But what are we gonna talk about we're gonna
talk about the business side of porn and shit
Okay, cuz that really what we don't want to get
demonetized Like I was looking some stuff up
for research before this and I was like I cannot
do side long like Screen in stuff on this topic
because we would get freaking Community slammed
so fast I'm going to come back to this. It reminds
me of something that happened at the store. Jay
provided us with a wonderful report last week
on the business of the adult entertainment industry.
And combining that with some research with some
great links from our viewers who put that into
our Discord, we're going to talk about the business
of the adult industry, what we know now and where
we think it's going. So top line of the report
that you sent over. And then we're going to get
into some like caveats here. They tack the adult
and pornographic website industry, the websites,
right? At 1 .3 billion in revenue a year. Right?
And you and I, when we first looked at this last
week, when we were looking at the report, both
of you and I were like, that seems low. Would
you not agree? No, yeah, I think it's at least
like sixty -nine point sixty -nine percent or
like sorry sixty -nine point sixty -nine billion
dollars It has to be it has to be So the report
does address that in again you've got to kind
of get into the You've got to kind of get into
like the little the details one of the things
that they talk about in this report is one of
the things that excluded from that 1 .3 billion
is Cam sites right for example, right? They're
like we have a hard time tracking them because
there's so many of them They're private companies.
They don't report revenue. We have no idea how
much Chatterbait or cam soda or what's the other
one? I see ads for all the crowd live jasmine
All those nobody knows how much those things
are making Right There's live jazz people jasmine
live jasmine, I think he has the one I've seen
the ads for Also, that number does not include
only fans Boom, there is a hundred billion dollars
gone. Actually, that's a good question. Do we
have do we have revenue numbers for them? 2023.
We do have money, we do have numbers. I can't
get the full thing in there. Six point six billion.
In twenty, twenty three. Is how much they that's
how much revenue they dropped. And let's say
again, to be fair to only fans, it's not just
porn. OK. But it's like 90 percent porn. If you
if you are like, if you're on only fans and you're
like, go in there. They were trying for a minute
to get like to advertise the non adult industry
stuff. Yeah. And there was actually one moment
where, because I do have a few like full -time
adult content creator friends. Yeah. There was
one point, like OnlyFans was like, we're thinking
about like banning adult content from our platform,
and they were like, Oh, it was a huge deal. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. They, They make a buttload of money
um An anal amount of money. Yes And again, this
is just those two segments and again cam sites.
We have no idea right See if I could find anything
on here Two billion globally is the best estimate
Right No one knows no one so again, but let's
take it a face value 1 .9 for the mainstream
porn industry online 2 billion for campsites
that means that that initial one that's only
that's not even half and it's 6 .6 billion in
rev for only fans Right like That's you know,
it is a big big industry It's huge. It's massive.
And it's growing all the time and innovating.
Again, porn built the internet and now there's
lots of talk because CES just happened and they
just had a big conference in Asia. VR porn. VR
porn. What are your thoughts? I mean, VR has
had a hard time taking hold in the mainstream.
It's still kind of a niche product. Right most
households don't own a VR set, right? Do you
think porn changes that Jay? So I would say the
the issue with the VR industry is the 1990 1992
Kind of issue that came up. Do I do I have to
say I think we all know it right? What kind of
hindered the VR? Expansion in 1992 Lawnmower
man mmm. Yeah that freaked people out, you know
Lawnmower man No, I'm just kidding. Um God, I
don't know why I can't ever forget that movie.
I really do not know why but It's like seared
into my mind. Um, so to answer your question,
will like porn change the VR landscape? I think
porn will always push things forward. Um, and
now like we're seeing porn in her and I know
you're going to cover it later, but like, you
know, sex robots. Um, but yeah, you're going
to, there's There's going to be a lot of people
that are going to buy VR headsets just for VR
porn. So right now, the estimate is 13 percent
of U .S. households has a VR headset. Right.
