I have always said that whether you consume no porn, lots of porn, or just the right amount of porn, you owe the porn industry a heartfelt “thank you.” When discussing this, I always start with the VHS player, which beat out Beta because the adult movies were all on VHS, and trace the listener all the way up to streaming video.
Therefore, it was refreshing to see the mainstream media acknowledge that porn has been the driving force behind much of the modern technology that everyone embraces (ok, not the Amish).
This Sunday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran an article, Porn pushes limits of technology that put it in perspective.
The families who are able to chat via computer with their loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan owe a debt of gratitude to a pornographer.
The politicians who post their videos on YouTube also need to thank the porn industry.
And, in the very near future, when you download a full-length feature film quickly, you will be indebted to the people who made their money developing technologies to distribute X-rated content.
Even in prehistoric times, when some unknown artist carved the big-busted Venus of Willendorf more than 20,000 years ago, the pornographers were ahead of the pack.
The porn industry found a way to use telephones and 900 numbers to make money and was among the first to realize the commercial possibilities of the Internet.
Larry Walters, an attorney who works with First Amendment issues involving pornography in Orlando, Fla., said the adult film industry currently is working on anti-pirating software to protect its movies and images — software that will be appealing to major mainstream movie studios as well.
The industry also is trying to pioneer age verification over the Web that goes beyond “who is the first presidential candidate you voted for?”
A Web-based system of verifying a customer’s age is important for porn, Mr. Walters said, due in large part to legal concerns.
But if the porn industry can develop a good way to make sure someone surfing the Web isn’t underage, the same technology could be used to verify that sales of tobacco and alcohol are legal.
The motivating factor in all of these developments has been money.
In 2001 Forbes.com estimated that porn was a $2.6 billion to $3.9 billion but cautioned that it was hard to put an exact figure on it. Other estimates range as high as $10 billion to $12 billion.
