A disturbing trend these recent years are that pornsites are making their stuff alot more expensive to access. It started with websites doing stream only memberships with a small additional fee to unlock downloads, but nowadays it's almost twice the price to be able to get a membership with downloads included compared with stream only memberships. Some websites even require you to buy a membership of a minimum of 3 months up to a year to be able to access downloads. It's becoming more common that websites exclude downloads in their basic membership and require additional payment to get access to downloads.
Of course this is going to cause disgruntled customers who just a few years ago got everything included in their membership.
Doesn't porn companies understand that this only increases piracy?
Take TeamSkeet for example. To access all their content with downloads included is gonna cost you more than $400, no exception.
It's not like these companies aren't making money, it's a multibillion dollar industry. Their greed is pushing people towards piracy and the fact that this kind of policy is becoming the norm is crazy.
It makes sense to have a streaming only option and a more expensive download option. If people use that to justify stealing, that is because they were inclined to steal from the beginning.
Your thoughts mirror a lot of my own. I've been subscribing to sites for over 25 years now and it always seems that sites are looking for new ways to screw over paying customers. Hidden charges, pre-checked cross-sales, difficulty in cancelling and the list goes on. I don't mind paying for porn and I'm even okay with paying more for downloads as long as its a reasonable amount. It's as if a lot of porn sites are okay with getting someone signed up and shake them down to get as much out of them as possible. There are sites that I've only ever joined once, there are sites that have changed their practices for the worse and I'm not likely to ever join them again. Then there are sites like those in the Gamma network. Sites like Evil Angel and Adult Time. I like that they are open and transparent with their pricing and while you have to jump through a few hoops to cancel your membership, it is still quite easy.
The bottom line is that as a subscriber, I often feel hard done by with some of these companies.
I think a big factor is a lot of customers don't want to download the scenes because the files are so big. And a lot of customers want to pay the bare minimum, so companies create pricing tiers.
The problem with a streaming only option is that companies usually give this the same price as the all-in-one-membership used to have and then they hike up the price for the membership that includes downloads.
If they kept the same price for a membership that includes downloads, then i wouldn't have any problem with it.
But it's obvious they wanna screw over the customer when you only get streaming for the same price as a membership that used to include downloads.
^ Agreed. As I said above, I have no issue with multiple options for memberships and I am fine with paying more for downloads, but as long as sites are open and transparent about that.
HAHAHA. Porn membership prices haven't changed in 20 years in pure dollar amounts.
And porn is not a multi billion dollar industry. Certain aspects of adult entertainment such as OF, cams, etc, are multibillion. But if you are talking about produced porn like team skeet, brazzers, etc, it is maybe half a billion per year gross.
Everyone overestimates porn's revenues because it touches so much of your life. It's one of the smallest industries with the biggest reach.
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Lezzyist Deactivated User
Make Porn Erotic Again 1736 Posts 9/19
Posted - Sep 20 2022 : 6:18PM
They are trying to squeeze as much as they can from the few people who do pay, basically. And what else can they do? Those who avoid paying don't do so because the porn is terrible (though most of it is).
The piracy is what begot the nickel and dime tactics because there are less people paying into the system.
People unfortunately have had their heads in the sand far too long when it comes to how badly piracy has ravaged the industry (excluding most of the folks on this forum, many of which are long-time consumers of DVD's and studio sites). Just take a glance at the number of popular performers over the years who have switched almost exclusively to OF & camming. Abigail Mac was just tweeting about this a few days ago, I would encourage people to check out the responses from other industry folks in her thread. Performers with an established name can make far more money putting their content behind a walled garden than they can from studio sites (even when a lot of it is amateur quality), which are producing less and less content as each year goes by.
[Tweet is no longer available]
The reason is that adult site margins are getting smaller and smaller, which means their budgets have shrank while sites attempt to throw a bunch of different tactics at the wall to see what sticks. Hence, introducing things like tiered memberships to draw people in at smaller price-points. What's happening is the mid-tier & niche sites have nearly all disappeared. The ones who remain have ended up getting absorbed by conglomerates like Gamma or MindGeek. The fact that OF continues to surge in popularity suggests that the people who are willing to pay for content are just opting to go directly to the performers they like and forgo studio sites all together. At a certain juncture there will be a breaking point, as pornography is something that people will always want. But it's likely go to take some other kind of form, although nobody knows exactly what that will look like.
Abigail's tweet has some truth to it but also ignores a lot of facts too.
