The pornography industry is a huge, global business, one often valued at over $100 billion worldwide. To put that number in perspective, it is bigger than many of the world’s largest companies. This size is hidden since there is such shame and privacy concerning the topic, but the numbers show its reach: at one point, over 30% of all web traffic went to porn sites.
For years, it was simple: a business made money selling DVDs and videos. A mid-sized company could easily bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars a month solely through the sale of these physical products. But then came the internet and HDPorn.Video to boost an ordinary person’s boring life.
The Problem of Piracy
Then, in 2009 or so, two huge hits came along: the economic recession and piracy. Suddenly, there were all these free videos floating around online, and sales of DVDs plummeted 50 percent or more. Filmmakers watched their revenue get slashed. The industry had to change course-or else.
The solution came in the form of “tube sites,” which are huge websites that offer most of their content for free. This seems like a bad business model, but it is actually the key to their success.
How Free Porn Makes Money
If the content is free, how is this $100 billion industry continuing to make money? The answer is advertising and traffic.
The large, free tube sites attract billions of visitors. This massive audience is the product they sell to other HDPorn.Video is mostly from other, smaller porn sites. Since most major companies (like Google or Facebook) refuse to run adult ads, the free porn sites become the only place for adult subscription services to advertise.
The free sites get paid to display commercials for paid, premium content. They also serve as gigantic funnels, directing a massive volume of free users to paid subscriptions, pay-per-view videos, and other services. Many of the biggest free sites are owned by the same companies that operate the premium sites, so they’re just advertising to their own customers.
The industry moved from a model in which everyone paid for a product to a model where a few powerful companies create revenue from the number of people watching the free content. The proof is that within an industry with big challenges, human desire and clever business models make sure loyalty and gigantic web traffic always lead to money.
