Quote:
Is it
worth it for TGP owners to saturate the market in order to make meager profits themselves if
it decreases the overall sales in the entire market?
|
Unfortunately, most people can't comprehend game theory (I barely grasped it when I read the book, I'd imagine there are only a handful of folks here that do understand it completely), and even fewer bother to contemplate the consequences of their business strategies. The "me first and only me" rationale that seems to be prevalent in this industry does indeed seem to be bound to destroy us all.
I remember many of us causing an uproar several years ago when TGP's first emerged, saying that it would decrease paysite sales and affect the entire industry. It seems to have come to pass because I don't believe that it's only the world economy that has caused the virtual downfall of online porn.
The glut of free content and broadband access has made it far less attractive to the surfer to pay for porn. I've heard this from many more men recently in the real world. They have access to almost all the content found in paysites for free, video is readily available and what's not on TGP's is on napster-style sites.
Hosted galleries following the free content and hosting that all sponsors now have to offer to be able to compete with the large companies are only adding to this problem. It's gotten to the point where any John Doe from Bodunk can open his own porn business because there is virtually no investment on his part, so the more people that enter the business part-time to make 100 extra bucks a month, the smaller the piece of the pie becomes. No one even has to have the basic knowledge of html, graphics or design, it's all done for them now.
Add that to there being enough bad paysites out there to burn out the paying surfer and most of us are in trouble. The few that are making money now don't think about the future, but it's been that way since the beginning of this industry.
The vast majority of people in the adult biz had no prior business education or experience, so trying to explain any of this to them is like banging your head against a brick wall, very few will listen or care. They're here to grab what they can and refuse to envision what appears to be the rapid demise of the industry as a whole.