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For laid off dot-commers the porn industry is offering a
tantalising alternative. Jim Colgan investigates the lure of
illicit employment and finds out if adult entertainment is
where it's at for the big bucks.
Where does the overpaid techie go when he gets the sack?
Droves of laid-off dot-com workers are finding their feet in a
new environment that’s proving a viable and possible better
employment situation– porn. This is what happens when the
prevailing economic climate yields little or no jobs for
workers accustomed to a life of easy money. Faced with the
option of rejoining the old-economy workforce, the persisting
success of “adult entertainment” is pulling the human capital
into a more illicit setting.
According to analysts, the porn industry is proving to be
the most financially robust Internet employer. Dubbed
“recession resistant”, the adult entertainment business is
said to have attributes making it immune to the perils of the
downturn. With revenues exceeding $9 billion a year in the US,
pornography seems to be the surprise saviour of the ex
start-up worker and is fending off a bout drawing welfare or,
god forbid, a traditional 9-5.
Though investors have all but killed off the one-time
high-tech business success story, a new phenomenon exists
offering a tempting alternative. One website is a telling sign
of what is happening. The Adult Webmaster School offers the
chance of “getting paid to look at porn” where you must work
but one hour a week. Targeted at the recently unemployed, the
site preaches the benefits of becoming an independent porn
site creator while teaching the necessary skills for the job.
Guaranteeing ridiculous amounts of money for minimal work, it
could be an exploiter of hype more than a legitimate educator,
but the end results are attractive. And the statistics
reinforce its claims somewhat.
A Forbes market report recently quoted an equity analyst in
the US as branding the adult entertainment industry as being
free from the perils of a “wider economic slowdown.” The
“recession-resistant” businesses are set to see their revenues
go any way but down. In fact, the bigger corporations are
increasing their adult operations to draw-in the “sure thing”
earner. Cable companies will always make pay-per-view dollars
by distributing porn channels. Broadband Internet services
have high hopes for cashing in too. Everyone (including the
job seeker) is coming around to the one conclusion: Porn is
where it’s at, for the moment anyway.
But what does this say about the state of society when the
only industry expected to make money on the web is porn? It
seems the moral implications are being ignored in the wake of
its success. More jobs and more revenue are always a welcome
event and as long as it’s not too explicit, it seems to be
surviving censure.
Is the fate of the idealistic image of the dot-com business
changing the world for the better through technology? Are we
to write off the short-lived success of ambitious ventures
providing free services to the consumer in the name of an
industry awash with money? Perhaps the unrealistic business
model has drawn its last breath. But maybe when economic
concerns are done with, we’ll see a departure from the adult
industry. Perhaps it’s only there to tie us over to the next
boom. Maybe then we’ll have an upsurge of less illicit
Internet activity and the job-hunters will return to the
cleaner concerns. Whether they can recover from such a
“blemish” on the CV or not is another issue.
The Adult Webmaster School home page:
Forbes analysis of porn and the old-economy approach:
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