Plenty of OnlyFans content is freely shared illegally also. I can't imagine the top performers are that clueless that there are dozens of free apps and browser extensions that paying users can use to download copies of OnlyFans videos and photos they paid for; even if OnlyFans itself doesn't officially offer that or endorse it. Nobody who does it without permission cares if there's a wall of text in the bio saying legal threats for distribution of personal content. Piracy is going to happen regardless of platform.
I always found it odd that more performers don't utilize a personal website. It's still a paywall but instead of OnlyFans taking a chunk of monthly earnings for doing nothing to improve their service (and nearly gave all SW the boot a while back), these performers could instead pay a significantly smaller hosting fee and you know, earn more income for themselves if that's the most important thing. But sadly most performers do fall into the stereotype of not being bright business-savvy people.
As a fan of IR content as much as I like Abigail 1 new upcoming Dredd scene doesn't makeup for a long absence (years?)
Solos and G/G content doesn't interest me. I should subscribe indefinitely to maybe get a specific thing I want if she feels like it?
When fans complain that she's not shooting for studios maybe it's because they're hoping those producers/directors will actually pair her with male talent they like or genres they prefer. Crazy thought I know. If she's not going to do it often in her personal life. She can disagree but fans have a valid reason to complain. It's not just a shallow watch it for free excuse.
Maybe some fans don't want to see boring sex with the girl's boyfriend or husband and want pros who have size and skill. Maybe some fans actually like a high-end camera and professional lighting crew. Not a ring light from Amazon and whatever the performer's camera phone type is (some don't even shoot in 1080p)
Not all performers put in the production value and effort like Reya Sunshine for example.
Girls complain that "it's hard and takes a lot of time to do content on my own" even if true the end result is what any viewer notices. If the video looks cheap and the makeup is average nobody cares if you spent hours planning for an overpriced 5 minute clip. Shooting for companies, those tasks are taken care of.
Some performers find a good balance of shooting for companies and their own content. Unfortunately many performers have become spoiled and honestly a bit arrogant. These girls are only in the top percentile of OnlyFans earners because of their studio work (which gave them exposure). There's no shortage of attractive girls (arguably more attractive) who aren't as successful because they haven't gone pro yet or at least have yet to collaborate with known names.
Going back to the main topic, if downloads are important to paying users they can wait (or request) VOD titles to: AdultDVDEmpire, HotMovies and AEBN
Still support and buy scenes you like without being overcharged on yearly memberships
Edited by - Big_Tits_Addict on 9/20/2022 11:23:35 PM
I just bought a 30 day membership at Brazzers for $32.99 and that doesn't even include downloads. To be able to download anything at all you have to pay an additional $19.99.
That's a total of $52.98 for a 30 day membership.
That's ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.
Piracy is stealing, but this is frickin' extortion.
. .
Edited by - Iamtheenema on 9/22/2022 1:48:12 AM
[Link]
bridge6296 Deactivated User
1041 Posts 8/13
Posted - Sep 22 2022 : 8:14AM
^No, it isn't. First off, no one is forcing you to do anything. And on top of this not being extortion or anything like that you're the one that chose to pay a premium price to join. I know for a fact that iDealgasm ran a $9.99 special for Brazzers yesterday.
It would seem to me that if someone was going to join a site, they'd look at the FAQ section to determine the terms and conditions before joining.
Secondly, is piracy still even a thing in porn? IIRC, I thought the whole piracy argument went out the window a few years ago when Pornhub started hosting an awards show and paying performers who were previously "anti-piracy" to attend.
For reputable sites, yes, but not for all sites. I know I sound like a shill for Gamma, but I'm nothing but a happy customer. Part of that satisfaction is that when I click the 'join' button I am presented with a clear menu of available choices.
How long a membership do I want, and do I want streaming or do I want downloads too? I contrast this with a site I joined a few years ago where I was disappointed to see that it was streaming only. The tour pages were vague (and deceptively so, it seems). I went back and re-read the Terms and Conditions and the paragraph on accessing the files was vague at best. It was misleading for sure. I posted a comment on a website about this and the site owner threatened to sue me - for revealing that his site was streaming only. That was an indicator that he was being deliberately misleading in what the membership included.
