(19-09-2022 10:44 )ryuken Wrote: ...That's why at the end of my first post I wrote:
"The channels just need to tweak their FTA and PPV content a little bit.
So that the babes can make money, and punters don't have to pay for numerous paywalls/gimmicks."
Sorry I know yeah; that was just me doing my usual expounding. I may have managed to make it look like I wasn't in broad agreement with you (I almost always am with your excellent posts mate)! I really
only had a query with that first bit that I quoted before.
Tbh, I find these aspects of the shows throughly intriguing. So I have trouble not delving into my thoughts on the matter. And I'd like to attempt to add some context in that light if I may. Looking back into the history of the shows might be illuminating for this...
As I see it, the generalised babes' vision of their broadest audience, and their attitude towards such, has altered radically over the years; or at least has been exposed to the fandom's consciousness bit by bit over that time.
The rise of the term freeloader feels something of a turning point in this to me; tieing in in subtle ways with the rise of modern type babe-ing. The term first appears on this forum more than a year into its life (in a post by one DrGrumpyPants from June 2009). The shows had already been curtailed once by the regulator (putting an end to the fta puss heights of 2006). It seems likely to me that, in the highly competitive environment that permeated in 'the boom years' that followed, lesser babes sort to drive loyalty in their regulars by encouraging the idea that their payers were somehow above the rabble of normal users. And that the more intimate personalised type content they offered was somehow of a superior kind to that of the regular, more 'content' heavy, babeshow. I feel they seeded this freeloader thing not thinking it would take hold as well as it did.
In the early 2010s these babes were able to tailor things ever more in their direction as fta content was further censored (Ofcom had really sunk their teeth in by this time of course). And gradually the idea set in that a babeshow's content shouldn't be all front and centre - seen by all and sundry. That it was actually the babe's attention that was being monetised more than the resultant visual stimuli. Paywalls for early home shows had also crept in by this point. Harder content could be held back for a less public arena for the first time. Then this newer ethos was given more of a foothold once perv became a successful £ draw. Whilst, presumably, the increasingly proportion of revenue from the more fanboy type users - those buying into this 'only for the intimates' concept (along with some supposed deeper relationship they had with their babe) - was the biggest driving force in bringing it to dominate industry thinking.
With this going on, babes began to look for more ways they could obtain the advantages of the shows without the downsides. They wanted less footprint of their babeshow activities left visible when they moved on for a start. And they wanted to be perceived less negatively by the public at large as certain sections of society began frown on all forms of glamour and so-called sex work. They wanted to downplay what they were doing in the publics eyes basically. (Fta is of course the central public gaze of the shows.)
Then OF wrought its influence. More stuff could be held back for its exploitation.
Even more recently the continued advance of this attitude has not been helped by the ubiquitousness of in-the-moment user data available to all babes on their laptop tech. This has necessarily given the babes the ability to focus on the (bigger) payers - emphasising the marketability of the 'exclusives' aspects of the shows as they did so. (Privates only became an inter-show thing when babes could identify individual log ins to their streams note.) But human nature being what it is it also bolstered a congruent resentment for those -
now 'visible' and nameable - users perceived as getting any small bites of a free lunch. Both of these aspects have added to the now ever growing push of content away from fta. (When a babe can 'call out' individuals, live and in-the-moment, for their freeloading crimes we know we're in a completely different ball game from just 10 years ago say.)
By 2021, all this had resulted in 66's babes wanting a website with multiple restrictive rules over access (for instance)! It's all part of the same path.
Lots of things have taken the shows to where we find them today; as we continue to drift away from TV (and maybe as a result from babes in a studio environment). But the advance in desire to stop non-payers from viewing is definitely one of them - despite any affects it might have on the general standing of the shows in the eyes of fandom.
Result: We have an industry that thrives of the oxygen of publicity, a large slice of which has just elected to try to do without any window shoppers or any TV promotion at all.