And 14 percent of U .S. households are using
VR headset for porn. But I mean. I guess my question
from an innovation, and this actually goes to
your engineering and business side, right? And
here's the parallel I will draw, right? Because
something can't just be better. It's got to be
better to the amount more you've got to put into
it, right? The best example I have for this is
this. The Army uses the M250 caliber machine
gun. We have been using the same machine gun
since the end of World War One. That was when
that machine gun came out. Yeah. And it's not
that there's not better versions ish of that
machine gun. It's that how much better they are
compared to what it would cost us to change out
and get something new. They're just not that
much better. You know what I mean? And so to
me, it's not just about innovation. It's. Does
that innovation serve, you know, to be is the
experience of VR porn better than just sitting
at your computer by enough to make it something
that's going to get more sales in the US? So
I think the. Does my question make sense? There's
a long question, Alex. Oh my God. No kidding.
I think I'm going to push back a little bit.
I think true innovation is going to push things
forward. And when I say true innovation, I don't
mean a like what the iPhone's doing. Every single
new iPhone is pretty much the same iPhone as
a previous one. There's not really much difference
there. Um, but true innovation is like when Apple
launched the iPhone, like the very first iPhone
or the, um, actually the very first of Apple
computer, like that was innovation. Um, the iPad,
that was innovation. Um, that's what makes everything
like kind of go crazy. Um, and yeah, I think,
I think you have to have true innovation. That's
what my like business side, like what we're learning
is for a company to truly add value to the market,
you have to have real innovation, which is hard
to do. However. And to kind of answer your question,
like is VR headsets enough innovation? Is it
good enough? I would say in the adult entertainment
space, right, in the adult entertainment space.
Not yet, but what I'm starting to see that's
very interesting to me is These like remote controlled
sex toys very popular on cam sites very popular
in campsites where How to like explain this where
we don't get demonetized huh, so essentially
it's going to you connect it to yourself and
then You don't have to do anything and then you're
like if you have a VR headset You're fully immersed
in and then it feels like things are actually
happening to you. It's fully immersive I think
that is going to be enough to kind of like innovate
and push forward however currently that kind
of stuff is well outside of everyone's price
range, so It's going to have to you're gonna
have to have like more competitors enter in the
market bring the prices of everything down Maybe
in the next 10 years, I would say, yeah, 10 years.
Corn in general, sorry, corn in general is going
to be fucking crazy. We're going to be fucking
there's no there's not going to be any more cobs.
You know, there's not going to be corn on the
cob anymore. Now is going to be this perfect
corn. Well, and again, kind of going down that
innovation route, you know, one of our viewers
on the discord decided to send me a link to a
adult entertainment Now, here's the thing. The
technology and the innovation on these has increased
greatly in the last few years. Holy smokes, right?
I went down a rabbit hole and I was like, no,
because here's my thing with these. And this
is again comes down to the cost benefit analysis
that I applied a V .R. I apply to here. It looks
like kind of your your let's call them top of
the line models. Right. Of these. Figures. Right.
They range between two and four thousand dollars.
Right. And they come with a variety of features.
Right. They're internally heated. Right. They've
now got them to do like. basic motions like a
hip and waist motion. Right. They've got a head
bobbing motion. Oh, God. OK. Is it like the.
Oh, is it like what is that TV show The Big Bang
Theory where the road he programmed the robot?
Yes. But but again, more more realistically now,
my personal feeling is they still look a little
too uncanny valley to me. Right. where they're
they're too perfect. Yeah, right. They still
have a very like Barbie doll kind of like plasticky
aesthetic to them. And I think that that's one
of the things that that makes it difficult for
those products. Also, the cost, the cost is they're
extra. And like I went on one of the websites
where you can customize, like you can add like
the internal heating and the movement and, you
know. Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba that is
there, right? Again, for me, I think it's a little
too uncanny valley. And again, for the cost,
I would be like, just hire an escort every so
often. That's my opinion. Now, wait, I want to
address a comment in chat though. Needs to be
more socially acceptable. So two things. much
like details about your sex life I don't think
like if you if somebody I knew purchased one
of these and had one I'd be like good for you
if you feel that that's the best use of your
funds for what you're trying to get out of it
I'm not gonna yuck your yum I'm really not right
like that's that's on you right I absolutely
wouldn't yuck your yum about that right But again,
much like sharing details about your sex life,
I don't think you need to go around broadcasting
the fact that you've got one of these bots hanging
out in your house. You know what I mean? Like
I don't need to know. Right. OK. That's that's
my thing. And if you tell me, like, good for
you. But I'm saying, like, again, it's it's it
kind of follows that same kind of ethical line
in my head. Right, we're like again You know
if that's if that's how you want to spend your
money I'm not gonna yuck your yum. Go nuts dude
like that's on you. I'm cool right Same as I
don't bust anybody's chops about either being
an only fans creator or somebody who pays for
it, right? I give that's where you want to spend
your money You know, I buy comic books and all
kinds of dumb shit Buy more alcohol than I probably
should Right the amount of money I've spent on
cigarettes in my entire life is probably You
know, you can say a lot of shit about where I've
spent my money, you know, so take that for what
it's worth I Don't know Jay, what do you think?
