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Amateur hour
17 Nov 2008 12:22 pm
So the post below made me think about "sin industries", the classic countercyclicals. Until now, that is. Vegas is crashing hard, and not just because of its real estate bubble. Can porn and malt liquor be far behind? Is this the moment that amateur porn has been waiting for--just as people have more dinner parties and less dining out during downturns, will people start making their own, er, fun at home? I know I'm a heck of a lot more likely to take $20 to a friendly poker game than $100 to Atlantic City.
Megan,
You are behind the curve. The porn industry has been crashing for about three years now. Back in the 90s, the dirty little secret of the internet was the only sites that actually had cash flow and made money were porn sites. With the explosion in band width and sites like You Tube, peope started trading home made porn just like they trade Rolling Stones bootlegs. Now there is so much free porn to be had out there, there is no reason to pay for it. Since unlike music, people can make it themselves, no amount of copyright protection will save it.
Glad to see Vegas go down. The prices out there have been outragous for years. But, sad that I am now married and can't enjoy the benefits of cheap trips to sin city.
Ultimate Fighting Championship 91 had a 4.1 million gate in Vegas this weekend.
Crashing may be a relative term. Or perhaps they built too many casinos to part fools from their home equity loan money...
Another thought: In the last down cycle, casino hotel rooms and restaurants were loss leaders--designed to get people gambling. Now, lodging and dining are a substantial part of casino revenue and obviously taking a hit. It would be interesting to see if gaming revenues ($ per table) are taking a hit as well.
She spends the whole post talking about amateur porn and then makes it personal with ... poker? I won't lie. I was disappointed.
"Can porn and malt liquor be far behind?"
Say it isn't so! I'm off to buy canned guns and ammunition.
Not if you make Hillary Secretary of State......imagine the international incidents in waiting with Bubba tagging along.....hold it....that will only be a boon for the late night talk shows.
"I know I'm a heck of a lot more likely to take $20 to a friendly poker game than $100 to Atlantic City. "
Is that a metaphor!?!
I doubt economic concerns are driving those who choose to make amateur porn.
And I second bcg's comment.
Porn wants to be free.
In response to Mitchell Young:
"But entertainment wants to be paid."
@wiredog: Yes, but how? Will entertainment be willing to accept alternate forms of payment?
@bcg: Thanks for tackling it first. You phrased it better than I was going to.
To John:
I think the problem is the current business model for porn, and free sampling.
Before the internet, porn needed only a splashy magazine ad or a titilating title to get someone to rent it. However, in the internet age, many, many new companies popped up that began offering huge samples--downloadable and viewable for free--that were basically an entire scene from a porn movie. Since the average porn viewer watches only 1.2 scenes per movie--because they, ahem, get out after the use of the movie has passed for them----these free samples suffice, and a porn viewer need not pay for an entire movie. The start up porn companies are bankrupting themselves and the big ones by giving away the milk for free. Oh gosh, did I just write that?
The other problem is that the internet has made porn so easily viewable, the old video store distribution model is dying off. So a big company's ability to glut a market because a little guy can't ship to walla walla, washington is gone.
Certainly, YouPorn, etc. aren't helping, but these are only in the last few years. The real problem has been the attempted start ups, which use shoestring budgeting and cheap, plotless films to try to carve a niche and end up failing miserably.
Certain companies will survive because they produce so called "quality" porn---contract actress who are not overexposed (very important in porn), better looking actresses, better "writing" (this is all relative), better lighting, better "direction" (again, all relative), plot development, etc. But they will cater to a more selective audience, much as Danny DeVito explained in "Other People's Money": the last buggywhip company produced the gosh darned best buggywhip you ever saw. Or the way people will pay more for unground, rare coffee beans, because anyone can buy ground-up coffee now.
Basic Fact,
I bow to your superior knowledge of the porn industry.
"Since unlike music, people can make it themselves, no amount of copyright protection will save it."
Anyone can make music themselves, but that's no guarantee anybody will want to listen to it.
