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Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

dev.to

91–100 of 180 posts

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#91

We're what's broken. Our prudish approach to adult entertainment. "Joe" would have a happier life if he and his wife were open about how much money they were each spending on porn. They might learn something about each other. Hiding it in layers of shell billing companies isn't just ridiculous at the technical level described here, it's unhealthy . Also needs to be noted that —as others have said— card processing com…

How much money have I spent? In over a decade, I've never put my credit card to buy any content.

Sure I looked at ads, but I never used any except an accidental click.

This is borderline a free/voluntary to create content with almost no barrier to entry. Hosting it is the only cost IMO, and that sound expensive.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this approach, and the related proposals like 3D Secure and Bitcoin, is precisely that it puts a low ceiling on what the site is allowed to charge to exactly what the customer is willing to spend on porn. The bread and butter of porn and most other internet subscription models is to get hold of the consumer credit card data and then setup a long run recurring payment stream, on the expectation that w…

If there was a prepaid card that make these payments easy and even anonymous, I'd spend a lot more on the internet. I refuse to get into subscriptions. I pass on a lot of articles that I'd like to read. A prepaid card that not connected to my finances and widely usable? If drop a hundred on it today. How many people like me will it take to have this make sense?

But such an anonymous prepaid card would ALSO be very useful for money laundering. Because of that, no regulated financial institution will provide such a product. We used to have some (like prepaid debit cards purchased in person with cash) but the few that existed have nearly all been eliminated (in the US).

I am sure that if someone were to propose using specially printed pieces of paper as a way of exchanging value that the government would prohibit it. The FBI would testify about "the financial system going dark", the banking regulators would complain about money laundering, and the whole scheme to invent "cash" would be denounced more vigorously than Bitcoin has been.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#93
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the author cops to being an accomplice to wire fraud Can you not determine who the author is? Based on clues like the author's name in the article heading, and the comment poster's name being different? And the author posting a reply to the circled comment you posted indicating that this approach does happen, but is sketchy... seems to point to a reading comprehension problem here.

You're being rude, but to answer your question directly: the author responded to the circled comment with an underlined statement admitting to have knowingly engaged in these services for use by his employer.

slightly, yes (rude).

Offering 2 things (access to one service, then a second service as 'free') does not strike me as automatically 'wire fraud'; we'd need more information to make that determination.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#94
post #78
post #4

The big "legit" payment provider is cc-bill. The "tube" sites are more exploitative than the rest of the industry in that they don't actually pay the performers, they're simply piracy, and because small independent producers don't have the political leverage to impose an equivalent of content-ID on them they stay that way.

As someone who works for a large tube site, you're entirely wrong. We pay a lot of money to people who upload content.

People who upload content and content producers have no necessary relationship. Paying uploaders is not a rebuttal to a charge that tube sites are dominated by piracy and don't pay content producers.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#95
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, definitely. I barely use Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies at all (because USD works great for everything I do), but cryptocurrencies are perfect for this industry because they are - fast enough. 15 minutes to validate a transaction is sufficient for a porn site. - as certain as wiring money. There's no chance a customer can force money back from you once paid. - anonymous. Your wife won't find out in a bank st…

> anonymous. Your wife won't find out in a bank statement, so less chance of "fake-angry" customers trying to force money back. Right, she'll think you're buying drugs instead when she sees the charge for cryptocurrency.

Or prostitutes?

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#96
post #90
post #71

There are a few companies/orgs trying to solve these issues: https://spankchain.com/ https://www.iliac.io/ But porn doesn't have high margins. No one (except the large distributors like Mindgeek - Pornhub, Redtube, YouPorn) is making much money. Especially these small sites that are being built. After you subtract legal, production, performer fees you're left with almost nothing. I worked in the Adult Industry for se…

> Porn performers/activists are the kindest, sweetest, most intelligent group of folks I've ever worked with. I'm finding it difficult to believe this given that it's known that pornography is known to be an industry riddled with violence, hard drugs, human trafficking and so on and so forth. Edit: As soon as I posted this I see the other commenter outed you as having an inherent benefit from tricking people into bel…

They metioned "Porn performers/activists", while the violence and everything else will be from the producers/"pimps" involved.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#97
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works for a large tube site, you're entirely wrong. We pay a lot of money to people who upload content.

People who upload content and content producers have no necessary relationship. Paying uploaders is not a rebuttal to a charge that tube sites are dominated by piracy and don't pay content producers.

We only pay people we've confirmed are in the videos.

Your comment doesn't just apply to porn tubes but all tubes. Youtube has tons of pirated content, they take it down when reported, just like us.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#98
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, definitely. I barely use Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies at all (because USD works great for everything I do), but cryptocurrencies are perfect for this industry because they are - fast enough. 15 minutes to validate a transaction is sufficient for a porn site. - as certain as wiring money. There's no chance a customer can force money back from you once paid. - anonymous. Your wife won't find out in a bank st…

> The disadvantage is that most people don't know how to use crypto. To expand on this, it's hard to turn crypto into rent. You mentioned the friendly online wallets - they're almost a necessity if you want to accept bitcoin, and then turn it into fiat currency. The idea of directly paying content producers is great ( mumble mumble some middlemen do add value ), but it doesn't do them much good if they can't buy a ga…

The customer doesn't need to use crypto for rent or milk. And the customer shouldn't care about the idea of paying content producers directly, that's not the point.

The customer uses a fiat -> crypto exchange/wallet combo service, sends a payment in crypto to the content producer, the content producer exchanges it back to fiat currency. The overhead of this is much less than 30-60% as mentioned in the article, and it's an extra 10 minutes of effort required by the customer, which is nearly identical to the 8 minutes of effort to type a credit card directly into the payment provider.

With this approach, the content producers win big time, and the customers lose 2 minutes, which can be further minimized by laymen-friendly online crypto wallets.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#99
post #4

The big "legit" payment provider is cc-bill. The "tube" sites are more exploitative than the rest of the industry in that they don't actually pay the performers, they're simply piracy, and because small independent producers don't have the political leverage to impose an equivalent of content-ID on them they stay that way.

arent the tube sites owned by the same people that own the content production studios?

[deleted]

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anonymous. Your wife won't find out in a bank statement, so less chance of "fake-angry" customers trying to force money back. Right, she'll think you're buying drugs instead when she sees the charge for cryptocurrency.

Or prostitutes?

Why would you need crypto (rather than cash) for any inherently in-person exchange?
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