Do you think it was easier to make money back in 1997 or 1999?

My knee jerk reaction would have been "Yes" but looking at old Top 20 charts etc , I now disagree.

I believe the same percentage of members of each years newbies will suceed and fail.

What do you think?

I agree, I do not think it matters, producers will always find a way to produce and never stop swinging the bat

the ones that hope for everything to be easy, will never find the easy parts.

people that make decisions will make mistakes, that is a part of life..
The ones that win get up and try it again ( mabye modify it a bit) and go forward
the ones that blame others and feel like it was not THEM THAT FAILED will always be doomed to a life of failure and excuses!

:okthumb:

I think it was easier back then to make money starting from zero - with no start up capital, no knowledge, no connections. I agree there have always been a lot of failures but I still think it is more difficult today to get started without business experience or starting capital.

I once used a backdoor submission password to get a simple freesite into Yahoo. I think I got that from Mojo (?). That site made more than $5k/month for years from that one link.

There was a lot of "free money" lying around back then.

It was easier the farther back you go.

There is still a LOT of money to be made, but you need to work harder and smarter to make it.

Here's another example of how much easier it was back then. I started a "gay top 50" and spammed it on all the boards. Hyped the hell out of it. Within a week it was over 100k visitors/day. I think I was Jonas and Emil's' top affiliate for quite a while. It was as simple as a little hype.

:okthumb:

It's actually easier now
free hosting, free content, readily available low-cost/no-cost automation scripts, hosting for less than $1 per gig, etc.

of course now you couldn't start a site with a couple hundred "borrowed" pics from usenet, playboy scans and a couple listings with GreenGuy and Tommy like you could back then...

I don't think cheaper makes it easier. Hell, that's just more competition. Smaller pieces of pie.

FUCK!!!

I thought I could at least try it....

I didn't even contemplate working in Adult... only reason I made sites at all to start with was to learn about the WWW and there was a bunch of friendly porners who would teach me for free. After about 12 months I gave in and admitted to myself i was gonna be a porner! :)

You couldn't not make money in 1998 and 1999 imho... I'd have been stuffed if it was otherwise!

I wasn't in it back then, but I think to be successful, or to at least earn a living, you have to treat it like a business, invest money and work hard, just like any business start-up.

From what I hear, I guess it's harder these days, but that doesn't mean someone new can't enter the business and succeed. It's just a different formula and a different market then it was in '97, '99- '02 and even 2003.

Easy for "Anybody" to do it now...

But I think it may have been easier for Us to do it back then than it is today.

Like colin said, it was easier to make money with nothing back then. I thought I was such hot shit when I was 16 getting 4-5 grand a month. And I hardly put in any of that back into business, spent it partying with chicks and on cars and stereos and computers and tv's and pounds of weed to have my buddies resell. It was still kinda nice tho, I got to go out to dinner and the movies whenever I wanted and smoke all the good pot I wanted. I got my job at the mortgage company just to meet people in a new business and learn some shit about biz, and that I did.

Traffic was just easier back then. everybody joined and stayed. pay per click was the standard, it was easy to make a couple thousand on any given day with just free sites.. the smart ones took the easy money and built infrastructure, parlayed one easy success into harder ones.

I believe many people see a lot less cash now, but their worth has increased exponentially.

:pearl:

Well i started back in 99/00 and i gotta say i havent really noticed that it is any harder to make money today than it was back then although, im sure that can be attributed to the fact that i made all my 'marketing' mistakes when i first started out.

Im sure it is harder for newer webmasters entering the biz today purely fo the fact that it seems everyone is tryng to make money from the same traffic sources.

Only a select few that i know of, actually try getting se traffic, mailer traffic and alternative sources that dont include tgps and link lists.

I think the 'ease' of making money comes from how long you have been seeded, as it were in the industry, as with other types of work, the longer you do something, the easier it gets.

Bingo!

This story is commonplace. I've heard it over and over. Happened to me too.

Colin, remember that conversation we had a few years ago about building the empire and when you don't know where to go next, offer your services to someone and learn your ass off?

I think our brick wall is being built the way we intended, even if it is a big wall LOL

I'm not sure now if if was *easier* then, although my first reaction would be 'yes it was' ... I think we have forgotten a lot of the challenges we had back then because we have had so many since. Remember when content was $5 a pic and the biggest companies were being made examples of for not following laws that didn't exist yet?

Money might have come easier back then, but the way I remember it was a whole lot harder in general- because we were breaking ground every day ... we had to invent a wheel ... we were just better rewarded for it back then.

One thing I know for certain ... I'm having absolutely no trouble filling PAGES and PAGES of stories of controversial 'incidents' for the APM book, and 90% of them are pre 2002 ....

To me, making the money we did back then is not worth the stress of being locked in a house for the day while the FTC searches everything.


Easy come ........... easy go.

Not only do I remember it, I recorded it.

http://buildinganempire.com/cj.html

Oh shit LOL
that goes back a while!!

the old saying pops to mind ...
the more things change ... the more they stay the same

we've both walked a very parallel path in our time in the biz

Sure have. My guess is there is even more than we have discussed so far.

I was to talking Ryan Lanane this morning. A lot of similarities with him too.

I disagree. The top 20 are probably busting ass to stay there. Back in the days you did not have to worry about technology turning against you like it is now.

Back in the days you could throw any java script to do whatever you wanted on a browser and make money.

Back in the days you could send a shitload of clicks to a sponsor and get paid (even if they shaved you got money so you would not complain)

Now you have bill gates fucking 98% of operating systems in the world with shitty browsers and pop up blockers.

You have stupid companies that create trojans and fuck up the same98% of users in the world exploiting bill gates fuck up and giving us honest people bad rep so that other companies make more money than most newbies by blocking the adult industry on the internet with shitty software.

however and this i have been preaching since i got on oprano and met gonzo and nick...

those who survive and get strong use oldschool habbits with new school technology. back then it was hard to do php or cgi or that crap. nowadays there is a script for everything and that is also fucking things up.

you have to maintain a balance there is a lot of ""big players"" that are not really that big. they either spam or have a day job. there are others that are really busting ass and you have the well established companies that learned how to roll with the changes and use the old and the new in a nice combination to stay at the top.

damn this got long anyways my 2 cents.

Not only do I remember it, I recorded it.

http://buildinganempire.com/cj.html [/b][/quote]
You sure did put a great deal of work into probably the most definative and no nonsense guide to getting started in the online adult biz. Ive read it all several times ...

This should be self published and sold...and I truely mean it.

If I were doing a regioanl city to city road show it would be a must inclusion to all newbies if I couldnt get the man himself to speak on the subject.

Can anyone think of anybody just as biz savvy in this industry as Colin?