As someone who spent 4 years working for Kink.com (NSFW) building and running their entire IT infrastructure, this guy brings up some valid points. We had to build some extremely complicated systems to handle payments, performance, security, etc. It was a really fun learning experience. We used top of the line equipment. We got lessons in scaling. Even came up with creative ways to tell people where I worked... 'Educational video company'.
I wouldn't necessarily hold it against anyone working in porn so much as working in the porn industry. The porn industry is violently against even basic things like condom use (and the list continues). Such resistance tends to mean justifying things with excuses. Since compromising would be to admit to responsibility. So why should I trust that someone working in such an environment isn't going to treat private data, important infrastructure or financial software the same? Random programmers from overall mediocre environments are quite easy to find whether it is porn or something else.
Edit: It is always funny how when you claim that people are biased and don't have arguments on Hacker News, they downvote you. People really can't get out of their heads. My point still stands. Good programmers doesn't have to go into controversial industries. They don't need excuses to justify how things "actually really are". The article says that the porn industry is "leading" in technology. That is bullshit. They might be leading in commercialization of certain technologies for a brief second, but that is all. How many programming languages did they invent? Zero.
Don't go into mediocre industry where people accept problems as a feature. All the people around will be there because they don't care about certain things and so won't you. You might not like it, that is up to you, but don't come complaining when you can't find a job after 40 because you haven't developed the skills companies are looking for at that age. Like identifying, solving and taking responsibility for larger problems.
That is certainly part of it, but it is also about capability. They don't know how to make it work, maybe especially not in their own heads. The same is true for developers. Seniority is largely measured in how good you are at delivering what is fundamentally correct without compromising. While lesser programmers will convince themselves that it is unnecessary or that their own solution is good enough.
Actually, some of the top notch, well funded production companies tried to make it work. They knew how to make it work.
Was it Wicked(?) (one of the big name, well experienced, well funded companies) that tried to make all their hired performers wear protection, even married couples.
They had top notch good looking talent, professional camera people, great lighting, costumes, everything.
I think they made some money from the HBO type cable channels buying the 'camera does not show the actual penetration' market, but not enough to continue the condoms only crusade that was attempted, from what I remember. Maybe there is a crew still making condoms only porn, but I have not see much of it.
The free market shows what most people are looking for, and from what I can tell, they aren't choosing the 'all condom' channel, even when it's free on the free sites.
That isn't really making it work. Look at the UFC. Total spectacle when it was first acquired, now it is one of the largest sports in the US. Largely because they are ahead of the regulation. People who want to compete by being a spectacle don't get licenses and access to large arenas. If they would have known how to make it work there would be a similar situation for payment processing and free sites as well.
I generally agree, but in this day and age, there is also real horrid, vile stuff... just follow banner ads on random free porn sites and you'll find a lot that is more an excessive dehumanization arms race than anything to do with sex.
People don't have to be ashamed of it in the sense that they didn't choose to get so damaged to be attracted by it, but abuse and it's consequences is a major elephant on the couch of the porn industry, and I also don't feel a shred of shame for not lumping it all together into one giant bag of "it's all fine", just like I can't lump it together as being all bad.
To each his own also means that I see what I see, and judge it as I judge it.
There is plenty of exploitation and abuse (including sexual abuse) in mainstream media as well... but because there isn't a public stigma attached to that, it's possible for public and political pressures to be arrayed against it. But since we're all supposed to be ashamed of porn and sex outside of marriage in the west, the worst of those industries are just considered par for the course and left to fester.
> we're all supposed to be ashamed of porn and sex outside of marriage in the west
So basically, you're not aware of any of the stuff I'm referring to, and reroute it to what you do know. It isn't the weakest possible interpretation of what I wrote, it's completely out of bounds -- there is no way you honestly think I'm referring to extramarital sex with "horrible, vile stuff" and "excessive dehumanization". And it's pointless and a bit unfair, because I can't show you anything, and even to just describe it in detail would ruin my day.
I don't feel anything I'm "supposed to" either -- including this idea that if someone is into X, and it's legal, you can't say bad things about it, but they can say good things about it all day long. Because "it's a thing", and once it's a thing, it's just there in the world as an item to pick off the shelf and consume, and the cardinal sin is to have any opinions on the choices of other consumers. All that matters is that someone wants something, and that it's legal. People are into things because they are into them, end of discussion, and in many cases also end of reflection.
That's like one "camp", and anyone who has anything to say about that other than "awesome" has be be conservative, religious, whatever. It's like many conflicts, try to talk sense to hawks on either side and they cannot imagine you as anything but a "supporter of the other side". If you can imagine shame and horror only as response to social conditioning, religious upbringing, and so on, you by necessity cannot understand where I'm coming from.
If I had the choice to give an earful to anyone who consumes or makes movies and games and music, as someone who gamed a lot, loves music (but to be honest kinda stopped watching a lot of movies) or to anyone who makes or consumes porn, porn doesn't even enter consideration. But the subject at hand was porn, and while I don't think the person I responded to meant it that way, taken literally they said that any adult site, i.e. all of them, is nothing to be ashamed of. That is the only reason I responded, that's too broad for me to agree.
>here is no way you honestly think I'm referring to extramarital sex with "horrible, vile stuff" and "excessive dehumanization".
You're correct, I don't, because you've completely misinterpreted my comment, my motives, and myself.
The stigma around porn is societal, and that stigma is related to the way that pornography is viewed as deviant from a society which views marital sex as the only acceptable form of sexual relationship.
And that stigma is the reason the "horrible, vile stuff" and "excessive dehumanization" is more difficult to fight and address in porn than in mainstream media, where it is at least possible to gather public awareness and sympathy for victims, and support for regulation to fight them. None of that is possible for the porn industry, because even speaking about it publicly is taboo.
