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The porn industry is in a bind

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Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#21

Post by hkmurakami »

wslh wrote: post #18
rdancer wrote: post #12

The fine article talks about the losers of the trade war. The winners are OK. If you look where the money is, it's with MindGeek (formerly known as Manwin), a company that has through the years bought bought most of the tube/cam sites, owns Brazzers and other content producers. For sure, tired unattractive content won't make it. But then you have the true artists of fucking, like James Deen, Pierre Woodman, and those…

> The innovation in porn, from what I've seen (hehe), is on the personal level. Good point but I think there is room for innovation at the film side. Porn is the most conservative genre: films are cloned with different actors.

The film side has innovated in Japan to mimic girlfriend-like settings and interactions to fill the emotional void of young men who feel abandoned by the dating market.

Much of anime has followed a similar evolutionary adaptation there.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#22

Post by [deleted] »

rdancer wrote: post #12

The fine article talks about the losers of the trade war. The winners are OK. If you look where the money is, it's with MindGeek (formerly known as Manwin), a company that has through the years bought bought most of the tube/cam sites, owns Brazzers and other content producers. For sure, tired unattractive content won't make it. But then you have the true artists of fucking, like James Deen, Pierre Woodman, and those…

[deleted]

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#23

Post by TeMPOraL »

mindcrime wrote: post #16

Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story: VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations. Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens. Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it t…

Right this moment I'm sitting in an office in the place that represents our hope, a capital of continued progress[0] - Shenzhen, China. Everything Facebook, Google and Microsoft designs gets built here (or nearby) anyway. China has a... quite healthy attitude towards copyright and trade secrets. That is, they don't give a flying fuck here. There was even a term for that, that eludes me at the moment, which described the idea of "I share my specs today with you, you'll share your specs tomorrow with me". And in the ongoing war on general-purpose computing, for better or worse, this seems to be our only recourse.

I'm gonna ask around if they have any Google Glass knockoffs or components handy.

[0] - built on the backs of abused and impoverished people, but that's a topic for another day.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#24

Post by vezzy-fnord »

mindcrime wrote: post #16

Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story: VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations. Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens. Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it t…

Unfortunately, it appears that many people, both end users, power users and programmers alike, have made up their minds and want their computers to be appliances instead of tools. In fact, strict regimentation, curation and immutable defaults are in wide demand by consumers of all demographics. Having to manually tune something is considered ever more blasphemous these days.

I think we will end up losing a lot in this process, not least of which the ensuing moral crisis as system software research becomes increasingly dead in favor of having our machines just be whatever black box the vendor has crafted, indeed our very mental model of a computing environment being whatever is presented to us obliquely.

And all of this happening while many beat their chests demanding that programming be made a compulsory subject in public schools. What a sickening irony.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#25

Post by sandworm101 »

Never trust articles about porn. I've never seen one that represented more than a myopic view. It's a very diverse industry.

I hope that Kink implodes. That side of the industry started as an almost joke. Bush, pre-911 Bush, talked about going after violent porn. So a couple producers got together and said: "Well, lets give them a target." They had first amendment lawyers primed for battle. Then 9/11, and the feds never showed up. Fast forwards a decade or so, and the violent porn meant to trigger a freedom of speech battle is practically mainstream. Kink.com is now a giant and customers are leaving for content that even Kink wouldn't touch. The old hats are aghast at the beast they've unleashed.

I've got clients that come to me when employees are caught downloading things they shouldn't. I'm the guy that has to go through this material and figure out whether anything is illegal, whether we have to bring in the cops. It isn't fun.

(But i did once practically fall out of my chair at a client meeting when I was introduced as "the external expert on child porn". I was in fact the guy there to explain that the material wasn't such. The employee was fired, but the police were not involved.)

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#26

Post by TeMPOraL »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #24
mindcrime wrote: post #16

Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story: VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations. Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens. Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it t…

Unfortunately, it appears that many people, both end users, power users and programmers alike, have made up their minds and want their computers to be appliances instead of tools. In fact, strict regimentation, curation and immutable defaults are in wide demand by consumers of all demographics. Having to manually tune something is considered ever more blasphemous these days. I think we will end up losing a lot in thi…

> And all of this happening while many beat their chests demanding that programming be made a compulsory subject in public schools. What a sickening irony.

Indeed. Also note how the typical curriculum offered by proponents is geared towards teaching people to create things that will be ad-supported or will be providing ads.

I wish to know if there's a way to fight back somehow. Maybe not to reverse the trend, but to separate ourselves from it? Let the masses have their appliances if they really like them, but let us keep our tools.

The thing I fear is professionalization of programming, when we become a legitimate engineering discipline and thus will have to work for an expensive license to legally use a turing-complete language, and compilers is something you can go to jail for if they see you trying to run it without credentials.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#27

Post by wodenokoto »

jqm wrote: post #15
wodenokoto wrote: post #11

While the little guys aren't making bank anymore, what about the big guys? It's my impression that the pornhub network is quite healthy, financially.

you are talking about the studios not the actors right?

I'm talking about companies. I don't know if pornhub counts as a studio.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#28

Post by TeMPOraL »

sandworm101 wrote: post #25

Never trust articles about porn. I've never seen one that represented more than a myopic view. It's a very diverse industry. I hope that Kink implodes. That side of the industry started as an almost joke. Bush, pre-911 Bush, talked about going after violent porn. So a couple producers got together and said: "Well, lets give them a target." They had first amendment lawyers primed for battle. Then 9/11, and the feds ne…

Ouch. This job must really suck. Still, you probably have lots of interesting stories and insights to share; I'd love to hear some if you have a moment to tell.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#29

Post by kragen »

rickdale wrote: post #9

Back in the day, when porn was in the big online bubble state, sites would offer over $.50/click to their site. When I first started (ab)using that system, the sites immediately bumped it to $.25/click and then $.10/click, and now I think its like $.000034/click, or basically nothing. They would also give you additional money for actual sign ups, and had a bonus day on every month where you made a significant amount…

So, it's your fault that porn is free? :)

It's interesting that this article touts "Sandvine, the primary source for internet traffic research," without mentioning the company's unethical astroturfing on Glassdoor http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Sandvine-Reviews-E32683.htm and their criminal past activities disrupting BitTorrent: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/06/21/1814239/sandvine-ceo-...

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#30

Post by vezzy-fnord »

sandworm101 wrote: post #25

Never trust articles about porn. I've never seen one that represented more than a myopic view. It's a very diverse industry. I hope that Kink implodes. That side of the industry started as an almost joke. Bush, pre-911 Bush, talked about going after violent porn. So a couple producers got together and said: "Well, lets give them a target." They had first amendment lawyers primed for battle. Then 9/11, and the feds ne…

Kink is actually relatively tame as far as "violent porn" goes. Insex set the standard in hardcore S/M during its day and was actually forced to close over scrutiny from its perceived obscenity. Many modern S/M sites owe their style and aesthetic to Insex's grisliness. Speaking of which, a documentary I'd recommend viewing on the topic is Graphic Sexual Horror. Be sure to watch it during the day.

Of course, I'm not counting things like guro, crushing or vore. S/M is a long established subculture, though I suppose the more hardcore stuff is relatively recent in practice. I don't think it should be marginalized in the slightest. It's certainly not a joke, however.

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