Porn site owner who enjoys fast lane success IAMA on Reddit

[Vigilante]

Porn is sweet, I watch is quite often and find nothing wrong with it.

What a GREAT second post. You are going to be a rock star around here. Welcome to the forum.

 

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[Cosmicgirl]

What a GREAT second post. You are going to be a rock star around here. Welcome to the forum.

Hahaha :0

 

[Tetras]

Why is everyone hating on the guy's porn site?

 

[Bigguns50]

I have about 8 yrs total experience working strip clubs. My Fastlane business will deal with the clubs. I personally do not like this industry one bit. However, the angle I'm taking is actually helping the dancers.

No one helps the girls in this business. They take advantage of them and their life situations. It's sick really. The club owners I've dealt with, and I'm sure not all, are like wolves in sheep skin. Many owners I've met I have no respect for...but...I will take their money and do something good with it...and hopefully make a lot of $ in the process.

 

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[DeletedUser19]

Porn is sweet, I watch is quite often and find nothing wrong with it. Let's be grown ups about sexuality and not treat it like a unicorn. I should also mention that online pornography has lowered rape statistics through-out the world.

Please, do yourself a favor and join this forum: Your Brain Rebalanced instead. Also read everything here. Come back when you are fully rebooted.

 

[Tom.V]

Please, do yourself a favor and join this forum: Your Brain Rebalanced instead. Also read everything here. Come back when you are fully rebooted.

Awfully parasitic aren't ya?

 

[DeletedUser19]

Awfully parasitic aren't ya?

It's something I wish someone had told me when I was hooked on porn. Maybe when and if he logs in again, he will see that post.

If parasitic for you is someone who wants and tries to help, then yes. I am parasitic.

 

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[DeletedUser2]

Wait Until you have a daughter.

Z

 

[chrisbiz4444]

I do not think porn is a good thing by any means so do not get me wrong on this. But I think the " People destroying their lives" Thing is a little dramatic.

 

[MikeC]

What a GREAT second post. You are going to be a rock star around here. Welcome to the forum.

I can't see how watching porn could detract from someone providing value on this forum.

 

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[therebel]

He is making good money but at the cost of others. It's like selling drugs.

Do you know how many people are destroying their lives by watching porn? Porn changes your brain. It should be illegal.

Maybe those girls just like sex & would be having sex with a whole bunch of random guys either way?

& how does porn destroy your brain? sounds a little biased and judgmental to me.

but I think what the guy has accomplished is awesome, wish I could switch places with him for a day

 

[Yussef]

It's frightening how open minded some of you people are on the "porn" thing. And other peoples choices and values. Do you guys have any knowledge of how the porn industry works?

For you people, that detest porn: Do you just follows, what's been "taught" to you since childhood? Or is it more of an "inner compass", which tells you that "porn is wrong"?

My my how things have changed around here. I am expecting a church invite any moment now.

 

[minivanman]

I get my posts deleted when mentioning boobs yet we have a whole thread on PORN!

I tried to stay clear of this thread because I can only make it go down hill.... But have you noticed the rock star that made a great 2nd post has never returned.....

By the way, like most others, if porn wasn't there, I simply wouldn't watch it. I mean, a few minutes here and a few minutes there.... who would really miss it?

 

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[ygtrhos]

Well dudes, if my daughter were to be freaky about sex, so be it. I am quite freaky myself as well, and if she wants to enjoy herself, she should go for it.

I do not think the ethical side of the business is something absolutely 'wrong' or 'right'. Everyone can think in a different way about porn. If you do not like it, just leave it to other people who are OK with it.

I was very anti-porn, 'it changes the brain etc.' and related my lack of success with women to it. Now I think quite differently.

