Pop Culture Curmudgeon

Is the Internet Killing the Porn Industry?

I read an article the other day that discussed dropping profits in the porn industry, which has always been recession-proof. The writer blamed free Internet porn for cutting into profits.

It made me think about how porn is less important as an economic force. I was sure that HD would beat Blu-Ray in the recent format wars simply because Sony didn’t license Blu-Ray for porn producers. (That was the final nail in the coffin for Beta back in the 80s. Porn movies were released on VHS, thus Beta dies a slow, painful death.) But Blu-Ray beat the odds and succeeded without porn. This is likely because the Internet is now the main distribution channel for porn, both free and pay.

Now that the free sites have become so popular, people are cutting their porn budgets and enjoying the freebies. I personally don’t understand why people would release amateur porn pictures and video without expecting people to pay for it, but I guess a lot of people enjoy the thought of millions of Internet users … um … enjoying the view a lot more than they like the thought of making tons of money off those people.

What do you think? Are people crazy not to charge for their porn vids? Will porn become less of an economic force as more and more freebies abound?