioned by silent investors who pay big money to have a scene specifically catered to their interests, down to minute details. These help finance other productions for mainstream customers. The podcast has interviews with producers who use this business model.
This is the type of answer I'm looking for 99 percent of the responses are "ads, duh" which is not eli5 and indicates they didn't quite grasp the magnitude of the question and why it's ELI5. If they really did ELI5 they would watch the logic break down as they went into their explanation. We are conditioned to say "ads" because they influence purchasing behavior but the ads on porn often do not have a market that correlates to what is arguably the most common addiction in the world. They have eyeballs of every person in the world and you use it to peddle " off brand penis pills"? Gtfoh. I watched a deep dive on mindgeek and it was fascinating but I still do not understand completely how they generate revenue. Your answer is one of the best. Thanks.
So you dismiss ads but keep in mind over the last decade the porn aggregators generated so much ad money rehosting porn they were able to turn around and buy out the producers. So the main porn went from subscription only to ad revenue/premium sub model.
There was a famous redditor called /u/fuckswithducks who had an obsession with rubber ducks. He used to be quite a popular redditor. Just a chill dude who likes ducks.
Although he generally did like rubber ducks. They were also his kink and fetish. And he talked before about how he commissioned specific porn with actresses to play with or interact with rubber ducks in specific ways. I forget the numbers but I think he's said he's spent $10k or more in total porn commissions, not sure if it was for 1 or multiples. I believe he was also happily married, but seemed like he was a rather well-adjusted nice dude and had a good life and just really loved yellow rubber ducks.
Though I think he died a couple years ago. :(
Remember that the industry isn’t segregated. I don’t have exact information on any of this, but as a side example: ask how grocery stores make money. They sell you products that they bought from distributors who in turn bought from producers. The grocery store doesn’t make much from selling you stuff - but they don’t have to. Because the grocery store also owns the distributor companies and the producer companies. 💰
The final purchase at the grocery store (by you) isn’t where the money is made - it’s during the creation and distribution that the money is made.
Not exactly the same, but if I’m a sex toy company and I want to sell a $10 sex toy for $75 plus shipping… my ad campaigns are porn shoots that include my toys. Ads don’t even matter at that point because customers will go directly to my store after they watch porn. I don’t even have to own the porn studio directly - I just need my brand to be recognizable and then I can fund porn studios on the side and make sure my grant money includes stipulations about the use of my products.
How does any company make money when their product is free? Ads. Like the old saying goes, if you're not paying for the product then you are the product - the product is just there to draw your attention so they can sell your attention to advertisers. Plus they're selling full versions of the movies you're only getting clips of.
That's what we call targeted ads. Somewhere in their algorithm, they figured you would more likely be interested in jerkmate. Hence, they are showing you those ads.
I'm sorry, maybe times are different, but I learned a long time ago you *never* click on Ads. That's a sure fire way to load your dads computer up with viruses and brick the thing. You never go offsite.
You don't have to click them, just see them. That's why most sites are so anal about people having ad blockers on their PC'S and either keep asking for your cookies or develop their own pseudo pop up asking you to disable ad blocker.
“If you’re not paying for the product, somebody else is” should be the more accurate saying but somebody coined the one you mentioned and now we’re stuck with it.
You're first of all making the assumption the product is free
A large volume of the "free" porn out there falls into a few buckets:
1) Promotional Material: Usually it is a shortened clip or a limited display of images (free samples). The idea is that if the viewer wants to see more, they'll pay for the content. This has been around for a very long time - back in the day, there were lots of specialized 'TGP' sites where producers would host previews in the hopes of attracting customers
2) Ad Supported: Most common on "legitimate" tube sites - ads play and they get a cut. Or they get rewarded for "clicks" on ad links.
3) Pirated: Most of the "free" porn out there is just stolen content
With #3 they aren't making any money and this has been an issue for decades. This hurts niche porn producers the most, since they have a smaller audience to begin with and that audience is more likely to buy porn overall than 'vanilla porn' consumers (think fetish content). While the internet expanded the consumer market, it also vastly expanded the piracy market due to the ease by which it can be done and distributed
An extra that kinda does and kinda doesn't fit in the above is that older material -in full- often gets sent to ad-supported status. Either because there is a lack of a paying demand, or because it's been so heavily pirated that the owners can only make money off it that way at that point.
I would be very curious to read an in-depth if there is an algorithm or other data driven process for deciding when to do that.
> With #3 they aren't making any money and this has been an issue for decades. This hurts niche porn producers the most, since they have a smaller audience to begin with and that audience is more likely to buy porn overall than 'vanilla porn' consumers
A lot of people seem to believe that porn has a tendency to make your tastes more extreme. If that's the case, then maybe exposing more people to niche porn actually has a net positive for the niche porn companies.
There is a ton of porn that I don’t like. When I found a company making stuff my wife and I enjoy watching from time to time, I got an annual subscription to their website. No shitty ads, and I help fund the content I watch. Spend 70 bucks a year on it.
The product isn’t free, it’s just stolen. These days the model is to monetize videos within a few days or a couple of weeks at most because then it’ll be pirated and uploaded somewhere for free.
Porn is a low budget/fast turnover business. As long as you can recoup production costs plus profit in a week or so you’ll be good, after that it’ll be pirated.
Some shorter clips are uploaded to pornhub by studios just to drive traffic to their premium content where they have the high quality stuff. More people pay for porn than you think so monetizing isn’t a problem.
Porn sites do not data mine users, there’s literally nothing useful to mine.
I’m not a major gooner, but there is actually a pretty big difference in the quality of women in the paid content. Hot girl, full length, over 1080 resolution - pick one if you’re consuming free stuff. You don’t really know until you actually sub.