Looking back, it was not porn, what made me suck. It was the time that I devoted to porn. I could say that I spent half of my week watching porn. Half of my awake hours. And a quarter in video games. The rest is showering and eating stuff and maybe hanging out with a few buddies from school or college. (if that week would be in holidays for example, otherwise a quarter goes from porn to college time)

Anyone who lives like that does not have a life and cannot improve his/her confidence at all.

I sometimes indulge in porn every now and then. But it is not porn, which affects my brain. It is passivity and the lack of courage. Every dude can sit at home every night. It is more difficult to join a volleyball team or go take dancing classes. It requires discipline and courage.

And from there, anyone can build self-respect and courage. I think fitness and sport helped me a lot to improve my mood and keep me motivated.

I jumped from subject to subject but I wanted to drop my two cents, since I have lots of experience in this subject.

Anyone who has problems with porn can drop me a PN, I would love to help people on this subject.

 

[Cat Lady]

I feel like I should chime in as one of the few forum members who actually has been one of the "daughters" who worked in the adult industry. I was both an exotic dancer and have done adult modeling for porn sites.

I was working, in my more radical co-op days, on a co-op business model for an adult website where all the participants would be co owners (cumingtogether.coop was the name we came up with). It would appeal to the more radical segment of the market who wants "ethical porn" and it would break the usual way the industry works:

1) the models get paid once and have their name (stage or real) and faces associated with the work forever
2) the photographers get paid once and doesn't have their name tied to the work
3) the website owners get paid forever and don't need their name associated with the work if they set up good shell business entities

The idea was to make the models participants in the co-op so that everyone gets an equal share through the process, similar to other business co-ops. I never got it off the ground between all my other organizing work, and since I went into politics later on, I'm pretty glad I didn't, but I think it speaks to the fastlane nature of the business.

Suicidegirls (despite the unsavory name, based on a novel) has done an interesting job mixing a "cool kids" alternative community, pinup modeling, and journalism. They've been at it since the early 2000's and are pretty interesting as a business model. They work on the emotional connection - however false- you have to the models.

Here's the thing. Sex sells. Pleasure provides value. While some porn is involved in human trafficking or otherwise morally reprehensible things (ugh revenge porn makes me hella angry), it's a market that will continue to need to serve folks forever. Running a good and ethical fastlane business in the adult industry IS possible, but not easy.

I think there's extremely great fastlane opportunities in niches that serve women and queer folks, particularly since women tend to prefer story-based narratives (and often reading over video). Male gaze "lesbian" porn is notoriously awful with absolutely impractical long nails and poorly thought out storylines. Good queer- and female-focused porn is a BIG but underserved niche (the crashpad series is one of the only ones.)

If you want to see the fastlane advantages of selling sex to a female audience, just look at the success of 50 shades of grey.

Anyway, morality is a factor (and don't even get me started on credit card processing) but I was annoyed that it was 100% men in this discussion and no one with actual experience being the "daughters" in the field. Also please stop calling models "daughters" - we are adult women in our own right, not someone else's belonging with no agency of our own.

ETA: I was a full-time live in social worker when I was a model and dancer. It sucks that society told me my highest value per hour was not helping women get sober and get custody of their kids back all day, but instead taking off my clothing for money all night. But society showed me my highest value was not in changing the lives of women, but in talking cash out of the pockets of men by taking off my clothing.

 

[Kak]

As a rule, I don't partake in businesses that I can't be proud of. I wouldn't be proud to own a porn site.

I even examined how I felt about a casino opportunity I was considering, and after a little self inflection, I decided I didn't want to prey on the weak. There are people exchanging their money for lights and sounds until they run out of money and wait for the next paycheck. It didn't sit well with me. Meh. I'd rather do something cooler.

My own values and ethics aside... I still don't think porn is good business. Why? Because for every person that it doesn't sit right with, there is another me-too band wagoner thinking he is doing something groundbreaking by posting porn on the internet. There are MILLIONS of porn sites... It's a commodity and basically free. I don't want to compete with a free product.

There are WAY better ways to make money both in terms of income and being part of something upstanding.

