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Businesses Piracy Social Networks Verizon

Pornhub Expresses Interest In Acquiring Tumblr (theverge.com) 62

Posted by EditorDavid from the SFW-becomes-NSFW dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes the Verge: Verizon is seeking a buyer for Tumblr, the blogging platform it acquired along with other Yahoo assets in 2017... The platform hosts 465.4 million blogs and 172 billion posts, according to its about page... On Thursday evening, Pornhub VP Corey Price claimed in a statement to BuzzFeed News that his company is "extremely interested" in buying Tumblr and "very much looking forward to one day restoring it to its former glory with NSFW content..."

Price is referring to a major change implemented late last year, when Tumblr took the controversial step of banning porn on its platform. The company has been using AI to detect and automatically block images and videos that contain certain adult content. Existing posts containing porn were made private and are no longer publicly accessible.
Both Fortune and TechCrunch warned the acquisition might actually have bad consequences for adult content producers, since PornHub's owner MindGeek has been accused of ignoring piracy on its streaming sites, "a significant factor in the deflation of salaries for performers in the industry."

In a thread on Twitter, Engadget's senior news editor added "I guess the good news is that things PornHub announces as a publicity stunt don't usually happen, so..."
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Pornhub Expresses Interest In Acquiring Tumblr More

Pornhub Expresses Interest In Acquiring Tumblr

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  • Aquire Slashdot, Aquire Mozilla, Aquire Wikia/Fandom and put porn on them.

  • With what money? (Score:3)

    by Quakeulf ( 2650167 ) on Sunday May 05, 2019 @09:43AM (#58541352)
    Who pays for porn these days?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I just checked on Alexa and PornHub is the 27th most visited site on the internet:

      https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/pornhub.com [alexa.com]

      Quite how they monetise that I'm not sure, but they must be making a fair bit just to cover their hosting and bandwidth costs.

    • Re:With what money? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday May 05, 2019 @11:19AM (#58541692)

      Who pays for porn these days?

      Advertisers.

      • It's amusing how YouTube is demonetizing things like crazy, citing content as "advertiser unfriendly."

        If there's anything we should have learned from Howard Stern, is that as long as you bring an audience, someone will be willing to advertise to that audience.

  • Salaries (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Salaries are market based. When porn was in limited quantity (but after bans were lifted) they could command more money and thus pay more. When it became widely available and plenty of new people could enter porn for no upfront cost, salaries have to drop with so much competition.

    Blaming piracy is a way of avoiding the uncomfortable truth that porn should pay about the same as prositiution, stripping and other sex work. Meaning if you are average looking and average at performing, you will get paid very

    • Re:Salaries (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday May 05, 2019 @10:20AM (#58541446)

      Blaming piracy is a way of avoiding the uncomfortable truth that porn should pay about the same as prostitiution, stripping and other sex work. Meaning if you are average looking and average at performing, you will get paid very little.

      Blaming piracy is easy and people believe it, because people do not question simple explanations. Even though independent study after independent study shows piracy has no influence on what people spend on media. It is one of those Big Lies.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        What has been shown by these studies, however, is that easy access to media - whether via piracy or cheap streaming sites - increases spending on media. If anything, piracy likely increases porn sales, since it allows people to find porn they like and may eventually convince them to spend money on it. It essentially provides a free trial.

        It works for music (music sales went up during the Napster days, then down when it was shut down), TV series (HBO reportedly encouraged Game of Thrones piracy to build subs

      • independent study after independent study shows piracy has no influence on what people spend on media

        That's a very broad statement. While it's probably true in most cases, I can well believe that in a few cases (like porn) easily accessible pirated copies are detrimental to legitimate sales. Is there a study that specifically looks at the effects of piracy on porn?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Your beliefs are flawed. There is no reason to believe porn is any different. It is just one part of the media landscape.

