Speaking on this roundtable were well-known industry veterans Aly Drummond from Python Video, Oz from The Adult Webmaster and True Cash, Colin Rowntree from Wasteland and Stephen Yagielowicz from Xbiz. Like many of the other roundtables, I must say that attendance could have been much better here, considering the importance of the issue of free porn, but also because of the well informed and colorful group of speakers who are regulars in the adult tradeshow circuit.

Colin kicked things off by saying that back in the day, “Webmasters would start paysites, and then do freesites. Then in the late 90’s, affiliate programs started popping up, and then there became no real need to start paysites.” Webmasters nowadays are basically told to build freesites first, and then build up the traffic to drive to paysites you can build later on. Colin added that even free site conversion rates are going downhill (in addition to paysites) by and large, and predicts that “We’ll see the freesites situation disappear. It’s a clusterfuck.”

Oz then chimed in with a legal perspective, stating that, “In 1997 I started censoring images on the tour pages of my paysites, and everyone thought I was crazy. But to me, the legal risk of prosecution wasn’t worth it.” He continued, “Many free site operators disregard the law in my opinion, and in turn paysites have to get more extreme. We are seeing more sites that promote real violence and sex together.” Stephen put a different spin on it by stating that, “Too much free porn isn’t the problem. The market is changing dramatically. The problem is more of what to do with all of the free traffic.” Colin disagreed claiming, “Free sites will eventually go away. Two years from now we’ll be having an extremely different conversation.”

Roundtable moderator attorney Fred Lane added, “More free porn changes ‘community standards.’ The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is who our industry should really be worrying about at this time.” It should be noted that there is already plenty of prosecutable illegal activity in our industry (shaving, content theft, etc.) before the concept of obsenity even begins to play a role.

When the topic delved more heavily into free porn trends, Oz stated flatly, “Kids can’t get online without getting porn spam or being redirected to porn sites. It makes our whole industry look like assholes.” While Oz felt that the government could possibly save our industry from an economic perspective, Fred disagreed stating that the government coming in to regulate our industry would be a bad idea. Colin added, “Anytime the government is involved, it’s a bad idea. You just open yourself up to too much regulation.”

In order to do the best you can to stay ahead of the game and continue to look for ideas to make money, Colin suggested upselling and things like free vacation giveaways as great ideas to retain members. Aly suggested that you should always experiment with your content, and use “trial and error” methods. Oz agreed adding, “You want visitors to enjoy the content and come back. Meter it out and rotate it daily.”

With industry saturation, conversion rates dropping across the boards for so many reasons, and the typical customer becoming much more savvy… being innovative and creative, upselling and making the most of your traffic is really the key to success in operating a money-making paysite.

All in all, despite the very serious subject matter discussed on this quite informative roundtable, the mood was very pleasant, upbeat and jokey. But with Aly and Colin sitting next to each other, how could it not be?

Jay “LAJ” Kopita is the Executive Editor for YNOTNews and the Communications Director for YNOTMasters and can be reached at editor@ynotnews.com and jay@ynotmasters.com.