In this guide
- When people still paid for porn
- The birth of the tube site
- How “free” makes money
- What piracy did to studios and performers
- December 2020: the great purge
- From MindGeek to Aylo
- How performers took back control
- How you can support performers
- My take
When people ask me what the biggest change in my industry has been over the last 14 years, they expect me to say OnlyFans. OnlyFans was huge. But the change that made OnlyFans necessary came first: porn became free.
Free tube sites changed what people expect, how studios make money, how much performers are paid and who controls the content. I lived through the end of that transformation, and I want to explain how it worked, with real numbers and without moralising.
When people still paid for porn
For decades, adult content was a product you bought: magazines, VHS tapes, DVDs, pay-per-view, then paid websites. Studios made films, sold them through distributors and retailers, and paid performers from that income. The model was not perfect, but money flowed from viewers to producers to performers.
The internet first made paid websites possible, which was good for many producers. Then broadband and cheap video hosting made something else possible: free streaming.
The birth of the tube site
In the mid-2000s, a new kind of site copied the YouTube format: free, streamed, searchable videos, often uploaded by users. Pornhub launched in 2007, and many similar sites appeared around the same time.
The problem was obvious from the start. A lot of what was uploaded by “users” was content they did not own: scenes from studios, clips from paid sites, material made by performers who never received anything from those views. In the early years, enforcement was weak and removal was slow.
Over time, tube networks grew enormous. Some companies came to own both the free tube sites and the paid studios whose content was being pirated, a combination critics described as a near-monopoly. Pornhub’s parent company, then known as MindGeek, also owned major production brands.
Free porn was never free. Somebody paid for it: the performers whose work was given away, and in the worst cases, people who never consented at all.
How “free” makes money
Tube sites make money mainly from advertising and from funnelling viewers to paid products: premium subscriptions, cam sites and partner studios. The scale is hard to imagine. Pornhub’s own 2019 report, covered by Forbes, claimed 42 billion visits that year, about 115 million per day, with 6.83 million new videos uploaded (Forbes).
At that volume, even very small advertising income per view adds up. Pornhub’s ad network, TrafficJunky, sold that traffic to advertisers, which is why in August 2022 Visa suspended card acceptance for TrafficJunky after a California judge declined to dismiss Visa from a lawsuit about abuse content (Reuters; Visa).
What piracy did to studios and performers
From inside the industry, the effects of free content were clear:
- Sales collapsed. Why buy a DVD or a monthly membership when similar content is free?
- Budgets shrank. Studios spent less on each scene, and many smaller companies closed.
- Rates came under pressure. With less money coming in, many performers were offered less, as I explain in how much porn stars get paid.
- Content lost its value faster. A new scene could appear on pirate sites within hours of release.
- Control disappeared. A performer might agree to a scene for one website and then find it everywhere, re-edited, renamed, forever.
Copyright tools exist. Under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, rights holders can send takedown notices, and platforms must respond to keep their legal protection (US Copyright Office). But for an independent performer, finding and removing every copy is a full-time job. Many pay specialist takedown services.
December 2020: the great purge
The turning point came in December 2020. On December 4, The New York Times published an opinion investigation by Nicholas Kristof, “The Children of Pornhub,” alleging that the site hosted videos of abuse and nonconsensual content. Within days, Mastercard and Visa announced they would stop processing payments on Pornhub (The New York Times; AP).
Pornhub responded by banning uploads from unverified users and suspending all existing content from unverified accounts. According to The Verge, the site went from about 13.5 million videos to under 3 million (The Verge; The Guardian).
I explain the payment side of this story in more detail in why banks and card networks control porn. For the tube model, the lesson was simple: anonymous uploads at massive scale were not only a piracy problem. They were a safety and consent problem.
From MindGeek to Aylo
In March 2023, MindGeek was bought by Ethical Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and in August 2023 it was renamed Aylo (Ethical Capital Partners).
In December 2023, Aylo entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, related to revenue it received from the GirlsDoPorn sex trafficking operation. It agreed to pay about $1.8 million, accept an independent monitor for three years and make payments to eligible victims (DOJ agreement; Reuters).
Today, major platforms require uploaders and performers to be verified, and many countries now require age verification for viewers, which I cover in porn age verification laws. The free model still exists, but it is much more regulated than in its early years.
How performers took back control
The free era forced performers to find new ways to earn. Many did exactly what businesses do when a product becomes free: they sold something that could not be pirated as easily, a relationship.
That is what creator platforms like OnlyFans, Fansly and Fanvue sell: direct access, custom content, messages and a feeling of connection. I explain the economics in how OnlyFans works and how much OnlyFans creators really make.
Ironically, free tube sites also became a marketing channel. Many performers now upload short official clips on verified accounts to get attention and send viewers to their paid pages. Free became the shop window.
How you can support performers
If you watch adult content and you care about the people in it:
- Pay for content from official sources, at least sometimes.
- Use verified, official accounts and sites run by the performers or legitimate studios.
- Never share leaked or pirated content, especially from creator platforms.
- Report content that looks nonconsensual, stolen or underage.
My take
I do not hate tube sites. They are part of my history, and they introduced millions of people to performers who later built real careers. But I will never pretend “free” was harmless. Free was paid for by performers whose work was given away, by studios that closed, and in the worst cases, by people whose abuse was uploaded for profit.
The industry I work in today is more verified, more regulated and more performer-controlled than the one I entered, and a lot of that is a reaction to the excesses of the free era. That is progress, even if it came too late for some.
If you value someone’s work, pay them. It is that simple. For the true stories of the women behind the most famous scenes, visit House of Maximo.
To follow my work, visit maximogarciaworld.com, and for the 18+ side, fuckingpornstars.net.
Sources
- Forbes. Pornhub 2019 Year In Review Report: More Porn, More Often. December 2019.
- The New York Times. Mastercard and Visa stop allowing their cards to be used on Pornhub. December 10, 2020.
- AP News. Visa, Mastercard won’t allow charges for services on Pornhub.
- The Verge. Pornhub just removed most of its videos. December 14, 2020.
- The Guardian. Pornhub removes millions of videos after investigation finds child abuse content.
- Reuters. Mastercard, Visa suspend ties with ad arm of Pornhub owner MindGeek. August 2022.
- Visa. We do not tolerate using our network for illegal activity.
- Ethical Capital Partners. MindGeek becomes Aylo. August 2023.
- US Department of Justice. Deferred prosecution agreement with Aylo Holdings. December 2023.
- Reuters. Pornhub owner pays $1.8 mln to resolve US probe of sex trafficking ties. December 21, 2023.
- US Copyright Office. Section 512 of Title 17: notice and takedown.