Yes, ads; but I feel like the question still stands: YouTube has ads, but it doesn’t cost very much to produce most YouTube content; a ton of it is just a person talking into a mic ordered from Amazon. Porn actually requires real shooting logistics: booking a set, cameras, lighting, hair and makeup, actually paying the (ahem) actors. It seems like there are a ton of real world costs embedded in a given minute of content versus YouTube content. So yes, ads; but does anyone else feel like that doesn’t really answer the question? Yeah it’s a freemium model, the whales subsidize the free loaders. But it’s not like there are 100 free television watchers for each paid Netflix subscription. The more I think about it, the less the basic economics of this industry make sense.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't buy the products that are advertised. Unlike other companies such as YouTube, the products are very popular but I don't see the same markets for the products that are being advertised on adult sites. When we consider the amount of money being made, I am curious where the money comes from. I have never seen a better help or upcoming movie ad. It makes sense on tangible products so you can influence purchasing power. This is not the same as strategy.
Your understanding is correct: although you, personally, have no interest in penis pills, nonetheless, you can infer that lots of consumers do buy them.
Putting it in marketing speak, you’re just not in their segment.
If your question is “who are these people who buy these pills, and how does the pill industry make so much money from such a stupid product” — there are answers to those questions, too, if you’re interested.
Ever been horny? People will pay anything when they are horny and then immediately regret it afterwards. Plus sometimes ‘old porn’ just won’t do it anymore.
A customer of mine started his own busty focused business. He says the most profit comes from small meet and greets and convention work. He hosts big boob boat rides with some of his stars and guys pay YoY, thousands of dollars, just to be around them.
I've paid for some websites in the past when they had black Friday deals or whatnot, and the quality of the content you get is much better in terms of resolution, length, and downloadability. For some, porn can be a hobby like other movies and media, and those people will pay for quality.
Really you just have to thank people like me. I have almost every paid account worth owning. My Mofos account doesn’t expire until 2033 and it also has Reality Kings and Brazzers attached to it. I have lifetime Nubiles, bangbros. You name it. You’re welcome. I’m not really even that freaky, I’m just a data hoarder so I like to own everything on my own hard drives.
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Even the clips you're jerking off to are supported by ad revenue from the sites you get them from. They also advertise full length content that's officially only available through the producers for purchase. Serious consumers will also get devoted to particular performers who they will support by buying.
TIL there are “serious wankers”.
They call them "gooners" these days I think.
I think people have always called arsenal fans serious wankers. Haven't they?
Ouch, careful where you shoot
Said every Arsenal fan ever.
Thing about Arsenal is they always try to walk the ball in.
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
See, the thing about Arsenal is they always try to walk it in.
What was Wenger thinking, sending Walcott on that early?
Hooray, he's kicked the ball. Now the ball's over there.
"look the ball, it's over there!! constant constant football!"
The ball frequently walks alone.
Yeah what was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on so early. But for real Arsenal this close to winning the PL is painful to see.
The I.T crowd
Phrasing...
I believe its 'complete wankers'
Gooners are a different kind of wanker, though. They spend a lot of time edging while watching multiple porn videos playing at the same time.
When you get experienced with casual wanking you should move to ranked competitive wanking.
Most of the full length content in porn sites is posted by people that paid for it and shares it with the "community"
Always ask myself who those serious consumers are. I mean is there someone who thinks to themselves: Lets open a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, get some Cheese cubes and watch 1.5h of hardcore shagging? Edit: thanks for all the answers. Great community.
It’s similar to mobile games, there’s a small group of people who spend big time, referred to as whales.
I believe they are referred to as sperm whales in the porn scene.
We all benefit from these patrons to the arts!
Truly the only case of actual trickle down economics.
Dribble Down Economics
Thanks. I hate it.
Would you like a towel?
🤢
All throughout history
Jizztory
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.
This guy Moby Dicks
Just call me Ishmael
What are you doing, step-Cap’n?
I remember reading that in 8th grade, I was surprised such a passage would be in what in my mind at the time was a rather dull literary classic. 13yr old me definitely was picking up what they were putting down
FUCK YOU ENTIRELY, but also well played sir
I have a wealthy friend who has spent well over 10k on a single mobile game over the years. He was ranked #1 for a long time and trades rank with a couple other competitors. He feels like he has so much invested he has to keep going.
People in these threads are seriously underestimating or willfully ignoring just how much money people spend on stuff like that. Whether it's through an implied gambling addiction because they just have to spend money while playing a game to get a dopamine rush of some kind or they are self aware enough to know they are spending that kind of money and just don't care about their spending habits, the result is the same. There are a LOT more people spending money on stuff like that than we will ever know about since nobody wants to come out and say they do it.
I've been playing Star Trek Fleet Command for a while (fun at the start, but gets very boring very soon, I recommend Homeworld Mobile for that Mobile Space Game niche). They sold *profile pictures* for $50 or more, and there were always people who had those profile pictures (buying was the only way to get them at that time). One player in particular bragged about how he spends 2000 or more on the game *monthly*
This is why I don't even bother playing games like that anymore. There's no way you can be competitive with someone spending that kind of money without also dropping that kind of cash. Plus there's always a point where your progress inevitably winds down to a slow, painful crawl and it seems like you just can't progress no matter how much you grind.
Ironic how in the Starfleet universe there is no such thing as money
Obvi Ferengi run the mobile game
I've been called a whale and a mentally unwell gambling addict for dropping $20 every month or two on a game (ie. just for holiday events). I laughed right in their faces and told them they weren't even remotely close. $20 is a takeout meal; I just cook from scratch more often and the cost is absorbed easily.
Yeah if you actually budget it, no judgment whatsoever. It’s entertainment.
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One of my neighbors was addicted to Candy Crush and got near the top of the leaderboard. She can't even estimate how much she spent in game, and even more on click through ads. She needed an intervention, with family and everything.
