Pornography, an industry undergoing change

The porn industry, just like any other industry, can’t help but change due to technological developments. Technological developments first forced the porn industry to make a major shift to online in the late 90s and today there are more changes without any significant barriers. On the other hand, the Internet has also made possible what is commonly called the “democratization of sex”, where every porn lover is able to access pornographic content that suits his or her taste. For example, those who are turned on by old ladies can easily access naked grannies galleries with just a few clicks. Enjoying porn has never been easier!

Over the last fifty years, X-rated movie theaters have been crushed by streaming platforms, the rulers of Internet porn. Faced with these giants, various initiatives have sprung up in a market marred by a bad reputation and difficult to do business in. The Internet has eliminated the “dependency” on physical aspects and it reaches almost everyone, anywhere and anytime. The network between computers has essentially become a network between people.

In February 2019, Beverley, the last porn theater in Paris, closed its doors. Worn-out red skai chairs, faded erotic posters, 35mm projectors and hand-wringing pensioners packed the lobby on a winter Saturday to say goodbye. Today, as you walk down the tiny rue de la ville neuve, steps from the Bonne Nouvelle metro station in Paris’ 2nd arrondissement, a sign still announces the cinema. Now the building opens up into empty, dusty rooms. This situation is not unique to Paris but to many other major cities around the world.

The end of an era.

That’s because today the Internet has a monopoly on pornography. On many online porn platforms, “scenes” or “hits” have become the norm: a few minutes of sex at most, and hundreds of billions of videos published every year. They are “fast food sex”.

Today, porn videos account for 35% of the content downloaded from the Internet, giving rise to fantasies about the money turnover that this new mass consumption represents. The figure of 100 billion is often put forward by the media. However, what characterizes this revenue is that it is largely captured by a few players.

Birth of an empire

YouPorn was launched as a joke among friends in August 2006. They took advantage of an outdated law: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This copyright law was created in 1998, when the evolution of the web was unimaginable. It allowed streaming sites built on the same model as YouTube to play all the videos they wanted, until a copyright holder showed up.

A whole new type of investor then came into play. People who have never set foot on a set. They are geeks or experts in financial arrangements. They get into the porn industry because their main job is to generate traffic. If the source of a lot of internet traffic was a pancake recipe, they would be in the pancake recipe business.

By buying the biggest streaming platforms between 2009 and 2012, these investors gave birth to the biggest X monopoly ever. Its name? Mindgeek. They cannibalized the industry. Its leader is German Fabian Thyllman, a thirtysomething geek who in just three years became the most powerful man on planet Hard. This is a huge concentration of economies around one player.

A platform that destroys everything in their way

The recipe is well known: Very short “scenes” and “hits”, produced without script, scenery or dialog, filmed with handheld cameras, using close-ups, on a low budget, and referenced with tags. Each new video gives a sense of déjà vu.

Nourished by piracy, this “pro-am” (for professional production with an amateur look) pornography, which makes up 90-95% of the pornographic supply, generally has a very profitable business model. Mydirtyhobby, one of the largest distributors of amateur webcam pornography or “sexcamming”, owned by the giant company Mindgeek, takes 78% of the revenue generated on the platform.

Pornography that liberates

The Internet is not monolithic by nature, you cannot reduce today’s pornography to PornHub. Pornography as a social network is the first innovation available to entrepreneurs in this sector. Pinsex, the pornographic version of Pinterest, illustrates a new form of porn consumption that is “more active, interactive and publicized”.

Today’s social networking porn gives porn consumers a freedom that has never been experienced in more traditional forms of pornography. We show off what we like, we show off ourselves. The freedom is here.

Yes of course, porn opens up a lot of opportunities, almost to anyone, to earn a lot of money and although the competition is getting tougher by the day, there is always a cake for all. There are always opportunities for even new people. It’s a dynamic, high-value ecosystem that is constantly moving towards positive trends.