Article 10.: Free Porn = Human trafficking = Rapes ?
The porn industry is worth an estimated massive $97 billion dollars, globally. But since the shift of power within the industry, and the new business model based on free content for viewers, we think it’s important to understand the economics of it all so our Fighters are better equipped.
In the industry today, how do people make money? Especially those behind the massive sites that only post free videos?
Unlike other media outlets, like newspapers who were slow to see the web as a tool to be utilized for survival, the porn industry saw opportunity and was quick to jump online. Since porn was previously a service the viewer only paid for, the majority of sites in the early 2000’s were subscription-based. And as it turns out, it wasn’t hard to make money from online porn. There were only a couple thousand sites and they were pretty basic: a large image gallery (explicit, of course) and billing software attached to the steadily rising bank accounts of this harmful material’s creators.
So what about those free tubes? In the online business, clicks are king. Huge sites owned by MindGeek command a massive amount of traffic (Video sites are by far the biggest consumers of bandwidth on the Web: Netflix, YouTube, Twitch … MindGeek. Or maybe that last one doesn’t ring a bell? MindGeek (formerly known as Manwin) has over 100 million daily visitors and is one of the top 10 consumers of bandwidth; some reports have them in the top three)— like PornHub that received 23 billion visitors in 2016—and that’s potential viewers for those paid content guys who want more subscribers. On any other website that offers free content to readers, they make money through advertisements, but as many viewers have noticed, a lot of the ads on free tubes are to other porn sites. That’s like driving the customer’s attention away to another competitor, isn’t it?
Since porn sites are often blocked from traditional advertising outlets, the tubes are the place to go to sell your hardcore, explicit site. A tube accepts payment from a subscription-based site to post an ad that redirects to their homepage. When a viewer subscribes, the tube also takes a cut of the commission. And since many of the tube sites, and subscription sites, are owned by MindGeek, it’s like double advertising opportunity for them and double profit.
While MindGeek began with pirated videos from content creators, within the past few years it’s begun to purchase those videos. While that sounds like a positive move against piracy, their model has been called a ‘vampire ecosystem’ because the tubes are the ones who benefit.
The producers create videos for the sole purpose of being uploaded to free sites and MindGeek makes a much higher return off of the ads that don’t direct to anyone involved in the video’s production. It’s a situation where the producer’s rates are kept low, but at the same time, they’d shrivel without the help of a tube.
The fact is, the modern economics of the porn industry are pushing in an extreme and dangerous direction, but it’s not necessarily something that regulation nor “fixing” can completely solve. The biggest issue is that because of the continually extreme content that’s being offered by the biggest facilitator of pornography, MindGeek, the demand will only grow for even more extreme stuff. And as extreme or abusive sex is normalized, the next steps will be taken to take it further, and then the next, all to keep on the cutting edge.
It’s a never-ending cycle of producing content that normalizes abuse, violence, and degradation. How is any of that healthy? The porn that exists today is already the most violently degrading stuff that focuses on humiliation, pain, and extreme abuse. Where will we be in 5 years if the demand keeps growing?
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