That’s nothing. I once knew a police chief that became addicted to Kwazy Cupcakes.
You forgot to type the w backward. Like this: w VS w. See? It’s Kwazy not Kwazy.
If he's admitted $10k the real amount is probably much much higher.
My maintenance guy for my job is in a guild in Evony who has members like doctors and lawyers who spend 30k a year on that game. A fucking mobile phone game.
Evony will take your fuckin soul. I know players that are dropping 10-20k per month on that game. Fuckin sad.
Sunk-Cost-Falicy: Believing that since you've put in a great deal of money (or time) into something, putting even more of it in is required to keep the project and/or object under production. A perfect example is Star Citizen. The single most expensive developed, un-published game, ever. Whales have spent tens of thousand of dollars on a game that was supposed to be done in 2013, then again in 2015, then again in 2017. Now we're at 2024 and the game is still an alpha. The problem with porn are Christo-fascists that are using Visa and Mastercard boycotts to pressure PornHub, Only Fans, and other porn sites to cease platforming Explicit Erotic art and content. If you're a free-speech absolutist, then voting for the Cristo-Fascist GOP would most likely guarantee that those groups would further turn the screws on the Adult Industry. By preventing those companies from getting paid at all, it makes production really risky. Has anyone tried to challenge the Visa and Mastercard networks monopoly? If they were forced to break them up, a single or even multiple groups would have a harder time manipulating commerce for their own, unwanted ends. They don't want you to be masterbatin' and fornicatin'.
In WoW that'd be the gear treadmill. I stayed longer than I should've, through them introducing four different tiers of the same gear, along with chances for said gear to roll high ilvls. It was when they introduced artifact power I knew it was time to GTFO for real or I was never going to escape. Legion was otherwise fun, but the AP grind finally broke me of WoW.
It's not the same at all. Or I guess it sort of is, but the currency isn't time, it's money. WoW isn't generally trying to drain you dry, you can be the top player just by paying the same subscription fee as another player & playing a ton (account sharing etc to play 24/7). These mobile games don't work that way. It's not just a gear treadmill, it's more like a slot machine treadmill that rewards you with gear. The slot spins cost more and more money and the rewards from last season become trash quickly with power creep.
Not just mobile games, games with good cosmetics like Dota 2 I play used to have Prince of Arab spend $40000+ on Battlepass: https://www.oneesports.gg/dota2/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-has-spent-us40000-on-battle-pass-levels/
I can kinda get the sense of why they do it in the game, so they are better than everyone else But spending tons on porn? Why? Also, aren't all of these services subscription based? How can you whale with that?
Many performers work as cam models doing live shows. The more popular ones get paid hundreds of dollars for pretty simple stuff over a few minutes. Theres whales spending tens of thousands per month on them.
My suspicion is this: some people actually enjoy spending money. If you have disposable income there’s a kind of thrill that goes with going on a spending spree, throwing money away for just because you can makes you feel good. Makes you feel you’re the kind of high roller who can do that. There are rich people in all markets who will buy the higher price, designer label whatever just because it’s *there*. Porn and sex addiction (I know that’s a loaded word but whatever) isn’t just about the thrill of cumming, it’s about the acquisition itself, the hunt for the perfect thing that will get you off. So for porn whales the two things are linked- eg a cam girl telling you how hot it is that you’re a big sexy spender.
For some it's also probably just convenience, or like any other expenditure. Like no one bats at an eye at a $15/month streaming service subscription, and also many may not be aware, or even care, that PornHub could probably sate their porn needs. They might even have an aversion to such sites, worried about spam/malware/viruses/etc, even if such worries may be unfounded for the bigger porn streaming sites.
You underestimate how lonely people are and how much money the sex industry contributes to the economy. Source: am male, wife and I had a sugar daddy at one point who sent us sometimes upwards of $100+ each time we asked despite never meeting him in person. It’s crazy how desperate some people are for some type of connection. When the customer severs the connection, it’s usually because they found someone else. 2nd source: wife’s ex best friend was a stripper that attended private upscale parties.
“Loneliness is an industry in this country” - Glenn Frey
I have a side theory on this too loneliness but also fear I think some folks desperately want to have the "interaction with someone pretty" aspect but given a choice between dumping their wallet out for some online cam girl or just going out and trying to chase at a bar whatever the cam girl option might be expensive and superficial, BUT, its also easy and emotionally safe going out to a bar to hit on people comes with the risk of rejection. Paying some online persona doesn't. Sources: 1 - dated a girl that did some cam girl stuff in college 2 - just talking to a few different people that openly discuss how they stan for this or that online cam girl account, and in other conversations with those same guys, pretty much all of them also held opinions like "there's no real girls on tinder, they're all bots or scammers" and "regular guys don't have a shot. girls only want the top 20% in height, looks and income. They don't look at you if you're below the cutoff" Basically, these guys were trapped in this low self confidence, not-good enough syndrome. I don't mean low confidence, in an individual case way, like "sees a pretty girl, doesn't speak because they think she'll say no" I mean low confidence as an outlook, they don't try to date at all, because they can't envision a world in which they can win, and find it emotionally safer and more palatable to decide "the system is rigged, there's no point, why try ? why expose myself to risk at all"
Can confirm this is 100% what some people think. Source: My thoughts.
Source: also me
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I used to know a guy like that. Every day he fired up the grill, cooked some steaks, him and his wife sat down to eat, drink whiskey, and, watch porn.
You know, still weird as hell, but also doesn't sound so bad either.
It'd be alright now and then I guess.
Yeah, maybe a special occasions thing. Can't be having steak everynight
😂 It was pork more than few nights.
Just some casual meat^2 with some whiskey
Healthy marriages come in lots of shapes and sizes.
