The porn industry has undergone several revolutions, and it’s now ripe for one again. Since the advent of the Internet, the porn industry has dramatically shifted the way it produces and distributes content. Then, porn was an estimated $50 billion hard-copy magazine, newspaper, and DVD industry. Now, with widespread free access and rampant piracy, the old kingdom has tumbled down. In its place, the number of adult sites have exploded online, and among them, camsites have emerged as a new model for cashing in revenue.
What started as a niche business in the adult entertainment industry, “camming,” or the streaming of live model performances, raked in $1 billion in 2013 and is continuing to grow, according to the New York Times. It’s become “the engine of the porn industry,” Alec Helmy, the publisher of Xbiz, a sex-trade industry journal, told the LA Times.