If you had the itch to start a gay porn site today in 2023-24 with original content you filmed, how would you do it? I suspect that with the lack of new sites being created this may be a sign that getting into the biz now would be a foolish endeavor. But if you really wanted to, what are the best options? Here are my thoughts:
Sell on a clip site like Clips4Sale or ManyVids. I think ManyVids might be the better option but I doubt you can get rich on either unless you come up with a very popular niche.
OnlyFans: I’ve seen a few accounts on OF that post and sell clips with several models although I’m not sure how they get away with that because I thought you had to register with OF for every person on your account. An alternative idea might be to start an OF talent agency where you produce the content for a model and keep a percentage.
The traditional paysite format where you buy hosting, set up credit card processing through CCBill, get website softwhere to manage and sell your content, etc., then pray that you get enough traffic to pay all your bills.
What do you think? Are there other business models worth considering or are the days of one-man band producers starting small gay porn sites and making a living at it truly over?
It really comes down to how good the content it is and how much there is of it, I think traditional sites can still do very well using something like CCBill.
The issue will always be to generate traffic, getting those members to signup. (as long as you have enough great content). I don’t think there is any difference when it comes to traffic if it’s onlyfans or traditional site. Both will require building up traffic.
I’m not really that knowledge on how OnlyFans work but I suspect they depend heavily on social media like X / Twitter and instagram. And if X and the rest of them start to block any adult content that might become a lot harder to build traffic for. X already has said they are shadow banning adult content in some cases.
I think the format of the traditional paysite could work in a niche, and with a community based approach. We’ve thought about it with BuddyBate but we just don’t have the time or experience, so we stick to promoting the very few trusted sites producing that kind of content.
This shrinking industry means less consumer choice. Maybe I’m just being optimistic (rare for me!), but I think there will come a time when people start to realize they can no longer find what they enjoy. In fact, I think a lot of people are already there.
I also wonder whether this is a self-fulfilling prophesy. If we believe the industry is in decline thanks to sites like OF, and we don’t try anything else, that lack of choice is pushing the audience to OF as the only alternative.
We’ve seen a lot of sites disappear over the years, but they’ve all gone for different reasons. Most of us (myself included) often attribute it to a general sense of decline and blame tubes, social media and OF, but wasn’t it always like this?
When one site closed a new one would appear a week later. The only thing that’s really changed in this ecosystem is new sites aren’t arriving to replace the ones where the affiliate system screwed us over and we stopped promoting it, or the director retired, or they sold it to BuddyProfits to be absorbed into the hegemony.
Could it just be that people who want to create a new niche site have just been convinced that it’s already a failure, when the risks really haven’t changed all that much?
Ultimately, all you need is the will to do it, a good idea, and an audience. None of this has changed. If there’s a demand, you create the supply. If the audience is there, and you can reach them, there’s a business to be built.
Don’t you need money also? I think that was my point, that the dollars needed to pay models and all the other expenses of launching a site today makes it very hard to break even. It seems like you already need to be wealthy enough to roll the dice and take a chance on starting a site.
Yeah, of course you need the money to get it started, but that kind of goes without saying. If we’re already debating whether a site could make it then presumably the money is there and we’re talking about the viability of that project?
Money was always needed to start a project, but this is about whether the industry and market has changed too much to make it viable.