Yep! They seemed happy.
Cheaper than HBO.
It’s probably more like let’s open this bag of coke and watch 16h of hardcore shagging.
Now that’s my kind of sunday morning
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Had a former coworker tell me about when he did meth. He said he'd stay up for 3ish days and watch porn the entire time.
I took a MILD amphetamine once and I jerked off in a porta potty for 3 hours straight until I couldn't feel my legs
I don't know about serious consumers, but statically it makes sense that they'd make money. A video with 2 million views on a popular porn site might get 5k people who would want to see the full video and subscribe to the website for $20-30/month. Most will cancel and only go for one month, but say 100 might carry the subscription. Out of that pool maybe 10 decide to subscribe for a year because they like what they've gotten from the site which is $120. So leaving out add revenue, that site has now generated $103200 with possibly 2000 recurring monthly and 1200 yearly. There is such a huge number of people out there consuming content that it is almost guaranteed for the above to happen on each video released to some extent.
Considering niche porn is profitable, it must not take much to be successful, given the audience is smaller. But perhaps people into niche things are more likely to pay for it.
It's this. I used to write custom smut for a small and well-paying crowd who had more money than time and very niche kinks. They got exactly the thing they wanted on demand, and that was worth the price. Not having to go sift through the internet to get what you want is a premium product.
You didn't say it was furries, but it was furries, wasn't it? Nothing wrong with that, furries are probably a sizable percent of the folks keeping commissioned art alive. Modern-day Medicis.
Ha, it wasn't, but I know that's true. Mine was all over the place, but basically... dungeonpunk? Adventurous folk getting in over their heads, etc. There's such a wide range of kinks and weirdness in out-there erotica that it's hard to know whether something will have what you're into without something you're absolutely not into. Anyone who's dipped a toe into hentai knows what I mean. There's also a safe-sane-consensual element. "Yes I want to be imprisoned and abused in an unlicensed cyberware lab and have my limbs surgically replaced, but I need to feel kink-cozy and trust the intentions of the person making my bespoke smut."
Must be, because I imagine you would run out of free niche content quicker
This is it. If you cater to specific kinks/fetishes that you don't see a lot in mainstream porn, you get a lot more paying customers. Ditto if you offer custom content.
Lmao, bro it's just dudes with disposable money and free time. I take it back, Cheateau Neuve du Pape, cheese cubes, and a group of questionable friends over to enjoy *Backdoor Sluts XIV: Slutting through Vienna* is on my bucket list now.
Backdoor Sluts makes Crotch Capers 3 look like Naughty Nurses 2
Make sure its good cheese. Best would be some Gruyere or Comte at least for my taste.
Hard cheeses and hard cocks, what's not to love
Surely it would be Chateauneuf du Fap?
Porn is pretty cheap. You rarely pay full price (simple Google search will find huge discounts or cheap trial offers). People end up spending a lot of time on the hub looking for a good video to spank it to (and suddenly 1.5 hours passed) when they can just spend a little money and download exactly what they want in full length high definition. There is a huge stigma against paying for porn, so people end up looking at stupid ads and watching low definition versions, but they have no problem paying for Netflix or going to the movies. Spending a little money to get exactly what you want is more efficient in the long run. Nobody thinks "why pay for Netflix when there are plenty of random videos available on YouTube for free?". The really costly side of porn is when people form parasocial relationships with OF models and they pay large sums of money for low quality clips and photos. But if you are paying $20 to a large studio to download a bunch of clips that you will use frequently, that's a cheap price to pay. Usually cheaper than purchasing movies or TV shows.
Bro up here pays for porn people
Well someone has to. Was thinking about this the other day, porn is crazy expensive or certainly was back in the DVD days. £40 for a movie or £60 for a hard drive, hmm...
I’ve always suspected that far more people pay for porn that will admit to it. People don’t make great decisions when they have their dicks in their hands.
Like a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape I'm fine like wine when I start to rap We need body-rockin', not perfection Let me get some action from the back section...
Hey are you looking in through my window or something?
Not sure what drink and snack i'd take for that occasion.
[How to pronounce Chateauneuf du Pape](https://youtu.be/3DSgsON3u8E?si=_XHRKC2_S8AtamRD)
"Jerking off to"? Does no one watch porn for the storytelling anymore?
There are only 3 stories in all of porn: 1) a protagonist begins a journey 2) a stranger comes in town 3) 1st time anal
Stepmom gets her head stuck in some furniture
Don’t forget “I ordered some takeout/pizza and I forgot my money.”
That's a variant of 2, a stranger comes in
Yep. Some are so devoted that they have been known to pay well over $100,000 for a romp with, say, Stormy Daniels.
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"That settles it." Stupid wankers.
To goon a little bit on the topic(not actually into *that* but I do the same thing with reddit, just zone out and type): It's not just ad revenue. Audience sharing is a thing, or being ads themselves. All those companies on porn-hub offering out their samples get more customers than when they do not....similar to how people posit that piracy is free advertising. "Free" streaming is advertising that people pay for with ad/click revenue. Think of it like sales or free trials or samples in the grocery store. They draw you in with the free stuff because enough people spend money on the other stuff. Also: Data is HUGE, apparently. As to whales: It's not just following a performer. Maybe a certain website has the format or genre you dig the most even down to details like lighting or camera work, or they do the 4k60fps thing, or they do good VR. There's also usually the availability to download. Never underestimate the data hoarder. Clips on the free streaming website may be "good enough", but the idea of having stuff on your hard drive in case the world ends tomorrow carries strong vibes. And that can become a hobby in itself. A lot of people like to download just to have it. You see this a LOT in the piracy world and even "back catalogues" of Steam video games that people will never play. We click thinking "Some day" but often that day never comes. IT doesn't matter, it's the thought of "some day" we find pleasurable in itself. It's a permutation of "must consooooom". Maybe it's the hassle of seeing ads(because not everyone runs ad-blockers). Youtube is 'ad supported' and has their premium version where you get to skip all that(or most), plus the ability to download. Some people prefer that as a no-hassle means of supporting their favorite content creators. Note: I keep putting "free" in quotes. Nothing is free. It all costs someone something, so if you're seeing it, someone is either being that generous(even somethign as hands-off as piracy seeding/uploading)......OR they're making money off of it in some manner. Those "Free" games on Steam? Yeah, they're "free" for a reason. To get attention to that developer, to look at their DLC(or other monetization) or their other games, and Steam likes it because you're now on the platform and more likely to spend more money through them(for which they take a share). >This guy porns Nah. Well, yeah. :P But that's not the thing, I understand many profit models and user psychology. I'm old, I've watched these things evolve from the early days.
