The popular adult entertainment company, Pornhub, has just stepped into territory not unlike what Netflix offers. The company is now offering (on a premium basis) a Netflix-streaming style service.
The service will come with exclusive content, faster playback, and HD viewing that is also ad-free. Previously, the site did not offer paid content, and this is a way for the company to make money from the content that it does offer.
The Details
Right now, anyone can access the company’s website for free, but for $9.99 per month subscribers can gain access to exclusive content, and content that’s just better overall. The content that will be offered to premium subscribers is also available on both desktop and mobile, which is something that free subscribers do not have access to. Further, the company is working on both Roku and Android apps for future paying clients.
The Business Side of Things
What MindGeek (parent company) is doing with the site isn’t mind-blowing or original, but it is a move in the right direction. Because MindGeek has a lot of studio ownership, the company can make access to this content entirely exclusive, which would kill other studios offering membership plans and exclusive content. It seems that this is precisely what MindGeek is aiming to accomplish as well.
From a business perspective, it makes a good amount of sense for MindGeek to go the way of a company like Netflix that has had a great amount of success with streaming membership plans and exclusive content. In fact, Netflix is a good example for any streaming company when determining how to grow revenue. Since this particular adult site is easily the most popular on the Internet, it doesn’t seem likely that MindGeek will have a hard time getting users to subscribe to the new service.
One Setback
The one issue with MindGeek’s new plan is that most people that access adult sites do not want to pay for that access. There are still plenty of sites out there that allow access for free, so whether or not MindGeek will have enough exclusive content and apps to appeal to a crowd that has never paid before remains unseen. The new premium service has just been launched, so it will be a while before MindGeek can determine whether or not the move was a lucrative one.
While asking people to pay for premium content will not cause the site to slow down (free content is still available), it will be interesting to see whether or not MindGeek’s new plan will generate more revenue. Some are skeptical that the Netflix model will work with this type of content, since most other competitors offer similar options for free. If you are interesting in signing up for premium, you can access the new option through the site’s main page right now.
MindGeek has told press that the company is working on new features that will be available soon as well. What those features are remain to be seen, but they will have to be good enough to get people to subscribe to a service that has been built on free.