I saw a figure on NoFap that the porn industry makes billions of dollars a year. I don't dispute that figure but in my experience it seems unfathomable. I haven't paid for porn since I bought a girly mag in the 90s. Between Usenet, forums and tubes, porn has been freely available for at least two decades. And the quality and quantity of free porn only seems to be increasing with time. I can't imagine many people pay for movies when they can watch most of the movies in hi-def on licensed tube sites with no piracy involved. And when you factor in piracy it seems even less likely people are paying porn. There have always been paid sites and most of them didn't last too long or get very big which indicates they're not very profitable. Some of the larger tubes sites have started reserving premium content and offering other perks to members which might be enough to help support the sites but would probably only be a small portion of what it costs to produce the content provided even spread across multiple sites. Another possibility is advertising. But most advertising on porn sites is circular. One site advertises another site which advertise the next and so forth and so on. Many tube sites are operated by the same companies and probably connected to the studios featured on those sites as well. So it's an incestuous web of advertising; there's no real money being made. The only porn that seems like it might be profitable to me is cam sites. Low investment cost, low production cost, and it's the only porn I personally know of people spending money on. But a lot of the money is going to freelancers and is probably only a tiny portion of the billions in the porn industry. It's not cheap to make porn. Actors are getting paid thousands for each scene. Cameras, lights and other equipment are expensive. There are lots of people behind the scenes that have to be paid, from makeup artists to lawyers. Not to mention typical business expenses like travel, rent, and utilities. Then multiply those costs by the endless amount of new porn being produced. I'm left wondering where the billions are coming from? Who's paying for all the porn?
You're not the first to question this. Lots of theatres have shut down, and I wouldn't doubt lots of shops and video rentals have as well. I guess there are the hardcores who go to porn conventions and buy merchandise, but I would think overall that profits would have taken a hit.
From what I understand, the revenue that each starlet collects is from merchandise. So, sex toys, DVDs, and anything that features said starlet, there is most likely a licensing fee involved and/or a royalty per unit sold. Not to forget those women & men also get paid for cam appearances, strip club appearances, writing and selling erotica, and so on and so forth. There is money to be made in the smut business. It really depends on what your market is. EL James made a killing exploiting the mainstream and turned 50 shades into a franchise. Women are the biggest consumers of erotic literature. Men consume more visual aides. The margins for those said items are also fairly high and can make up for anything lost in the digital stream sites. I can believe that the business of sex itself is a billion dollar business. The actual industries built off of it however are multi layered and interwoven among one another.
I think it is like "google" and "Facebook." They sell information to advertiser. We think that when we watch"free" porn is free and anonymous but it isn't. The tubes get our information and sell it to who ever wants to buy it. That is were the Billions come from