Likewise, anybody can have sex in front of a camera, but not every couple even wants the lights on for themselves, let alone would they draw much of a crowd on the Internet.
No matter how many cheap Telecaster copies get sold on eBay, there will only ever be one Prince.
No matter how many people choose to make sex objects of themselves... there will only ever be one Prince.
@Klug: How to pay entertainment is a question that's been bouncing around for a couple of years now. See Jerry Pournelle's website for one idea (voluntary subscriptions). That's a variation on the old, pre-copyright, idea of having a sponsor (Lord Whoever) to whom the work was dedicated. Lord Whatsis porvides cash, or a spot in the household, in return for pages of fulsome praise.
There's also product placement. And using the digital version as advertisement for the live performances.
Not sure if any of those would work for /porn/, but for recordings, books, etc. it might be workable.
"Likewise, anybody can have sex in front of a camera, but not every couple even wants the lights on for themselves, let alone would they draw much of a crowd on the Internet."
Most wouldn't. But if say .1% of all the couples out there are attractive enough and willing enough to make watchable porn, that is a lot of porn. Further, it is not like every porn actor looks like a 20 year old Catherine Deneuve. Most women wouldn't work at strip clubs, yet there are 1000s of successful strip clubs full of young attractive women in the country.
@wiredog: It was a bad joke about the p-word. "Alternate forms of payment"... Get it? Sigh. I'm a terrible comedian.
"But if say .1% of all the couples out there are attractive enough and willing enough to make watchable porn, that is a lot of porn."
And a 1-in-1000 musical talent is usually able to put on a pretty good show, so my point remains pretty much the same.
Porn is not distinct from music as far as the capacity to self-produce quality work goes.
Speaking of which, when you're done cleaning yourselves up from enjoying free porn on the Internet, why not go out to a club that features some good local live music?
I don't know what it's like in your home towns, but in mine the smoking bans have been BRUTAL to the bar concert scene.
Tara,
It takes a lot more talent to be in a decent bar band than it does to make porn. Anyone can do it. That is why the garbage is so ubiquitous. Listenable bands sadly are anything but common.
As far as local live music I spent five years in central Texas and took in a lot of good music back in the day. I have very high standards for "local music" as a result of living somewhere where the local music really was good. Now, however I am married to a woman who thinks popular music is over amplified and is only five feet tall so she can never see anything in most clubs anyway. So, I don't go much anymore.
I think liquor sales will at least stay steady and cheap liquor like malt 40's will go up. While spending overall will go down, spending on things that keep one from being emotionally depressed like intoxicants will probably go up relative to overall spending. And if people want to be inebriated cheaper, then instead of buying high class booze, they're looking at malt.
I think that you missed this story:
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Where To Invest In A Meltdown
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/hfo-as-the-markets-sink-one-club-introduces-the-1000-lap-dance-done-with-art/?hp
I'm glad that someone's prospering:
"The implosion of the financial markets seems to mark the twilight of the second gilded age. History may look back with scorn at $30,000 couches, $600-an-hour therapists, $25,000 hot chocolates and super Sweet 16 parties.
The Wall Street folks, you’d think, seem to be saying goodbye to all that.
Except, apparently, in one area: strip clubs (or “gentlemen’s clubs,” as they like to brand themselves).
“Since the market has been going down, our business has been going up — it’s unbelievable,” said Sam Zherka, the owner of the V.I.P. Club in Chelsea, who estimates that about 80 percent of his clients are Wall Street types. (You’d think the lawsuits would have dampened that, but it seems fine as long as they’re not entertaining clients on their work-related expense accounts.)
Mr. Zherka added, “A lot of guys are losing their shirts in the market, and they are coming in droves.”
Sounds like a great investment opportunity!
Forget porn. I can envision a world full of amateur sex...
Forget porn. I can envision a world full of amateur sex...
