The Power/Value Imbalance
Content, take Stock in Traffic
The traditional arrangement between the people who have content and the people who have traffic is: 1) “I’ll let you use my content if you’ll use it to send me traffic…” and 2) “I’ll send you traffic, if you give me content…”
The context within which this plays out is predominantly the TGP/Free Site, and the common traffic-to-value mechanism is the hosted gallery.
Where the line is drawn right now, the sponsor/content license holder provides hosting/bandwidth and marketing use access to the affiliate. This permission to use, however, comes with the requirement that the affiliate not “use” the content provided by the sponsor to promote any other. The sponsor, who hosts and controls the gallery template and the click-stream thereafter, is free to expose the traffic to a number of “secondary” monetization opportunities, before, during and after making the offer to which the affiliate sent his traffic.
My question: Is the commodity value of content still so high that sponsors should preserve the right to dictate exclusive use? It’s a matter of universal acknowledgement that very few sponsors can afford to buy traffic profitably on the strength of conversions from just their own sites. That is beginning to look like an untenable double-standard.
This makes me wonder whether senders of traffic may be unreasonbaly constrained, given factors in the current marketplace.
This trend concerns me. If we keep the macro-model for our business on its current track, such that the value of content is inflating, we’re going to find ourselves unable to buy traffic in the grander Web marketplace — very soon.
To make matters worse, 2257 Effects will increase the scarcity (and upward price pressure) of content even more.
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In the Affiliate-Sponsor relationship, traditionally, most people think of the Affiliate (the traffic sender) as the “little guy”. But that has not been the case for a long time. The little guy has seen the value of his traffic acquisition efforts explode during the last 2 years.
Note, however, that the increase to traffic “value” experienced by Adult Webmasters did not (for the most part) come from Adult. Though the industry reports improvements in conversion rates, those improvements are nowhere near the magnitude of the increase in average affiliate compensation. Where did the increase come from, then?
The answer: non-adult, per-click bids. Why? Because the bidded click sector (both direct and via intermediary reseller) is able to pass through that much to its deep-pocketed, click-buying clients.
On the Adult side of the fence, meanwhile, we’re discovering that our “unparalleled converting power under all kinds of traffic conditions” is, actually, becoming… a limitation. All we do is sell memberships online. Once upon a time, that was like printing money. But, now there are companies coming into the click market that don’t rely on Direct Consequence Revenue from online sales to calculate their advertising ROI. Their money comes from ovens, or bitumen, or God knows what — and who knows what kind of per click numbers could back out of that yield. Factor in risk of non-payment and other legal/regulatory contingencies, and it gets hard to justify continued traffic investment in Adult Industry programs.
At this point, it’s almost as if we should just hand over the keys to a new Cadillac to anyone willing to be a pornographer. A willingness to host pornography — how long before that has a dollar amount attached to it –? — the willingness, just the willingness, not the hosting —Adult Program Affiliate Manager: “Hey Joe, is something wrong? I noticed your traffic’s been kinda mopey lately…”
Webmaster/Affiliate: “To be honest, Frank, I’ve been sending it somewhere else.”
Adult Program Affiliate Manager: “Not QUEEFDOLLARS! Please, anyone but them…”
Webmaster/Affiliate: “Actually, it’s a mainstream outfit I doubt you ever heard of…”
Adult Program Affiliate Manager: “Mainstream, huh. Whadathey pay?”
Webmaster/Affiliate: “$8 per e-mail.”
Adult Program Affiliate Manager: [LOUD THUD] Frank falls dead from a heart attack.
Hosting is actually going in the other direction, more specialized, more premium — as people realize just how important a relationship and service hosting is.
In my original draft of this article, there was a bunch of math here. I’ve removed it, and left only my conclusion:
All porn should be free.
This way, concerns about the correct stewardship of porn take precedence, rather than ownership/profit-oriented considerations. Porn ceases to be classified as intellectual property or copyrightable. We throw a switch, and it is all in the public domain. Your legal exposure is now limited to the questions: do you have “porn” on your hard drive? Is it an approved type of porn? Or is it a banned variety? When there are no rights of ownership to protect, offensive material can be suppressed under threat. Now, no matter what the law may try to do, the effect will be either to drive things underground (when they are deemed too risky, too “hot”) or bring them to the surface (for either popularity or “safeness”). The overall traffic architecture of Porn becomes a p2p hodepodge, including everything from VPNs to open forums and many increments of openness between. If you have something high-risk, you’ll be shunned by your peers. And, if you should find a person or a community to give you sanctuary, then that must count in favor of the material.
If we lived in such a world of Free Porn, in all cases, at all times, the will of the Community would be balanced by the individual desires of all its constitutents, and vice versa.
EQUAL VOICE: pornnomore.com
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