Monday, May 17, 2010

A Technological Revolution Misses Pornography:

How many times have we heard that pornography drives every technological revolution in media and on the Internet? That observation seemed as true as Moore’s Law. And yet we have entered the age of good, clean, blockbuster 3D movies; the porn industry is lagging behind on this one.

The 3D revolution appears to be problematic for porn in more ways than one. First, pornography has largely moved out of movie theaters and into the privacy of the home. 3D was developed by the movie industry to get people back into theaters. There will – some day – be excellent 3D TV sets, but for now public movie theaters have the edge. Second, there aren’t that many 3D movie theaters. They are expensive to set up, and there’s likely to be more control (for many reasons) on what they show. So there’s not much economic incentive to make pornography to show in a theater.

The staying power of pornography has appeared to stem from its ability to find an angle, to take advantage of any new thing. But this time, I think the industry is temporarily stymied.

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