I don't care what @catlady says, the notion of an underserved niche in porn, with the millions upon millions of different sites out there doing the same thing is ridiculous and the first thing I'd think is "that's someones daughter."

And to the op... 300k is far from "fastlane success" further proving my point.

 

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[rollerskates]

Not seeing the creating-value part of this one. Also, just because something brings in income in a passive manner, does not mean it's a good fast lane venture. Selling crack can be fast lane too...

I agree with @Kak on all points.

Also, in Jordan Peterson's new book, he has a chapter on parenting called "Don't let your kids do things you wouldn't do" or something like that. Likewise, what you yourself do should be an example for your children, and porn probably isn't the ambition most parents have for their children.

That's not to mention all the other things wrong with that industry--risk of disease, harm to the psyche and the soul, objectification of other humans, and so much more.

I give this fast lane idea

 

[Cat Lady]

I don't care what @catlady says the notion of an underserved niche in porn with the millions upon millions of different sites out there doing the same thing is ridiculous and the first thing I'd think is "that's someones daughter."

I wish that folks wouldn't think womens' only value is our relation to others. It would be nice to be seen as humans capable of making our own choices and having value in our own right. No one seems to be emphasizing "that's someone's son" despite the fact that most porn out there is hetero or dude-on-dude porn meaning there are a pretty large proportion of models/actors who are male.

(And, topically, having sexuality in our own right. Because it couldn't possibly be cool to get paid for having sex! Because we're women who could only possibly get into this industry by coercion!)

 

[Kak]

I wish that folks wouldn't think womens' only value is our relation to others. It would be nice to be seen as humans capable of making our own choices and having value in our own right. No one seems to be emphasizing "that's someone's son" despite the fact that most porn out there is hetero or dude-on-dude porn meaning there are a pretty large proportion of models/actors who are male.

(And, topically, having sexuality in our own right. Because it couldn't possibly be cool to get paid for having sex! Because we're women who could only possibly get into this industry by coercion!)

Guess what cat lady... I am a “human capable of making choices” just like you keep saying, so by your own valition, I’m allowed to say the following...

I’ll never understand the go-getter attitude to the libertine lifestyle devoid of any consideration to responsibility, morals or ethics...

My opinion on the issue has nothing to do with the “sexism” picture you’re trying, and failing, to paint and my original response was mostly business related.

 

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[Cat Lady]

Hey, I wasn't calling you sexist. I was saying that the general tone in here seems to view women as victims in this industry without accounting for the fact that many of us get into the industry to make money. No one has made any statements saying "this is someone's son" only daughter.

But I agree we all draw our own lines in morality and ethics in business. I won't sell products linked to the animal torture industrial complex and I won't promote whole life insurance on my show. I won't sell any products related to gambling. I won't promote Hobby Lobby since they dismantled access to birth control for women across the country. I'm not saying it's wrong to have your own morals, but I do think the adult industry is a profitable niche.

 

[SquatchMan]

Hey, I wasn't calling you sexist. I was saying that the general tone in here seems to view women as victims in this industry without accounting for the fact that many of us get into the industry to make money. No one has made any statements saying "this is someone's son" only daughter.

But I agree we all draw our own lines in morality and ethics in business. I won't sell products linked to the animal torture industrial complex and I won't promote whole life insurance on my show. I won't sell any products related to gambling. I won't promote Hobby Lobby since they dismantled access to birth control for women across the country. I'm not saying it's wrong to have your own morals, but I do think the adult industry is a profitable niche.

No one said it wasn't profitable.

Making 300k/year isn't a particularly large amount of money in business though. That's an executive level salary at a medium sized business. And I honestly can't think of a way to make a porn company worth 9-10 figures. Not like I'd start a porn business anyway.

VR porn? "Model" agency? AI phone sex? Porn cryptocurrency? A portfolio of niche fetish websites that each bring in $30k/year?

