I didn’t really think about it as a capitalism argument even though of course you’re right. After I read your comment, it occurred to me that it’s sort of like a bizarro real estate world where it’s actually somehow lucrative to buy a beautiful subdivision and turn it into a slum. Sean Cody used to look like Beverly Hills and now it looks like Baltimore. I guess that like with real estate, people don’t just move overnight. It takes a while for a subscription base to erode, and some new residents will continue to trickle in oblivious of the tire fire in the lot next door.

“Next door” … I didn’t intend that as a pun, but come to think of it …

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea42e151503c4e954ee6ed244358308272ccd0525c5936a251dcae0ea9a3da6a.jpg

You are completely right on your constat. You could have spoken of RB, too. IMO, the reason is economic. Porn being victim of a stigma among any social or political institution, hypocritically even porn consumers, adherent of these ones don’t dare to defend this industry from internet revolution consequences and mobilise people like it has been done for music or mainstream movies. You have an exemple of what can be the result of capitalism without rules.

I’ve noticed that too. I can speak only for myself. The porn industry is in a colossal quality slump. 2012-15 was for me the golden age of porn. Sean Cody had just gone bareback, Lucas Entertainment and Broke Straight Boys were inching in that direction, and Chaosmen and Corbin Fisher had been bareback for a while though CF tried to make that a premium feature at first. I went into the archive just to remind myself of what I already knew, the level of quality back then. On the random page that I landed on in late November of 2013, CF had three hardcore updates in one week — two on consecutive days. Kellan fucked Easton the Friday before that, and I’m pretty sure that ended with an internal cumshot. CM had Braxton fucking Wren on a WEDNESDAY. SC had the mountain getaway with Tanner, David, Bryce, Coleman, and Andy. Within a few days of that, Johnny Forza bottomed raw for Dallas Reeves on his site. OutinPublic had made the switch from South Florida to Europe — they are the only studio that I can name that got substantially better by moving to Europe. Speaking of Europe, Kris Evans pops up in one of those November updates that I’m browsing. In fact, on that same page, Bel Ami has a 24-man orgy, although I think most of us here agree that’s overkill. But best of all, WB has 20 updates per page, not counting the little potpourri section at the bottom, and in the 2013 page I’m looking at, Mindgeek has only two updates.

The bullshit of Mindgeek (including their demolition of the quality at Sean Cody). The likely chill of the pandemic. The talent drain of OF and other self-produced content. Any one of those factors would be reason enough for me to dial it down. But I think we could see the talent dwindling at nearly all major studios long before covid, and I don’t think OF is responsible for all of that. I’m optimistic about CF, which has occasionally produced really good updates; Bel Ami, which has only the minor drawback that the guys they have now, though probably as attractive as the guys 8 years ago, aren’t encouraged to stand out. They had twins (real ones) before incest became cliche. They had Trevor Yates in the Vatican before the religious thing became cliche. It would be life changing for me if they started doing creampies, but they and Lucas Entertainment are both so committed to their routines that they don’t seem willing to take one more fetish leap.

I forgot, Jesse’s BSB solo and interview was interesting. They talked about his strict upbringing, him being homeless and having met someone at Walmart who he kind of shacked up with for a place to stay. He also mentioned CF not calling him back and the interviewer said they’re “notorious” for that. Other models have said that so that wasn’t very surprising. It does make you wonder why CF didn’t get into his story.