Um, so touching on that Comment about you know
be more socially acceptable I will say, I think
we are starting to get there. And I would say,
look at Japan, Japan, China, too. We heavily
moving away from like traditional relationships.
Um, it's very common, um, for people not to date.
It's very common for people to go to these, um,
uh, they're not considered escorts or anything,
but like go to clubs where you actually just.
Pay for a girl just to go out on a date It's
not sexual but just go out on a date and talk
to her and hang out with her so like a girlfriend
for like five hours and then you go back home
and You're on your own and they're happy on their
own. Um So there's a huge like movement in Japan
We're like dating is becoming like less and less
popular and people are kind of like taking things
into their own hands, I guess. No pun intended
there. But there is an argument to be made for
it. Yeah. I want to address one to chat, and
it's it's actually ironic that this chat message
came through because there is something on the
rundown that we had not decided whether we're
going to do. And I still don't think we're going
to. Right. But this kind of gets me there. Somebody
in the chat said, I agree with that broadcast
here, but society looks down on people who are
into non vanilla sex stuff. They make it a joke
in the media all the time. And one of the things
in our rundown is talking about non vanilla sex
things. Right. I think we're going to do that
as a topic at some point. We're running pretty
late tonight, so I don't think and Jane I talked
about I said I don't want to do this is like
an eight or nine minute segment Like what we've
got planned right like that's a longer topic
But please know It's actually come up. It's in
our rundown And we agree with you Right I am
for decriminalization of sex work. I think it
is detrimental to society to criminalize sex
work. It pushes it underground. Prohibition only
breeds organized crime. And especially in areas
like this, it also breeds human trafficking.
Right. It makes it a lot easier to do those kinds
of things than. If you just decriminalized it.
You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. Um, and
I'll say, you know, dog, dad, um, there's a quote
that I really like, um, people are going to talk
about you no matter what you do. So you might
as well do what makes you happy and not give
a fuck. Um, so yeah, and I, I'm very much not
vanilla at all. And I struggled with that like
growing up because I realized in middle school,
I was not vanilla, but I did not know the word
for it. And I thought something was wrong with
me. And I suppressed it for a really long time.
And I even went to a therapist and was like,
fix me. And luckily in Florida, I guess I went
to the only therapist. I was like, Oh yeah, there's
nothing wrong with you. Let me help you accept
you for who you are. There's nothing wrong with
it. You have to live your own life, not give
a fuck. People are going to bitch. People are
going to complain. No matter what you do, you
could live a fake vanilla life and still not
make people happy. So yeah. Life's too short
to be vanilla. Don't be vanilla. Do what you
got to do. Kind of swinging it back to our original
time, which the business of the adult entertainment
industry. Another interesting thing in this report
is, and I think it's the most key thing, and
I actually think. I think that that. It's it's
one of the difficult parts is monetizing consumers
remains the largest hurdle. Right. Which, again,
actually used to amaze me. It's like, why pay
for only fans? Why pay for adult entertainment?
Because there's so much out there for free. Right.