Who even pays for porn nowadays?

I just don't see it when you're competing against the massive portfolio of MindGeek free porn websites.

 

[MoreVolume]

this thread was filled with so many ridiculous posts

 

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[Cat Lady]

I can think of some very profitable fastlane niches in porn:

• Websites that serve up free clips and sell advertising to other sites (I would link to examples here but I think my post might get removed)
• Services that handles credit card processing and banking for smaller porn sites - this is HUGE issues within the adult industry and having a "stripe for porn" would make a huge difference because dealing with chargebacks and even just finding banks and CC processors that will work with you is a nightmare
• Running camsites (models are commission based and work 24/7 from around the world and working for themselves and do the marketing for you)
• I still think porn for the lesbian community is way untapped (pun intended?), it says something about demand and lack of competition that the Crashpad series has been able to crowdfund their series
• Start the Amazon Kindle Direct for erotica that's too explicit for Amazon (they allow a lot but not everything) - be the distributor of electronica erotica and take a cut of every sale, and be a "trustable" presence that doesn't look shady on a CC statement
• Live events with livestreaming in a hard-to-enter niche (hardcore BDSM) - this is where kink.com, who got the old Armory in San Francisco has gone with their model

I pay for good quality niche erotica as do many other! Just check the huge kindle singles erotica sections...

 

[MoreVolume]

I can think of some very profitable fastlane niches in porn:

• Websites that serve up free clips and sell advertising to other sites (I would link to examples here but I think my post might get removed)
• Services that handles credit card processing and banking for smaller porn sites - this is HUGE issues within the adult industry and having a "stripe for porn" would make a huge difference because dealing with chargebacks and even just finding banks and CC processors that will work with you is a nightmare
• Running camsites (models are commission based and work 24/7 from around the world and working for themselves and do the marketing for you)
• I still think porn for the lesbian community is way untapped (pun intended?), it says something about demand and lack of competition that the Crashpad series has been able to crowdfund their series
• Start the Amazon Kindle Direct for erotica that's too explicit for Amazon (they allow a lot but not everything) - be the distributor of electronica erotica and take a cut of every sale, and be a "trustable" presence that doesn't look shady on a CC statement
• Live events with livestreaming in a hard-to-enter niche (hardcore BDSM) - this is where kink.com, who got the old Armory in San Francisco has gone with their model

I pay for good quality niche erotica as do many other! Just check the huge kindle singles erotica sections...

There are alot more ways to earn in the porn world than that.
One thing that's clear is that people in this thread are unaware of the the "underground economy". How much money can be made, and how it can be made.
Most of the people in this threads are just getting off on being morally superior. Clown stuff....

 

[SquatchMan]

I can think of some very profitable fastlane niches in porn:

• Websites that serve up free clips and sell advertising to other sites (I would link to examples here but I think my post might get removed)
• Services that handles credit card processing and banking for smaller porn sites - this is HUGE issues within the adult industry and having a "stripe for porn" would make a huge difference because dealing with chargebacks and even just finding banks and CC processors that will work with you is a nightmare
• Running camsites (models are commission based and work 24/7 from around the world and working for themselves and do the marketing for you)
• I still think porn for the lesbian community is way untapped (pun intended?), it says something about demand and lack of competition that the Crashpad series has been able to crowdfund their series
• Start the Amazon Kindle Direct for erotica that's too explicit for Amazon (they allow a lot but not everything) - be the distributor of electronica erotica and take a cut of every sale, and be a "trustable" presence that doesn't look shady on a CC statement
• Live events with livestreaming in a hard-to-enter niche (hardcore BDSM) - this is where kink.com, who got the old Armory in San Francisco has gone with their model

I pay for good quality niche erotica as do many other! Just check the huge kindle singles erotica sections...

I stand corrected. Good list for anyone that would want to enter.

CC processing sounds like the only 10 figure business on the list though.