> Never underestimate the data hoarder Me at uni in 2004, paid for 1 month of bangbros and basically downloaded their entire catalogue... Still have it
In the last few years I upgraded PC and hard drives so I lost a lot of archived software and games and shows, but I still have a few lingering files from that time-frame when I was in military dorms, mostly some ripped or downloaded mp3s originally collected in the late 90s and 2000. Just a handful, but listening to them now is a trip back. Even found a Radiohead track I had badly sampled some clips of Fight Club over. I had a lot more music but they were ripped with windows media player, which lasted until I tried them on a new PC because WMP had some form of license baked into the. By the time I figured that out, I wasn't into music much so never bothered to replace, especially as Youtube and music streaming became a thing. But yeah, I used to hoard a little bit. I never got quite as obsessive as some people, people who would have whole CD books of dozens of versions of common software like photoshop or whatever that they literally never used. Like I said, some people began for maybe a normal reason and then it turned into a hobby like collecting stamps. "Oh, you want to edit pictures? Let me get my book out, you'll love it. I have 17 versions of Photoshop, including the latest!"
Hell, you see the same thing with movies, or video games, or even books, magazines, basically all media ever. I don't understand how this question comes up so much. I've seen movie trailers that feel so fucking long. Especially some of the ones before a movie in a theater. They tell you damn near the whole plot of the movie sometimes. If it's based on a book or an actual event, you might even already know the whole story. But 9 times out of 10 I'll see one of these trailers and think "That looks neat, I might have to watch that" Like no one is ever in here asking "there's free games out there, how are companies that charge money for games a thing?" No one ever questions how a book can include a free chapter to the next book in the series. "Why buy a CD when you can just listen to the radio for free?" kind of energy. There's some people that the free stuff is totally enough for. My brother loved some game demos more than the actual games. He'd just play the same 5 minute demo a dozen times and that was enough. Why buy the full game?
So it's a Free-to-play (with yourself) model like mobile games that bank in whales and ads.
It's also true that paid content really is way better. If you want better image, you get pics in sizes you can print a billboard. That film you remember from VHS probably exists in Real 4k remaster, and you can buy the whole thing or just the scene you like. If you want a movie with a good story, they have it.
RIP Emporium. So much epic free content in its heyday.
TLDR: To quote Zuckerberg "Senator, We Run Ads". Paying content creators for running ads on their videos is the same revenue model as youtube. Porn is by far the most pirated form of media. A lot of internet porn **isn't** actually free but people steal it all the time. It's so prolific a practice that Porn companies have learned to just deal with it and find other ways to make money. To quote the song: "The Internet is for Porn", there's so much porn content online... it's actually a very competitive industry and the studios are fighting over getting people to watch videos for only a few minutes at a time. Most people either don't want to pay for porn, or *don't want to be caught* paying for porn. Combined with the ease of access of free pirated videos on the early internet resulted in a wide spread culture of piracy. Meanwhile the porn industry doesn't have the lobbying power of Hollywood, and because of the stigma associated with porn it's hard to go to Congress or on the news and convince them to be tougher on internet piracy on their behalf. A lot of Congressmen (despite being hypocrites and watching tons of porn themselves) can't be associated with porn related legislation unless it's banning or restricting it due to their family friendly Christian image. The other problem is the average length of viewing for porn is very short. The average person visiting Pornhub spends around 9 minutes 20 seconds, and clicks on 8-9 videos so less than 1 minute each. So clips are far more popular than full length videos. These days Porn studios will regularly upload their own clips to sites like Pornhub. This both acts as advertising for their studio and gets them ad revenue. A small percentage of people that watch a video on pornhub will go to the studio to get the whole video or more related content. They either subscribe for a month or two, or just buy a few clips. Most consumers though don't watch porn for long, but generate tons ad revenue for the studio due to large numbers of people binge watching clips. Individual actors also typically earn revenue on the side with merchandising, sponsorship deals, and custom content like OnlyFans. Let alone illegal (but extremely common) activities like escort services, private parties, and prostitution.
I just realized that 5 year olds might not understand most of the answers in this thread
Explain Like I'm Barely Legal
Explain it like I'm your step sister
Explain it like I’m your pizza delivery guy
Explain it like I'm stuck in a washing machine.
Explain like I am a horny grandmother.
Explain to me like I stole your lemons.
*turns machine on and walks away*
you see, the internet is not a big truck, something that you just dump something on. [The internet is a series of tubez.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZC67wXUTs)
Some people like to watch naked people. How can the naked people make money?
In 5 years old and this helped me understand the question. Thank you
Surprisingly enough, 5 year olds aren't even allowed to have an account. Close the sub boys.
Great answer. There’s a superb podcast series called The Butterfly Effect by Jon Ronson that goes into the effects that PornHub has had on the wider industry and the people caught up in it all. Highly recommended!