Even many big studios are vague about what you get for what you pay. I'm a big fan and regular subscriber to Team Skeet and some of their premium sites, but they are anything but transparent about costs and what it includes. I once took advantage of an email offer from them for a $10 subscription for a premium site I like. Taking the deal was a no-brainer. I'll take the $10 streaming only deal (they didn't make that clear, but as a regular TS subscriber I knew that) and add downloads to it for whatever the fee was. It was still a good deal. But once I was behind the paywall and tried to add downloads I couldn't. I emailed support and was told that adding downloads wasn't available with any membership that costs less than $15.
Terms and Conditions are generally opaque. I'm a lawyer and even I have trouble with them sometimes. Often because the people writing them want them to be vague.
^Also Gamma has some pretty great bundle deals via Adulttime. I don't love the fact that most of the major sites have been consumed by the giant conglomerates, but one bonus as a consumer is you get some pretty good deals. They regularly offer 'lifetime' deals where you can purchase permanent access to a site, as long as you maintain your original Adulttime sub. So for example, I paid $80 for the Evil Angel bundle deal, and now I have full access to the Evil Angel site as long as I keep my yearly Adulttime subscription. That's a pretty damn good deal when you consider that most of the major sites cost around ~110-200 per year. I've purchased 3 lifetime bundle deals, which all stay active for a total yearly cost of $119
Just wait for a sale, they will usually have them around a holiday.
Best deal to me has been Naughty America, I've been an annual member since 2016 for just $60 a year. When my CC expired it was easy to resolve to keep my $60 a year. Granted when NA goes on sale now I've seen it for $72 a year so it's still pretty cheap.
NaughtyAmerica has the content I like, with 4K downloads, VR, nice photosets where I can use them as desktop wallpapers (decent resolution size too) in a ZIP archive, a robust archive (live shows recorded back in the hey day 2008-2012 I think)
Piracy for videos is easy with tube sites to stream but that quality can be hit or miss, what I pay for is the photosets as that is a lot harder to pirate/download. Also I love that VR videos isn't a separate site. My only complaint was their last redesign a few years ago where they removed video dates and some other navigation features. Also I know they had messed around with subscriptions costs at one time but I think the customer feedback they realized they were wrong. I don't know how much money NA is making or losing but I sure hope they don't cut back features like Mindgeek sites did with their photosets to just screen caps.
I got Teamskeet Premium last year for $289 a year in December, and they even offered a deal if I prepaid 5 years in advance at $199 a year, but I wasn't going to drop another 1K just like that. Will likely be cancelling my annual sub to Teamskeet just for the fact that their photosets are mostly crap, and if there are decent photos of my favorite models, all of their photo resolution is a measly 1620 by 1080....NOT even full HD resolution! Why be so cheap on photo resolution/size? Their ZIP photosets are often not even 100MB.
I also like Gamma managed sites as I also have AdultTime and lifetime bundles, I got a bunch at $80-89 each back in 2019, so I just pay $96 a year to AdultTime to maintain access. They have raised those lifetime bundles and doesn't offer them as much it seems, earlier in May I saw that they were offering lifetime Diabolic for $149, which was the one site I kinda wanted but didn't get when it was offered at $89. So I gave in this time at 149, and then two months later Diabolic was included free with ZeroTolerance which I already had a lifetime membership, oh well.
I completely agree with what you're saying. But, it's an age old story. The porn industry always has been a buyer beware story since the 70's at least. If you remember the 70-80's issues of Hustler with all the porn ads in the back, you had all sorts of deals advertised. Hustler also had a Mail-order company feedback page where you can state your case good, bad, or otherwise, about the quality of service provided from the ads.
Nowadays, the whole process is sped up being online, but it's still buyer beware. Instead of a PO Box, it's a site, OF, terms of service, streaming vs download, paywalls, etc. What I've noticed over my time in this thread, is that people are hell bent on tossing their cash away in sometimes less than reputable situations for whatever reason even when all signs point to a big "Don't do it!" they still do it, then complain afterwards. I mean, if the terms and conditions are vague before joining, why join? If you're looking for downloading capabilities, search that first and if you can't get an answer, ask them. If you don't get a response that you like, don't join.
I literally spent 6 months off and on contemplating joining Spermmania.com before I finally pulled the trigger. Their FAQ spells out exactly what you need and want to know. If it wasn't so crystal clear, I'd have never joined. Granted they go for a slight upsell beyond a 1 month sub on download speeds, and also they asked if you wanted to sub to a couple other related sites, but it wasn't a hard sell. Check it out.
Your link refers to digital vs physical media - not download vs streaming (both 'digital') which is what most people are discussing. Downloading a file and and having a digital library - being able to view it anytime on any device without requiring an internet connection is important to many.