 

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[Kak]

Most of the people in this threads are just getting off on being morally superior. Clown stuff....

I guess holding myself, my family, and my businesses to an ethical standard and having moral values is “clown stuff” now... LOL. This world is backwards as f*ck.

 

[Cat Lady]

Other adult fastlane business ideas, just in case someone is looking for them:

• Programmatic advertising for adult websites - most ad services won't touch adult advertising so very little of it is programmatic (mostly negotiated individually), could be huge advantages to being first to market for programmatic advertising in the adult industry

Hey, the original attack on the business was that the industry can't be fastlane, I'm chiming in to say there's plenty of evidence that it can be fastlane (and also to shut down this "women are only victims" narrative that was being formed by a bunch of dudes) - regardless of your own morals about the industry. I could never sell meat personally, but that doesn't mean it's not providing value to consumers.

Also I know that the first business model is a 9 figure business for quite a few of them...

 

[Fox]

If I was going to do anything porn related it would be on removing a porn addiction.

All ethics aside some people have a huge issue with porn addiction. Just like gambling or alcohol some people are just not wired to use it and end up running into huge issues. If anyone has come across the no-fap movement you can see how many people have a HUGE problem with this.

So why everyone is going one direction look at the side industry being created. I don't have this issue so its not something I have done huge research on but I can't think of one online course or person who has a brand on getting over porn addiction.
Is there any large YT channels or online courses on this? (I dont know).

Just like:
Lots of tattooing shops > open laser removal business
...
Lots of more extreme and niche porn sites > get into addiction recovery

Plus I think you become what you focus on - I would rather be involved in industry that puts people on an upward trajectory.
You can't buy back somethings no matter how profitable it was.

 

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[Mattie]

ETA: I was a full-time live in social worker when I was a model and dancer. It sucks that society told me my highest value per hour was not helping women get sober and get custody of their kids back all day, but instead taking off my clothing for money all night. But society showed me my highest value was not in changing the lives of women, but in talking cash out of the pockets of men by taking off my clothing.

Well as a human service worker, I think most case workers, protective services, court systems, would find this a negative to women or men getting their children back. And it takes money away from the family in general in most cases, and this is the funny thing about it, as women and men waste their time and money on this entertainment instead and complain when they have to pay child support or alimony, only they never think really they're supporting another family and their children instead of their own. So why feed, clothe, and shelter someone else's family instead of your own. And then perhaps single mothers and fathers don't need to be on welfare, can use that money for education, starting a business, and they don't have to worry about their children being taken away because they're neglected by various addictions. Just the way I see it and the paradox. I mean think of the divorce fees, the legal fees to get your kids back. Most mothers and fathers wining about how bad it is to you, is because usually they're multiple addictions and this just being one of them. Granted you're making tons of money off of it, if that's your goal. But really most social workers support the family and not the porn industry. At least I was never taught that in my degree.

 

[SquatchMan]

I glanced at the wiki for Kink and read a few articles. They actually sold the armory in February (for a big profit, but I don't think they wanted to sell it) and the CEO even gave a statement. It looks like the business is struggling a bit:

"There’s so much content out there. The human body only has so many orifices and so many limbs you can tie in so many ways" - James Acworth, Founder and CEO. He definitely knows more than me.

"But it was the proliferation of free online content that ultimately made it impossible for Kink to stay afloat in San Francisco, which once had a thriving porn industry centered in the historically gay Castro district." - The Guardian article on the closing of the armory, 'End of an era': porn actors lament the loss of legendary San Francisco Armory

The CEO is also getting sued by three employees because they got HIV while on set. And now his insurance company is suing him because they say that isn't covered under insurance.

Stuff to keep in mind. This industry sounds like a headache.

I guess holding myself, my family, and my businesses to an ethical standard and having moral values is “clown stuff” now... LOL. This world is backwards as f*ck.

We're living in clown world.