I think the whole 'girls gone wild' thing proves that, well, a certain percentage of the populace are exhibitionists (yeah, there are subject-verb agreement issues there , and yeah the a**hole who started GGW is, well, an a*hole.) Add to this the marginal cost of reproducing porn is close to zero and you have a business that is going to be rapidly driven to an ad-selling model.
BTW I've not before heard of sindustries as being counter-cyclical. Isn't it the Proctor and Gambles, the Kellogs, the Johnson and Johnsons that we can't do without -- well, we can, but that would take real abasement. Steve Sailer has pointed out that if you live in SoCal, the first thing you are going to cut when you can no longer use your house's equity as an ATM is that bi-annual trip to Vegas.
Don:
There was an article (which I am too lazy to find and cite) about economic downturns and escorts. Essentially, the escorts see an initial upswing in business due to people wanting to ignore their troubles, and then a big crash as those people run out of money.
I assume the strip clubs are the same way.
I assume, then, that we won't be seeing Matt & Megan Make a Porno any time soon.
Actually I think the amatuer music/porn comparison has more to it.
Yes, 0.1% of the population might be talented enough to sing, and similar amount talented, endowed, and shameless enough for porn... so why is one "artform" so clearly not up to the professional standard, and the other is?
I'd say it is because we've had hundreds, if not thousands of years of professional development in the music industry. Porn, on the other hand, is pretty much still at the amatuer level, even when done professionally.
Now that we have a major porn industry, it is possible that technique, styles and technology will develop over time that will allow trained professionals to put on a show that will be as far beyond amatuer porn as a professional music star is beyond your mate with a guitar.
Imagine professional gymnasts, and what a show they might be able to do... (actually I better stop imagining that, I'm at work!)
"I know I'm a heck of a lot more likely to take $20 to a friendly poker game than $100 to Atlantic City."
Just please, Please, PLEASE promise us you'll keep your clothes on!
I think you missed this story in your favorite struggling business magazine:
http://www.portfolio.com/culture-lifestyle/culture-inc/arts/2007/10/15/YouPorn-Vivid-Entertainment-Profile
Don the libertarian Democrat, tell me you're not advising us to invest in shirt manufacturers!
More seriously, the very high-end (expensive) forms of entertainment will do ok, but the next tier down - that purchased by the nouveau riche - will tank. So single-malt scotch will do ok, but Chivas will do poorly. Cheap beer will be fine, especially as people who were drinking expensive beer to impress will switch to cheap beer to get drunk.
There will still be $5000 hookers, even without Eliot Spitzer, but the $500 hookers will have fewer clients. (Porn will do ok - that's the cheap end of the same market - I've never heard of a porn video going for more than $50. If you have, you don't need to provide evidence.)
Going to one of the free porn websites offering streaming video is pretty amazing - in how fast the person can learn and screen the porn product. A better layout than U-Tube, IMO.
You get 50, sometimes more thubnails of scenes you can scan and think...hmmm...that babe looks hot..or "sorry, fat mashed-face granny and trailer trash skinny guy meth freak..not interested".
Each thumbnail gives title, time of video, and selected, has all the U-Tube veiwer features.
And the search functions are impressive..some of these sites have 300,000-420,000 video scenes, even whole movies..many with porn from around the world.
So you can type in Japanese+nurse+3-way and in a second, you have 30-50 (or far more) thumbnail returns.
And the amateur stuff is coming on big. Crazy stuff. Japanese tourists filming themselves being serviced by Ecuadoran strippers, Finnish sauna porn, Russian young guy- old lady(or old hag) porn - which I guess appeals to the not-imitated anywhere else Russian mind....
Out of my tastes - the gay porn sites are just as massive, and my wife and her friends have found what they call upgraded Harlequin Romance "Fabio" sites where some half-dressed or undressed hunk does softcore or X-rated stuff while talking about romance, what he sees as beautiful in single, shy shut-in women watching this stuff..
Brave new world.
At least it gives broke, jobless Americans something cheap to do after our economic castastrophe.