          • Porn still carries a social stigma, it is illegal in some countries (or certain varieties are forbidden), and to legally buy porn online you'll need to pay by credit card through payment processors (if you're lucky) who are not the most reputable, to name a few things that set it apart. So porn is very different from other media. Now, it doesn't really matter what you or I believe, I was asking about an actual study that addresses porn specifically, or at least proves that porn is no different than other

          • Yeah, when porn sites start asking for credit card numbers I start thinking... "naaaaah, not worth it."
            Because first, there's the financial documentation, and second, porn sites are shady. I don't trust them with my credit card.

    • Blaming piracy is a way of avoiding the uncomfortable truth that porn should pay about the same as prositiution, stripping and other sex work. Meaning if you are average looking and average at performing, you will get paid very little.

      What a silly comment.
      - Porn is something completely different from prostitution and stripping, which is also why very specific content is far easier to find.
      - Single client services are completely different from something with a recording and a continuous revenue stream.
      - Having sex with someone or having someone strip in front of you is completely different from wanting to watch a couple banging on their "boss's" desk.

      And since you're already on a roll of not having a clue it's worth pointing out that pros

      • Actually, I expect he is exactly right. The "Hollywood" lookers may earn well. Everyone has a body, but most people are average looking. Lots of competition and a small market = not much money.

  • Won't be complete.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05, 2019 @09:55AM (#58541378)

    Ah, but the day that Pornhub acquires that Mormon dating site, order will be restored to the universe.

  • PornHub has put out crazy eye-catching ideas many times over the years simply to boost their profile. So despite what they're saying, they actually have no interest in buying it. This is what they do. When Yahoo, under the disastrous management of Marissa Mayer, embarrassingly bought Tumblr, my first thought just hours after the announcement was, "I wonder how long before PornHub puts out a fake presser announcing they want to buy back Tumblr from Yahoo to restore its filth glory?". And sure enough, her

    • They have 1,100 employees and have revenue of over $500 million a year. Apparently they do a lot more than that.

    • This is what PornHub does. This is how they stay relevant in the mainstream. And how they remain the #1 porn site.

      PornHub remains relevant in the mainstream by giving away other people's copyrighted content, and claiming that it's not their fault because their users uploaded it.

    • So despite what they're saying, they actually have no interest in buying it.

      But are they? You are talking about a site that is up for sale and was once a premier source of pornography on the internet. The acquisition providing they can reverse the damage the previous owners did would fit incredibly well with Mindgeek's business profile.

  • Following Tumblrâ(TM)s rain on terror on anything that hints at non-males showing nipples there have been a few groups trying to create alternatives. While I am not convinced any of them have defined themselves as a true alternative, some provide ideas that Tumblr could build on.

    One such site is NewTumblr, where you indicate what content rating you are comfortable with and any uploads must be rated. In doing so it tries to provide a balance between allowing explicit content, but hiding it from those wh

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Livius ( 318358 )

      rain on terror

      It's probably good if it's raining on terror, maybe that could help stop it. Rain falling on a reign of terror might be even better.

  • Acquire Tumblr and challenge Youtube / Blogger (Score:4, Interesting)

    by maynard ( 3337 ) on Sunday May 05, 2019 @11:42AM (#58541782) Journal

    They have the server capacity and data pipes for video. A lot of people are very unhappy with Youtube at the moment. So, use Tumblr as a front end brand to hide the pornhub backend for serving video and add vlogging to directly challenge Google in that space.

    • I'm not sure, but I tend to believe that Pornhub has the server capacity and data pipes for videos. I believe this because... hmm... a friend who told me so.

  • Pornhub seems to be single handily trying to save sex in the first world. While religions and governments are cracking down on basically anything that entices that part of our brain in "developed" societies. Meanwhile populations are dropping in "more educated" areas and they keep rising in poorer areas with uncontrolled rape/religious push of reproduction leading to an onslaught of uneducated often violent or extremely religious people. Building even more migration and accelerating the demise of first worl
  • I usually go to Pinterest for my weird fetishes.
  • Deflation is bad news for porn performers!

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