how do porn companies make money when their product is free?
In: Economics
The same way that 90% of Internet companies make money. They sell advertising and user data.
Porn sites in particular are also notorious for malware and such which is another way to make money.
Even the clips you’re jerking off to are supported by ad revenue from the sites you get them from. They also advertise full length content that’s officially only available through the producers for purchase. Serious consumers will also get devoted to particular performers who they will support by buying.
If the product is free then you are the product. They are selling your data to advertisers, other tech companies etc.
How does any company make money when their product is free? Ads. Like the old saying goes, if you’re not paying for the product then you are the product – the product is just there to draw your attention so they can sell your attention to advertisers. Plus they’re selling full versions of the movies you’re only getting clips of.
What is cost per mille display advertising, and how does it work?
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t buy the products that are advertised. Unlike other companies such as YouTube, the products are very popular but I don’t see the same markets for the products that are being advertised on adult sites. When we consider the amount of money being made, I am curious where the money comes from. I have never seen a better help or upcoming movie ad. It makes sense on tangible products so you can influence purchasing power. This is not the same as strategy.
Most of their revenue comes from small percentage of viewers who pay for premium content such as full length video, new video, etc.
TLDR: To quote Zuckerberg “Senator, We Run Ads”. Paying content creators for running ads on their videos is the same revenue model as youtube.
Porn is by far the most pirated form of media.
A lot of internet porn **isn’t** actually free but people steal it all the time. It’s so prolific a practice that Porn companies have learned to just deal with it and find other ways to make money.
To quote the song: “The Internet is for Porn”, there’s so much porn content online… it’s actually a very competitive industry and the studios are fighting over getting people to watch videos for only a few minutes at a time.
Most people either don’t want to pay for porn, or *don’t want to be caught* paying for porn. Combined with the ease of access of free pirated videos on the early internet resulted in a wide spread culture of piracy.
Meanwhile the porn industry doesn’t have the lobbying power of Hollywood, and because of the stigma associated with porn it’s hard to go to Congress or on the news and convince them to be tougher on internet piracy on their behalf. A lot of Congressmen (despite being hypocrites and watching tons of porn themselves) can’t be associated with porn related legislation unless it’s banning or restricting it due to their family friendly Christian image.
The other problem is the average length of viewing for porn is very short. The average person visiting Pornhub spends around 9 minutes 20 seconds, and clicks on 8-9 videos so less than 1 minute each. So clips are far more popular than full length videos.
These days Porn studios will regularly upload their own clips to sites like Pornhub. This both acts as advertising for their studio and gets them ad revenue.
A small percentage of people that watch a video on pornhub will go to the studio to get the whole video or more related content. They either subscribe for a month or two, or just buy a few clips.
Most consumers though don’t watch porn for long, but generate tons ad revenue for the studio due to large numbers of people binge watching clips.
Individual actors also typically earn revenue on the side with merchandising, sponsorship deals, and custom content like OnlyFans. Let alone illegal (but extremely common) activities like escort services, private parties, and prostitution.
There is a ton of porn that I don’t like. When I found a company making stuff my wife and I enjoy watching from time to time, I got an annual subscription to their website. No shitty ads, and I help fund the content I watch. Spend 70 bucks a year on it.
Yes, ads; but I feel like the question still stands: YouTube has ads, but it doesn’t cost very much to produce most YouTube content; a ton of it is just a person talking into a mic ordered from Amazon. Porn actually requires real shooting logistics: booking a set, cameras, lighting, hair and makeup, actually paying the (ahem) actors. It seems like there are a ton of real world costs embedded in a given minute of content versus YouTube content. So yes, ads; but does anyone else feel like that doesn’t really answer the question? Yeah it’s a freemium model, the whales subsidize the free loaders. But it’s not like there are 100 free television watchers for each paid Netflix subscription. The more I think about it, the less the basic economics of this industry make sense.
Latest Answers