Since the rise of free streaming porn sites like Pornhub and xHamster in the late aughts, the adult industry has been haunted by the spectre of a future in which consumers would refuse to pay for their porn, period. For millennials, Generation Z, and generations to follow, free online porn has been a constant throughout their adult lives. So why would they ever choose to pay for something they’d always taken for granted as free? The idea spooked many in the industry for years.

But surprising, and encouraging, news just came from Mashable’s Mark Hay: “Although many millennials do opt for free porn alone, a surprising number of them have started to shell out for adult content, at least on certain sites. They now actually make up the largest paying porn consumer base for several producers, outspending older generations substantially. All of which leads [Alex] Hawkins [of xHamster] to assert that ‘millennials may well be the saviors of the porn industry.’”

Though millennials—the generation born between 1983 and 1998—have been blamed for “killing” a wide variety of industries, ranging from homes on golf courses to mayonnaise, it appears that they are dedicated to sustaining entertainment with their dollars, whether it’s adult or otherwise. 

And more than that, they’re paying more for it than older generations. “Starting in the mid-2010s…consumer trend data started to show that millennials, despite their access to infinite playlists of free content, were willing to spend even more than earlier generations on [mainstream] movies, shows, and music,” wrote Hay. “In fact, over a quarter of them spent more than two times the average of what older generations spend on these services.”

And those trends appear to hold true for pornography, too. For example, reported Hay, “Hawkins says millennials now make up more than half of xHamster’s paying premium consumers. Corey Price, vice president of Pornhub, reports that millennials make up 55 percent of his site’s free users, but 66 percent of its premium users. Salima, the chief operating officer for a number of porn site networks including Team Skeet and MYLF, notes that over 60 percent of their paying subscribers are millennials, while only 20 percent are Gen Xers and less than 20 percent are boomers.”

Sales did slump in the 2010s as free porn took over the internet. “The availability of free porn really did do a number on traditional subscription-based porn companies,” wrote Hay. “Most experts estimate that in the mid-aughts…the American porn industry was worth between $10 and $14 billion. Ten years later, those estimates plummeted to about $5 billion…due almost entirely to the rise of free porn.” 

Subscription sites’ numbers have never recovered. They may never do so. But adult entertainment has always been crafty at finding new ways to profit, and the free porn bubble is no different.

First of all, porn sites have figured out that millennials are now the largest part of the labor force, which means they’re making money. So, they’re the primary beneficiaries of much of the porn industry’s marketing. Independent performer and clip maker Jessica Starling told Hay, “I have curated my image, brand, and marketing to appeal specifically to single men between their late 20s and mid 30s.”

And, Hay reported, “A number of other porn performers and solo and indie producers I’ve spoken to say much the same thing. As do big studio and tube sites: ‘The majority of our branding and marketing initiatives,’ says Pornhub’s Corey Price, ‘are conceived with millennial users in mind.’”

Sure, the click-through rates may be low, and everyone may have to do more work for less money than they did at the turn of the millennium. But the good news is that there’s money to be had, and it’s in the pockets of millennials who, while they may be “killing” pet food and napkins, are clearly not going to let porn die.

Millennials stock photo by Buro Millennial from Pexels