It is not hard to find free entertainment. Very
true. You know what I mean? And I think they're
saying this to like, they're like, man, we but
people still pay for it. But yeah, I mean, you
know, what percentage are of the what percentage
of the consumer base are actually willing to
pay for it? And I actually think that that number
is low. I think of the total number of people
who consume adult entertainment, the amount who
are willing to put money into it is probably
the minority. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah, I mean,
like. You have free websites like pornhub where
you can find anything reddit reddit Twitter Yeah,
I mean yes, you could have like better quality
or maybe the complete video if you paid for it,
but You can kind of just find it free on One
of those platforms, so. And I would say that's
the majority of people, that's what they're doing,
like they're not they're not actually paying
for it. So, yeah. The other thing that's interesting
to note about their thing, and again, we're talking
about the mainstream adult entertainment, the
margins are surprisingly low. The profit margin
is only five point nine percent. Yeah, that which
again to me feeds into the how many people aren't
paying for it. Yeah. Right. And also, dang, your
operating costs for this business are high. So
I will say. So. The the people that I know that
are in the adult industry. the issue with only
fans is that it's actually kind of like a perfect
business model issue so whenever someone makes
a lot of money in a market or industry that's
that's a signal for others to come in and drive
the price down to also make profits so that's
how everything works in the world so if someone's
making a shit ton of money because they're like
an innovator It's not going to last forever They're
going to get dragged down with like competitors
in her entering the market the issue with only
fans is you'll have thousands of girls doing
these insanely low membership only fans of like
375 like three dollars and seventy five cents
or whatever with with a low PPV content threshold
so it In the beginning, like people were making
a lot of money, I feel like, on only fans. But
now the market's flooded. Yeah, the market is
flooded and it's dragging the price down of of
adult content. But then also on the other side
of things, what my friends kind of tell me and
like kind of complain about is. D .F .M .E .A.'s.
I'm not sure if that's the right acronym. But
like a service that they have to pay to get their
content pulled down. Oh, DMCA. Yes. There you
go. There's a one in Copyright Act. Yeah. Yeah.
You have to pay that to keep your content from
being just uploaded for free to various sites.
Yep. I will say like traditional porn, where
you actually because my friends also do that
as well. Where like you get flown out to a location
and they have a whole setup and like a makeup
artist and film crew and all of that kind of
stuff and they pay for your hotel and all of
that like that seems like that's really expensive,
but then they make an insane amount of money
off of that like So I don't know I think you
have one extreme in the other you have the high
production traditional porn aspect that's able
to have a higher profit margin than your five
point whatever percent you stated. And then you
have the very low end market where like people
are trying to get their content to be bought.
But it's so such a low price. If that makes sense.
Yeah. Kind of coming back to also the taboo stuff,
right? The taboo part of it makes us a difficult
thing to do business wise. because it's taboo.
Right. Like. It just is, you know, right, wrong
or indifferent. That's the world we live in right
now. You know, so it's it's hard to get good
data because a lot of it's hidden, you know.
It's tough it's super tough to figure this all
out I do like this report. I think it's an interesting
report again looking at it. You can see and I
Think from their challenges point. It's something
that I don't think Yeah, it's something they
don't They kind of they kind of touch on right
which is for traditional adult entertainment.
They really are they're competing with only fans
Right. And again, is that a more genuine feeling
experience, right, to watch two amateurs on OnlyFans
versus a traditional produced high production
value adult video? You know what I mean? And
I think that's why the success for those more
low production amateur That stuff. But again,
it also drives the pricing points down because
now the market's flooded enough to make. The
commodity drop in value. Yeah. You know, and
then there's the constant legalization thing,
you know, and it's it's where is it legal? And
what's interesting and I'm curious, I need to
get with like a lawyer. Because I would love
to do a follow up on this one, because one of
the things they point out is California and Delaware
are two of the only states where it's legal to
film hardcore adult entertainment stuff. Right.
But you know, it's being filmed by only fans,
creators and stuff like that in other locations.
So is that like a legal loophole? So we'd like
to follow up. something I have heard is kind
of the loophole of Only fans is so it's easy
for if you're a traditional porn Company for
that to get shut down in these kind of states
and again, this is just what I heard everywhere,
but California and Delaware yeah, but If you
are a content creator, which most content creators,
and I do not agree with this, this is a bad business
model, just FYI, because you're going to lose
a lot of money in taxes. They don't have an LLC
set up and I'm talking about very amateur people.
They're just content creators. Um, that then
if you're not a legal entity, then it's like
a freedom of speech. Huh? Very interesting. That's
just what I've heard I would love to get it like
a lawyer on here and kind of like verify that
but yeah, I Don't know if you guys are interested
in this topic and us continuing to talk about
topics like these Let us know we'll keep going
down this rabbit hole Just a side funny story
again, and you were talking about Japan Jay remembers
we did before we shut down the store one of the
last big events We did was we did our first gamers
heaven after dark where we had adult content
creators, right? What do we have a ten? There
that night And the ten or twelve, right? Okay,
we had ten or twelve adult content creators to
include the people that Jay does his podcast
with Unnatural to some so you guys can can go
look at that podcast as well. So they were there.