That's mostly my position on the streaming versus download thing. I want to know I can watch a scene at any time as long as I have a device that I can plug an external drive into. I do recall reading elsewhere, maybe even on a thread here, that streaming on adult sites is now a bigger business than downloading and if that's true, then I understand it. Most people are porn consumers, not porn collectors. For me, the finding, downloading, cataloguing and backing-up are part of the hobby for me. I also have a big collection of porn from the 1990s and 2000s and if I didn't have those on external harddrives then I'd likely never see them again.
Cost is another issue. If I want to watch Lewd Conduct 1 I can probably go to a VOD site and watch it. If a few weeks from now I want to watch it again, I can go to the same site and pay again. This is different from me simply plugging in the correct harddrive and watching it from the site membership I had years ago.
I'm not entirely opposed to streaming either. I have Netflix constantly and subscribe to other services too. There are some movies that I'd like to have but that's just a dream now. When Netflix removes them, I'll likely not be able to see them elsewhere.
There is one model where I'm happy to belong to a streaming service and that's with Spotify. But for me, a big advantage is being able to download music to my phone and play it without Wifi. But the biggest difference for me is that Spotify has everything on one platform for one monthly price. Whether I'm in the mood for AC/DC or Gordon Lightfoot, Spotify has it. This is different from most porn sites. If I'm in the mood for watching some rough anal sex but all I have is a membership to Girlsway, then I'm out of luck unless I sign up for another membership.
I suspect that for people who like streaming, sites like Adult Time are great. I can imagine that there are a lot of people who keep an annual membership there because they have so much to offer.
Please re-read, it contains all methods of movie distribution including downloads. Since such a report doesn't exist for porn, I linked a Hollywood report since Hollywood mostly leads the way with trends. The masses prefer streaming, mainstream or porn. Customers want instant access.
Be well
Edited by - snufish on 9/28/2022 8:22:59 PM
How did they get "established" in the first place? by shooting for the same companies they're bashing now.what piracy? it's the studios themselves who upload content to tubes in 2022. PH, XV and others are now "legitimate" platforms. Studios have no one to blame but themselves, never work with the enemy.
Again this particular discussion was about streaming vs. downloading... That study says nothing about preferences streaming vs. downloading and it's kinda a moot point as legitimate mainstream/Hollywood Film sites as they don't really offer true downloading as any option (some may offer 'downloads" for offline viewing, but that's undoubtedly within a controlled, copy protected environment or proprietary app for members etc.)
I agree with what the OP said about the increase in prices for many sites but rather than what OP believed that they are pushing ppl to piracy, fact is I am buying more and paying more in recent years because it's harder to search for the special stuff if they are sold expensive, probably the digital thieves do not want to pay for those expensive stuff but keep buying the more general stuff at lower costs.
Also if a service is streaming only you are stuck watching on your computer. I prefer service I can download since I can watch the films on my 50' TV and not my small computer monitor.
Another important point is that if a service remove something from their offer it's game over, but if download was part of the service that doesn't affect you... this is why I can always watch the original Jekyll & Dad or Waking the Babysitter, to name two, after they vanished from the Pure Taboo website.
More stream and less download is part of a transition from durable merchandise to services and rentals. That may be a permanent change in porn or a pendulum swing. I'll wait for the swing back. Youtube vids are usually easier to download than stream while they stop to buffer. Paying for a stream seems so silly and inconvenient.
The root of problem is those people could still profit by uploading free porn. There should be an organization for the porn industry to help and protect the business. I really wouldn't mind paying for porn if it's good. However, today it's not easy to find good porn. People won't invest on good production, they make quick and worse things instead.
Why aren't gift cards more universally accepted? For example Anna Lisa Wagner has her first hard-core scene out (YES!) with Crushed Velvet X on Only fans, but OF doesn't take gift card or prepaid cards... ??
I like porn and the Golden Age of Porn 1947 Posts 9/21
Posted - Dec 11 2022 : 5:09PM
All MissaX sites are overpriced and never offer discounts or sales. I just buy their VODs on AdultEmpire but for some reason, they stopped offering them there.
Relating to the topic, I agree that streaming only is dumb. I understand why a company would want to do it. However, as a customer, I hate it. I never sign up for stream only.
Edited by - molasseslime on 12/11/2022 11:51:46 PM
Little Puck Interview
Posted - Sep 20 2022 : 11:25AM