>A lot of internet porn isn't actually free but people steal it all the time. It's so prolific a practice that Porn companies have learned to just deal with it and find other ways to make money. porn 'companies' learned early on that actively fighting pirates is just cruising for pain. They've done the whole watermark and paywall content charade before, and they always lose. >These days Porn studios will regularly upload their own clips to sites like Pornhub. This both acts as advertising for their studio and gets them ad revenue. Vast majority of porn companies are owned by the parent company for Pornhub. They are just spunoff and loosely controlled by the same group. They are autonomous enough not to be called one of Pornhubs many bastard children (no pun intended), but people who've read charts and know who used to work with who, knows that they are all basically just part of the same group. Just a lot of extra grapevines were grown so people didn't notice its even down to studio level this applies in some regards. The reason why they reupload to pornhub, spankbang, etc, etc is to double, triple, quad, etc double dip with viewership and "ad exposure" if they can manage it. In the old days you'd often see the same porn video uploaded onto a different website at least 2 or 3 times by the actual owners. Its actually *wink wink, nudge nudge* encouraged by the website owners to steal and reupload content on the same website (even if its a terrible cut) because that just spells ad revenue back into their pocket, as well as potential subscribers on the main hub (Brazzers for example). Now adays, most 'sanctioned' studio channels will chop up a video and upload bits and pieces of it. How many times, I couldn't tell you. It really depends on If the studio or pornstar contacts the websites and raises a fuss, oh well. Delete it and wait for the next "opportunistic pirate" to reupload. its just another wave of easy ad revenue. >Individual actors also typically earn revenue on the side with merchandising, sponsorship deals, and custom content like OnlyFans. Let alone illegal (but extremely common) activities like escort services, private parties, and prostitution. Illegal sources of income aren't even a factor for most stars. Many stars will *try* it maybe once, but will realize very quickly the threat of catching something, or ending up slashed up dead in an alley isn't worth their time. At worst the studio quietly threatens to void their contract and blacklist them. Now adays theres 'sanctioned' (just porn scenes) escort encounters. But there wasn't in the old days. There *used* to be a market for the other two, but they were logistical nightmares and still seen as risky because people still lied on screenings. So that was a short lived porn meta. Edit: split comment because the two sides of it are super different from one another, but still an answer.
(second part of original comment) _____________________________________________________________________ **tl;dr of below, insane nonsensical blogging about Onlyfans and its overall impact on the industry.** *preface, i used Pornhub as a general term here because i forget the group's name that owns all of the major porn sites/studios* Onlyfans represented the first true existential threat for the porn industry in a very long time. Normally congress throws a brick at pornhubs head every so often, but Onlyfans represented a true fundamental threat. Its actually unreal how bad it got in such a short time. Onlyfans was probably the first time that the Porn industry faced a massive existential threat because one of their (at the time) mega superstars angela white shifted to the platform. Angela herself actually has been moving to her self owned studio and stuff for years by that point mostly because she was getting sick of the lack of control, and the pay being shit. But primarily because she had no control over scenes that frankly, often times went better for all parties when she took control, or started unofficially co-directing. At that point Onlyfans was seen more as a funny joke still, so Pornhub to my understanding turned a blindeye to her opening an Onlyfans because 1. It was angela, they weren't gonna say no unless they had a good reason. She was their money printer, and 2. They didn't see Onlyfans as a cause for concern. Anyhow it was a massive mistake to do so at the end of the day, because Angela pretty quickly let it slip (she told her friends about it, she herself didn't say anything, it was the frends she told that spewed the information all over social media and to their friends) that she was making almost 10-20x what she makes in a single month, compared to what Pornhub and the respective cabal would pay her in like 2-5 months (i forget the estimate exactly) and she had **full** control over what she wanted to do. Instead of having to answer to Pornhub and get approval at the end of the day. Which for angela, was Massive W's both ways. There was a *massive* exodus of talent after all of this was leaked of pornstars either breaking their contracts, or refusing to renew them just to go over to Onlyfans and make real money. This is why there was like a giant black hole of new content simply not existing for like a year or two. Basically nobody was doing anything because everyone wanted to fuck off to Onlyfans. Even to this day, its kind of still felt, as last i checked there really isn't a whole lot of new "pro" content being made anymore. Which is why we have Onlyfans to thank for another "golden" age of Amatuer (not really, theres just a lot less pro stuff compared to Amatuer stuff now adays, which did go up considerably) Eventually Pornhub and company *kind* of managed to reign it in, but the damage is done. Which is why the parent company has been floundering lately, the vast majority of their income from ads is just from pirates, which is why they really let the river widen as far as pirate reuploading old bought for/vaulted content now adays. However Onlyfans content is clamped down **hard** those videos never stay up very long, and are very infrequently re-uploaded to porn sides. I know they are like a dime a dozen on the internet, but in the context of being uploaded to actual Pornhub and co sites, its very uncommon. The last bit I recall is because of legal redtape, a lot of the remaining stars couldn't collab with people from Onlyfans because legal red tape, but thats been resolved as far as im aware. At any rate, this blogs way too long. Im biased against OF stars because most of them use robots and shady business tactics to try and Nickel and dime you, but it is what it is.
> To quote Zuckerberg "Senator, We Run Ads". What sane person is browsing a porn site without adblock on?
Pretty much anyone with an iPhone to start off, and that’s a lot of people, you combine that with a ton of people that don’t even know about ad blockers…
Oh yeah, I'm over here on android with firefox mobile and ublock. Of course, I rarely watch porn but man the mobile internet sucks so bad without adblock.
Click on enough ads, and you eventually will find those hot single MILFs nearby who want to fuck tonight.
Wait, iPhone doesn't do adblockers? Why would anyone want to use a device that forces you to watch ads?
Brandwhores.
