But in practice the real money for performers in the sex industry is generated by ephemeral services and not products. Webcam shows, phone sex, escort & pro domme sessions, stripping – all ephemeral services, and all pay far better for (most) performers than porn shoots. For the buyers it seems the personal experience trumps the mass-produced one.

This may have always been true, having only been in the biz for the past few few years I could not say. But certainly since the internet enabled porn sharing on such a massive scale this has become Truth-with-a-capital-T. And of course with all the free porn about anybody who has the time/motivation to dig doesn’t have to pay for anything. It is precisely this fact that has, for instance, allowed YOU, Maymay, to consume porn for a decade and a half (by your own accounting) without ever having to pay for it.

Personally, I think (hope?) that the future of commercial porn lies in custom-crafted porn; combining the ability to sell (and view) a video or whatever over and over again with the ability to intimately tailor it to the viewer’s fantasy.

That is interesting. I would like to love the work I do every time, but I don’t, though I do keep striving to find just such an arrangement.

I do cringe a little to see your personal goal applied as a categorical criticism.

Also a good point; there’s something else here that bothers me. This money-making dream isn’t a deeply-rooted reason why I have trouble with the notion of sex work in general, only why I have trouble it with it personally.

I’m still figuring out the rest, obviously.

Thanks for your comments and forcing me to think!!

Interestingly, your least-time-for-most-money isn’t an end goal I share: I would love to run a bed and breakfast, say, or do photography, where I am constantly bound to service and I look forward to it every time. It’s why I would want to own and have a hand in the content.

I do cringe a little to see your personal goal applied as a categorical criticism.

Better to define what I think of as financially rewarding: I have a personal goal to live in financial comfort without the worry of needing to proactively maintain that source of income. It is much more likely that this dream will become a reality if I can, hypothetically, create a thing once and sell it many times than if I would couple the making of money with an act I must perform. In other words, if the making of money depends upon something I must do in repetition, I call that action a service and I don’t regard it as much money-making potential as an action I can do once and yet still earn money from more than once.

Management and ownership are where it’s at.

I would say only ownership is where it’s at, as management is still ultimately some form of service. This is why managers are often given stock plans and option benefits and whatnot–those are forms of ownership.

Your web site shows your understanding of this fact, as does your final comment:

As a side note, pornography as a product tends to benefit only the company owners. Actors are paid a one-time fee, which makes it no better for them than any other “ephemeral” service.

I agree, of course, and you’ve told me as such many times before. :) If I were in the pornography business, I would want much more to own the company producing the pornography than I would want to be actually creating the content, for this very reason.

I don’t quite understand this statement. Do you really mean to say that no service industry job can be financially rewarding? If not, how is sex-work-as-service different or worse?

The proven way to make money (and simultaneously not be working) is not to sell a service, but to sell a product.

Er, then you’re still spending time selling the product. Which means you’re still in a service industry. I think you want to go one step removed still: you want to hire the person who sells the product. Then someone creates and produces, your minion sells, and you kick back and enjoy your yacht. Management and ownership are where it’s at.

As a side note, pornography as a product tends to benefit only the company owners. Actors are paid a one-time fee, which makes it no better for them than any other “ephemeral” service.