Having a whole thread of vilification on 66's studio closure would seem to write the company off completely... but what of its future? To which, a lot of readers will no doubt be saying "what future?"
Well, no business looks to doom itself do they! So recently I've been trying to suss what those bosses that remain at 66 are hoping for now. How are they looking to survive? What are they trying to be in the cam market exactly?! At least in the short term...
Like other posters, my initial thoughts were they had been forced into competing with MFC, CB and even the behemoth OF (although I think it was always apparent that 66 site's aping of OF was only ever them wanting scraps off the big boy's table). But it bothered me that they must be aware of how mountinous a challenge this would be. So... I've come to the conclusion that - as, perhaps, with many times in the past - we've been looking at this from the wrong angle.
66, in particular of the former 'big 3' operators, has shown themselves (over the last couple of years) as primarily concerned with not
us, the end user, but with the babes themselves.
They are now very much this operator's primary customer not us. And dealing with us is confirmed as very much the babes' concern, and their's alone.
So how does that matter? Simply, businesses most often look to compete with their peers by finding something they can do better than anyone else in the field. Some aspect in which they can stand out. By thinking of how they can do that for us I think we're simply looking in the wrong place!
Another way business can succeed is to look at a marketplace and identify something that's not being provided that the market itself can use. That I feel is more to the point here. What I think 66 want to try is to offer the babes an additional flexibility to work as no other platform is currently doing and formulate themselves as an add-on to existing (often proven) platforms. They wish only to be another factor in a babe's profile across the net. Crucial in this is the fact that babes no longer have to leave 66 to go elsewhere; they can work with multiple operators at once (if they care to) as we've already seen happening. 66 don't require any fealty to associated third party platforms either (as XP do for instance). This is open house for babes (ironically at the very time they're shoring up walls against the limited spenders amongst us
).
And to new babes (both brand new and just new to 'the shows') they are offering us or rather their subscriber base (a ready made committed audience of solid, regular, payers); and, more broadly, this place's fandom to tap into. They are offering babes a more multi-functional, easy way to live cam, and to find us lot, than OF does. Offering more free reign than BS or XP have traditionally, whilst doing so.
66's feeds no longer have an identity when fullscreen (no bespoke sets, no osgs). They no longer have a rigid schedule. They are no longer concerned with keeping babes from working for other operators. This is not a restrictive brand looking to stamp its vision and way of working on a babe via heavy handed producers. It's merely looking to be functional. To provide an add-on service for all babes.
They are not looking to steal creators away from anywhere but merely offer babes (OF ones in particular) an additional way to make quick cash. This is what they've learnt from OF.
Put succintly: 66 are no longer looking to survive off us. (Note their first thought was not to advertise to punters on here but to run a splash banner looking to replace its lost content creators.) The prospect seems largely about surviving off babes needy of an additional revenue stream (I'm sure they'd prefer those already doing well at these other places). It really is just a conduit now as OF are.
An analogy would be a lean efficient pilot fish to the industry's whales. A very interesting repositioning for what was once the mighty Elite... But, looked at from this perspective, they just might have a better chance of survival than some of us thought first off.