We had some adult content creators. We had Japanese
adult arcade games. And then what was really
interesting against me as a Japan is we are getting
product to sell because we sell nerdy stuff.
So let's go find the adult nerdy stuff. And boy,
when I was getting ready to set the orders for
that adult nerdy stuff, did I go down a rabbit
hole of all the shit that they make in Japan.
Right? Because some of it's very innocuous. It's
like desk mats and banners and cutouts. But some
of it is not so innocuous. And we had to have
long discussions at the store about how far down
did we want to go down this line for the first
event? Right. And what ended up being the only
one? We would have done more had the store stayed
open because the event itself was a resounding
success. We sold out of tickets in like a week.
If that like Jay, you were there that night.
It was packed. It was and I was I was excited
like we were talking about so much stuff. I remember
at one point we were talking about because something
that I'm like heavily into is Shabari. Yeah.
Which is Japanese rope bondage, which I think
is very artistic and very cool looking. Very
cool looking. It's very beautiful. And we were
talking about like the next one, maybe doing
a Shabari show. And I was like. Yep. And then
Alex just decided not to do it anymore. It was
not my fault. We sadly we sadly had to shut the
store down. Yes, it was much more male dominated.
I would say. There were there was more women
there than I thought would be there. who bought
tickets to go. Right. It was not like a 90 10
split. I would say it was closer to a 70 30.
For that event. I can I'm ballparking. I can't
remember. Again, it was a very popular event.
People. People. People were excited about it.
We were iffy about it at first. We were like,
well, is this going to go off? And we were like,
are we going to sell enough tickets to justify
the event? And boy, howdy. We ended up having
to extend out how many tickets we had done. Right.
We originally were going to sell 40, and I think
we ended up selling 70 tickets to the event.
And yet people had a good time. Come in, interact
with adult content creators. You know hang out
people played games Right. Yeah, you know Yeah,
so it was it was definitely a thing We did our
best to try and take the taboo out of it again
keeping within the legal requirements that we
have You know in that it has to be an 18 up event
and things like that You know without having
to get a full adult entertainment license, but
Do you want to type in this last note here? You've
got something about your your somebody who was
at the event has now been approached to make
a item. Oh. Yeah. So one of my friends, Nikki
South, she's on the other podcast with me. We
we were at the event at your store. but like
this came up recently and like the past week
and I just thought it was kind of like a funny
like little thing because she reached out to
me about it and she was like hey should I do
this a toy company adult toy company reached
out to her and said like hey are you interested
in having your own adult toy like we'll send
you like the plaster and everything like just
like a tutorial on how to set it up You don't
have to pay for anything. It's completely free
You essentially make a cast of yourself and then
we will mass produce a toy of yourself and then
yeah, you would get like a percentage of the
Profits of all the toys and she was like is this
legit and I was like, oh, yeah this fucking looks
legit and you should do it but it was a It was
kind of a kind of a little funny thing. And yeah,
going back to kind of talking about that night
at your at the game store. I just remembered.
So there was a very famous and he really came
in under the radar. He did not tell people his
adult adult name. He wanted just to be there
just to enjoy. The party and yeah, yeah But he's
a very famous male porn star And they even like
name drop him on a TV show letter Kenny. I'm
not sure if you guys are familiar with that Oh,
yeah, but I we were sitting at a table playing
games and there a girl came up and she goes Have
we met before and he goes I don't think so and
she's like you look so familiar And he just laughed.
It was like, I have a very familiar looking face.
But is it who I'm thinking of? Maybe. Yeah, I
think so. At the store. Yeah, I think it was.
Yeah. Don't worry, folks. Let your freak flag
fly. Yeah, so if you want us to talk, wow, that
was a long segment. If you want us to talk more
about these kind of segments in the future, let
us know. We will add this stuff. I'd love to
get a lawyer on here. I have a friend who used
to work in the early days of the internet prawn
industry. We'll see who else we can get on to
chat about some of this. If the topic interests
you, let us know down in the comments below.