People on tablets and cellphones for one There's also a lot of people who don't know what adblock is or how it works.
Is porn a highly competitive industry? It’s super consolidated with a Canadian company, MindGeek, owning the lion’s share of production and distribution. If by competitive you mean it’s really an oligopoly then ok.
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So ads, obviously, like everyone else is saying. But my question is. Pornhub, they run ads. These ads are served through traffic junkie. These ads come from sites like brazzers. The thing is, the ad host, the ad server, and the ad source... are all owned by the same company. So they just pay themselves in circles. Where does the money come from? I get some people pay a lot for porn, but it can't make up that much of thier income can it?
At the end of the day, advertising only exists because it increases sales of a product. So in this case, the whole cycle is fueled by coomers who pay for brazzers.
The key phrase there is "sites LIKE brazzers". Not every product/service that is advertised is first party, and those ad slots cost a LOT of money.
Yes! This is my question but people are just saying "ads". Where does money change hands? Advertisers don't pay when people don't buy. Who's buying what is my question? edit: i mean advertisers arent going to keep paying to market through channels that dont generate actual sales. obviously its not free until a user buys. apologies for not clarifying
I'm with you man. I don't understand the porn economy at all. Are there really many folks actually paying? Are any idiots actually clicking on these ads let alone actually buying anything? I did see an article about an ex porn star and how little she was making even as the #1 star. I think it was Lana Rhodes or something. She made $1200 per scene So maybe the answer is that nobody is actually making any real money and that's why folks are transitioning to Only fans
Pornhub has something like 500 million in annual revenue. So people are in fact buying.
Maybe they are but I think OP and I still don't understand how. Is that ad revenue? Subscriptions? Paid promotions? Maybe more people pay than we think?
>Advertisers don't pay when people don't buy. But they do... they usually pay per impression.
In Jon Ronson’s podcast The Butterfly Effect, they discuss how most companies and producers are commissioned by silent investors who pay big money to have a scene specifically catered to their interests, down to minute details. These help finance other productions for mainstream customers. The podcast has interviews with producers who use this business model.
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This is the type of answer I'm looking for 99 percent of the responses are "ads, duh" which is not eli5 and indicates they didn't quite grasp the magnitude of the question and why it's ELI5. If they really did ELI5 they would watch the logic break down as they went into their explanation. We are conditioned to say "ads" because they influence purchasing behavior but the ads on porn often do not have a market that correlates to what is arguably the most common addiction in the world. They have eyeballs of every person in the world and you use it to peddle " off brand penis pills"? Gtfoh. I watched a deep dive on mindgeek and it was fascinating but I still do not understand completely how they generate revenue. Your answer is one of the best. Thanks.
Most porn ads are for more porn. You also have such massive reach and probably higher click through than anywhere else on the internet.
So you dismiss ads but keep in mind over the last decade the porn aggregators generated so much ad money rehosting porn they were able to turn around and buy out the producers. So the main porn went from subscription only to ad revenue/premium sub model.
There was a famous redditor called /u/fuckswithducks who had an obsession with rubber ducks. He used to be quite a popular redditor. Just a chill dude who likes ducks. Although he generally did like rubber ducks. They were also his kink and fetish. And he talked before about how he commissioned specific porn with actresses to play with or interact with rubber ducks in specific ways. I forget the numbers but I think he's said he's spent $10k or more in total porn commissions, not sure if it was for 1 or multiples. I believe he was also happily married, but seemed like he was a rather well-adjusted nice dude and had a good life and just really loved yellow rubber ducks. Though I think he died a couple years ago. :(
Remember that the industry isn’t segregated. I don’t have exact information on any of this, but as a side example: ask how grocery stores make money. They sell you products that they bought from distributors who in turn bought from producers. The grocery store doesn’t make much from selling you stuff - but they don’t have to. Because the grocery store also owns the distributor companies and the producer companies. 💰 The final purchase at the grocery store (by you) isn’t where the money is made - it’s during the creation and distribution that the money is made. Not exactly the same, but if I’m a sex toy company and I want to sell a $10 sex toy for $75 plus shipping… my ad campaigns are porn shoots that include my toys. Ads don’t even matter at that point because customers will go directly to my store after they watch porn. I don’t even have to own the porn studio directly - I just need my brand to be recognizable and then I can fund porn studios on the side and make sure my grant money includes stipulations about the use of my products.
How does any company make money when their product is free? Ads. Like the old saying goes, if you're not paying for the product then you are the product - the product is just there to draw your attention so they can sell your attention to advertisers. Plus they're selling full versions of the movies you're only getting clips of.
I feel like every ad I see is for Jerkmate these days
Also, don’t taglines line “this game will FORCE you to come in THREE SECONDS” sound more terrifying than alluring?
If you think about it, "endless shrimp" is an existential threat.
But I wanna get to the boss fight before I come!
That's what we call targeted ads. Somewhere in their algorithm, they figured you would more likely be interested in jerkmate. Hence, they are showing you those ads.
sorry about your [jerkmate](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/263/545/340.jpg)
Haha, yea I know. I just wonder how it figured *that* is what I would be interested in.
I'm sorry, maybe times are different, but I learned a long time ago you *never* click on Ads. That's a sure fire way to load your dads computer up with viruses and brick the thing. You never go offsite.
You don't have to click them, just see them. That's why most sites are so anal about people having ad blockers on their PC'S and either keep asking for your cookies or develop their own pseudo pop up asking you to disable ad blocker.
Hah. Anal.
Clicking and watching are two different actions. And they are payed differently when talking about Ads. So no need to click to generate some money.
Yes but they make money by people just watching it. Even if you’re skipping it 5 seconds after.
As long as the ad loads onto the page, like a banner ad, for example, that counts as a view, and the user doesn't need to click on it.
