Internet Killed The Porn Movie Star...

YouTube as well...

And of course, here is that classic "The Buggles" MTV Video link.

Hat Tip to Cap'n Ed, who makes the following very good points (I paraphrase):

The porno industry has discovered an old truth passed down from mothers to daughters: that no one buys a cow when they can get the milk for free. Pornographers helped transform the Internet into a bonanza of free pornography, but the new technology is a double-edged sword.

Moreover, production values in the porno industry have never been strong. They have spent decades turning out dull, repetitive crap in bright packages. It should come as no surprise that with the new technologies, their customers can turn out THEIR OWN equally dull, repetitive crap, and for free.

This puts the porno industry in a tough position. Having created the demand on the Web, they have undermined their position in traditional distribution channels, such as adult book stores and mail-order. None of the other channels have the impulse access and the privacy that the Web does, and they have too much overhead to compete with the freebies and the small-business model operations that have outsleazed them.

In many ways, this mirrors the problems of the traditional media. When everyone can become their own "blog" publisher, then content explodes -- and potential customers suddenly have a lot of choices, much of it free. At least Newspapers and other traditional media still have an advantge in that they create content outside of the reach of almost all of the New Media pioneers, hiring reporters around the nation and around the world. That creates a bright-line separation between them and the bloggers and independent journalists, even if the quality and the bias often leave the traditional media product open for well-deserved criticism from the bloggers.

I am reminded of an exchange from the movie, "Boogie Nights":

Porn financier Floyd Gondolli (Philip Baker Hall): "This here's the future. Videotape tells the truth."

Porn director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds): "Wait a minute. You come into my house, my party, to tell me about the future? That the future is tape, videotape, and not film? That it's amateurs and not professionals? I'm a filmmaker, which is why I will never make a movie on tape."

In 1979, the future was videotape and home VCR viewing, and those sleazy theatres went out of business.

But with the rise of YouTube and internet streaming, could "Jack Horner's" vision of actual porn films, with actual acting, elaborate storylines and professional production values, make a comeback on DVD? In other words, make an arty porn product that people might want to buy for its own sake?

(Think of it as an update on the straightlaced, and often conservative, men who used to read Playboy "for the articles" which were witty and well written.)

Probably not, because too many of the porn consumers are just interested in getting off and that's that.