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Comment by marktangotango | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have any idea on how these sites make enough money to offset the enormous bandwidth costs? The scale is phenomenal.

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Porn sites are very aggressive with ads. Think of any sort of dark pattern used in web advertising and odds are porn sites are using it.

And likely invented more than a fiar share.

I assume that, as with mobile gaming, that there are a relatively small (compared to the total user base, much of which is F2P) number of “whales” that have very large, recurring spend that is driving the industry.

I could be wrong, though.

Easy. A near-captive audience that also happens to be demographically comparatively narrowcast == steady ad revenue.

Is the demographic really comparatively narrowcast?

McAfee talked about porn sites being paid to download spyware/keylogger software onto devices. Click play on a video etc, something is downloading in the background. I think of this as how some sites/software in the early 2000s automatically downloaded a toolbar when installing.

I'm sure many porn sites do this, not sure about the more "reputable" ones. Storing/streaming all that info can't be cheap.

From industry analysis I read last two years, porn sites tend to be remarkably safe with even low measured trackers. The industry evolved and learned. Churches two years ago had the most malware (since their pages teens to be done by someone nephew who is supposed to be talent but has zero experience).

can you link me to some of the analysis? be interesting to read about what they chose as sites.

remember when i had some guardian software that blocked trackers. surprising amounts from chinese gov't and chinese universities.

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