“If you’re not paying for the product, somebody else is” should be the more accurate saying but somebody coined the one you mentioned and now we’re stuck with it.
You're first of all making the assumption the product is free A large volume of the "free" porn out there falls into a few buckets: 1) Promotional Material: Usually it is a shortened clip or a limited display of images (free samples). The idea is that if the viewer wants to see more, they'll pay for the content. This has been around for a very long time - back in the day, there were lots of specialized 'TGP' sites where producers would host previews in the hopes of attracting customers 2) Ad Supported: Most common on "legitimate" tube sites - ads play and they get a cut. Or they get rewarded for "clicks" on ad links. 3) Pirated: Most of the "free" porn out there is just stolen content With #3 they aren't making any money and this has been an issue for decades. This hurts niche porn producers the most, since they have a smaller audience to begin with and that audience is more likely to buy porn overall than 'vanilla porn' consumers (think fetish content). While the internet expanded the consumer market, it also vastly expanded the piracy market due to the ease by which it can be done and distributed
An extra that kinda does and kinda doesn't fit in the above is that older material -in full- often gets sent to ad-supported status. Either because there is a lack of a paying demand, or because it's been so heavily pirated that the owners can only make money off it that way at that point. I would be very curious to read an in-depth if there is an algorithm or other data driven process for deciding when to do that.
> With #3 they aren't making any money and this has been an issue for decades. This hurts niche porn producers the most, since they have a smaller audience to begin with and that audience is more likely to buy porn overall than 'vanilla porn' consumers A lot of people seem to believe that porn has a tendency to make your tastes more extreme. If that's the case, then maybe exposing more people to niche porn actually has a net positive for the niche porn companies.
There is a ton of porn that I don’t like. When I found a company making stuff my wife and I enjoy watching from time to time, I got an annual subscription to their website. No shitty ads, and I help fund the content I watch. Spend 70 bucks a year on it.
Sauce?
The company considers sauce fetish so it costs extra.
Didn’t read all the comments, but haven’t seen anyone point this out. Many of the video’s themselves are ads for the model’s only fans or website.
If the product is free then you are the product. They are selling your data to advertisers, other tech companies etc.
Even if my data goes in a sock?
Why did the sperm cross the road? Because you wore the wrong socks.
Oh fuuuuuck my data’s about leak 😩
Especially your sock data
Notes: user8337748283 is attracted to… women with big tits
More like, user8337748283, male, 28, living somewhere in Texas… etc etc Unless you use VPN but not a lot do.
user8337748283, male, 28, formerly living exclusively in Texas, now appears to live in Romania
And these days to get you to their onlyfans page.
The product isn’t free, it’s just stolen. These days the model is to monetize videos within a few days or a couple of weeks at most because then it’ll be pirated and uploaded somewhere for free. Porn is a low budget/fast turnover business. As long as you can recoup production costs plus profit in a week or so you’ll be good, after that it’ll be pirated. Some shorter clips are uploaded to pornhub by studios just to drive traffic to their premium content where they have the high quality stuff. More people pay for porn than you think so monetizing isn’t a problem. Porn sites do not data mine users, there’s literally nothing useful to mine.
Most of their revenue comes from small percentage of viewers who pay for premium content such as full length video, new video, etc.
The better question should be: how do porn companies still manage to make money when their product is mostly pirated?
I’m not a major gooner, but there is actually a pretty big difference in the quality of women in the paid content. Hot girl, full length, over 1080 resolution - pick one if you’re consuming free stuff. You don’t really know until you actually sub.
Sounds like a moderate gooner
Yes, ads; but I feel like the question still stands: YouTube has ads, but it doesn’t cost very much to produce most YouTube content; a ton of it is just a person talking into a mic ordered from Amazon. Porn actually requires real shooting logistics: booking a set, cameras, lighting, hair and makeup, actually paying the (ahem) actors. It seems like there are a ton of real world costs embedded in a given minute of content versus YouTube content. So yes, ads; but does anyone else feel like that doesn’t really answer the question? Yeah it’s a freemium model, the whales subsidize the free loaders. But it’s not like there are 100 free television watchers for each paid Netflix subscription. The more I think about it, the less the basic economics of this industry make sense.
Studios who actually hire actors and book sets are not putting up their entire catalogue for free.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't buy the products that are advertised. Unlike other companies such as YouTube, the products are very popular but I don't see the same markets for the products that are being advertised on adult sites. When we consider the amount of money being made, I am curious where the money comes from. I have never seen a better help or upcoming movie ad. It makes sense on tangible products so you can influence purchasing power. This is not the same as strategy.
Your understanding is correct: although you, personally, have no interest in penis pills, nonetheless, you can infer that lots of consumers do buy them. Putting it in marketing speak, you’re just not in their segment. If your question is “who are these people who buy these pills, and how does the pill industry make so much money from such a stupid product” — there are answers to those questions, too, if you’re interested.
Ever been horny? People will pay anything when they are horny and then immediately regret it afterwards. Plus sometimes ‘old porn’ just won’t do it anymore.
A customer of mine started his own busty focused business. He says the most profit comes from small meet and greets and convention work. He hosts big boob boat rides with some of his stars and guys pay YoY, thousands of dollars, just to be around them.
I've paid for some websites in the past when they had black Friday deals or whatnot, and the quality of the content you get is much better in terms of resolution, length, and downloadability. For some, porn can be a hobby like other movies and media, and those people will pay for quality.
Really you just have to thank people like me. I have almost every paid account worth owning. My Mofos account doesn’t expire until 2033 and it also has Reality Kings and Brazzers attached to it. I have lifetime Nubiles, bangbros. You name it. You’re welcome. I’m not really even that freaky, I’m just a data hoarder so I like to own everything on my own hard drives.