Fundamentally, yes. There's a host of things I didn't get into that others have said, like the 'regulation' angle that payment processors likely DID push. I think more than one explanation can be true at the same time, and it wasn't something so simple as OF was playing 4-D chess.
But I DO think that OF was playing a game for profit with all of this and the media participated. MC piped up when they were blamed as the primary cause, but they only insisted they weren't trying to make OF abandon thottery. They left it at that. I think because it was true that they were lightly involved to some extent, mainly with the legal CYA angle of getting people on the platform verified and ID'd.
Tangentially, I also think there's much much more to the PornHub story, and it has a lot to do with driving taste in porn away from 'problematic' topics by focusing the ability to produce it in the hands of a few established, controllable studios.
Forcing anonymity out of a platform is always going to be fundamentally disingenuous. It is fear of competition and lack of control that drives this every time. Combatting crime is just an excuse.
How much of this was OF? Hard to say, I'll guess more than 0%, but less than 50%. I think it really was a profit play, mostly.
Fundamentally, yes. There's a host of things I didn't get into that others have said, like the 'regulation' angle that payment processors likely DID push. I think more than one explanation can be true at the same time, and it wasn't something so simple as OF was playing 4-D chess.
But I DO think that OF was playing a game for profit with all of this and the media participated. MC piped up when they were blamed as the primary cause, but they only insisted they weren't trying to make OF abandon thottery. They left it at that. I think because it was true that they were lightly involved to some extent, mainly with the legal CYA angle of getting people on the platform verified and ID'd.
Tangentially, I also think there's much much more to the PornHub story, and it has a lot to do with driving taste in porn away from 'problematic' topics by focusing the ability to produce it in the hands of a few established, controllable studios.
Forcing anonymity out of a platform is always going to be fundamentally disingenuous. It is fear of competition and lack of control that drives this every time. Combatting crime is just an excuse.
How much of this was OF? Hard to say, I'll guess more than 0%, but less than 50%. I think it really was a profit play, mostly.