They updated there terms of service. Adult is strictly not allowed... as are many of the same lines of industry that are forbidden on Stripe and other payment processors.
That's a good point. I mainly put that in as a way to credit where we got the idea. I didn't want to come across as if I had come up with this awesome idea all by myself...cause I didn't.
And you are absolutely right how being original doesn't equate to succeeding in business. It helps, but there are so many other factors.
The problem as we've learned from our foray into the adult industry is that there is very little access or ways to raise money for anything adult. Traditionally movie studios were the ones funding all the shoots, but as the internet grew up fast (ie BitTorrent & tube sites) the business models didn't and now since people aren't buying porn dvd's or signing up to membership websites like they used to this means less content being made and more aversion to trying anything new (that's why there are thousands of porn parodies). The business model has stagnated and as for real innovation, we haven't seen much...
So we figured if we can put the future of the adult industry in the public's hands and of those who are passionate about the movies, books, or art combined they can try new things that otherwise your traditional studios / publishers would never attempt. Of course this is no different than what kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms do for their users, but adult as of yet has no such platform.
That's the theory behind what we want to do...in practice...well that's yet to be determined.
so just to confirm this service will only be for Europe to start? Any plans of doing this in the US? Or are there any US companies doing something similar?
This has already been done in the adult industry. You have sites like aebn, clips4sale, etc which allow people to independently product and sell their content. However, piracy is still an issue...and the fact that people don't want to pay for this content as much anymore.
As pg stated the goal, while easier said than done, is coming up with a model that is more entertaining than what's currently out there that people don't mind spending money on.
I don't believe the reason why people don't go to facebook is because it's too crowded. As an earlier commented noted people don't necessarily friend someone who they are close with so they can be bff's. They friend them so they can keep tabs on them (or casually stalk them).
The thing I don't buy as much is whether mobile/app only social networks will provide long lasting value. I feel it's more a novelty than a real strategic advantage especially since mobiel web browser technology is catching up.
I don't believe the reason why people don't go to facebook is because it's too crowded. As an earlier commented noted people don't necessarily friend someone who they are close with so they can be bff's. They friend them so they can keep tabs on them (or casually stalk them).
The thing I don't buy as much is whether mobile/app only social networks will provide long lasting value. I feel it's more a novelty than a real strategic advantage especially since mobiel web browser technology is catching up.
I can't speak for Vista Print since I've never had the "pleasure" of purchasing with them. However, where I take issue with GoDaddy is the fact that they bury what you are supposed to do next in a sea of upsells and cross sells. I'm not sure if they do it anymore, but before the would automatically select 5 year plans for me and private registration. Trying to remove it was like an act of god. Whether it's intentional or not I can't say, but it sure seems like their goal is to trick unsuspecting buyers into buying something they didn't want.
We saw and liked fiverr, but we didn't want to do just a clone site of it since we felt they had the market pretty cornered. We'd just be a "me too" player. Looking around we realized there wasn't a good system similiar to fiverr for adult. That's when we decided to test it and see if there was a market. We've been surprised.
Pornification has been going for some time, it just hasn't been well publicized (since mainstream tech news doesn't really cover porn unless there's something crazy going on). Youtube / youporn is a great example of one. In addition the site gamecrush.com is very similar to the adult webcams sites that are up. They added the twist where models can't be nude and they play video games with customers.
As a startup in the adult space I know there are lots of opportunities in adult...especially since the industry is going through a huge transition. As much as people love to say how porn brings innovation, that's not the case anymore. In the beginning it was way too easy for many of these porn sites to make money. Basically you just had to stick up a thumbnail gallery and a payment page and money would come in.
However, now as free porn is prolific on the internet many of these webmasters don't know what to do... so not that much innovation going on. If you can bring in good tech people there's no doubt they could kick butt. That's what we're trying to do, but just being in adult makes people look at you funny. Something that comes with the territory.
I think it's awesome what you've done so far and am thoroughly impressed with your patience and tactics so far to get as far as you have. It's about time someone called out the government on their shenanigans because too many people site back and chalk it up to "that's just the way it is".
Source:https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173592-h...