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Comment by stevenwoo | Hacker News Reader

IIRC almost all porn now comes from one company, Mindgeek.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek

It reads like the founder started the company in 2010 and sold it to the current owners in 2013.

I've read that the actors/actresses don't make a lot (it's on a per scene basis) and have short careers and the money is mostly in distribution so with one large company any billionaires would probably be from there.

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Jon Ronson has a great new Audible podcast about how Mindgeek used the YouTube piracy model to make billions and destroy the livelihoods of sex workers in the porn industry:

https://www.audible.com/pd/Radio-TV/The-Butterfly-Effect-wit...

It's a pretty thoughtful take on what the tech industry really means/does to the American economy today.

The way Mindgeek have managed to pay the performers to create the works by the item like garment workers of old and make money off the piracy of the performers' work feels terribly unjust.

Porn performers were already paid by the item before MindGeek. They make videos for multiple studios, they are not fixed employees.

Not fixed employees but sometimes under contract for either a certain sex type or as a whole for a certain time.

Nowadays the girls escalate, they start with very regular stuff, not doing anal, gangbangs etc. in the beginning but grow their fan base until the studios start to bid eg for her first "blow bang" and pay a lot more to have her not doing some sex type with another studio for a certain amount of time.

If you are not able to grow your fan base fast as a model, you will not be able to demand higher rates. There are even companies specializing in social media consulting for porn stars.

I just imagined the average suited up consultant giving a power-point prep-speach to a porn star. "...You got to get all in..." ".. try to see not the pain, not the humilation, but the window of opportunity.." ".. its not a substainable buisness-model, unless you stop shorting chest and booty-inflation.."

I was conflating multiple issues with a single statement - a.) it seems unfair that they are paid by item by anybody so the performers have to become producers to make a more sustainable living b.) it seems like having almost monopoly status as a large producer (there are many studios from that wikipedia article but a lot of them are owned by Mindgeek, not sure what the diff is between them all) gives Mindgeek too much control over rates/contracts c.) the way Mindgeek pirates everyone via the youtube model on some of its sites squeezes out those who try to produce their own content outside of Mindgeek (those whom are not benefiting from Mindgeek's ad revenue/customer data).

free now on audible, free on iTunes in Nov

https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/890339477738094592

Sort of like chauffeurs/drivers in the old days before taxis and Uber, I'd say.

I think the other alternative is a pornhub in which you pay for, which I can attest to, is not what I'm or any regular consumer is looking forward to.

>"In November 2013, it was reported that Pornhub has over 1 billion visitors per month, and a December 2014 article in Adweek states that Pornhub has 50 million daily visitors."

2017 numbers are probably much higher...

Wow

That's roughly 580 visitors per second.

Wow indeed.

I'm doing my part, are you?

Haha scene from Starship Troopers

That's on average. You can double-triple it for peak.

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