Lesson #21 Adaptation
Written By Titmowse

The adult webmaster should be an adept at adaptation. They lie when they say the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Learn it now or learn it the hard way, change happens. You can avoid it for a time. You can run from it. You can fight it. The only thing you can’t do with change is stop it.

Change is most cruel when you refuse to recognize it, particularly in business. Need supercedes loyalty when it comes to buy and sell. You could be the most honest, most enjoyable, most trustworthy merchant in the land but, if you don’t stock what your customers want, they will buy it elsewhere. A businessperson must adapt and evolve with the society around them. The chain grocery eats the mom and pop market. The mega-discount store absorbs the local five and dime. The drive-in falls prey to the multiplex. Demand changes and so does supply.

The Internet shot out of the ocean faster than the Galapagos Islands. What was once a glorified walkie-talkie system for armed forces is now a worldwide medium for entertainment, information, communication and commerce. The earth shifted and the genie sprang forth and it’s no fad. While venture capitalists went insane giving money to any geek with an idea, adult webmasters worked in the shadows and honed their craft. When the dot com bubble blew up in the faces of stiff old men, the adult Internet evolved and produced life. At the time Madison Avenue cronies were wasting millions of dollars on Super Bowl commercials and obnoxious magazine inserts, adult webmasters were making sales by appealing directly to their market.

Our industry invented the pop-up console, perfected the payment process, exploited the affiliate/sponsor model and practically debugged streaming software single-handedly. Whatever works on the web works because of adult webmasters. DARPA may have invented the net but we’re the ones who paved the streets.

There are some adult web forefathers and mothers who didn’t make it. They didn’t adapt to change. They refused to read the writing on the wall. The ones who made it through all past permutations are the real champions. It’s one thing to luck out at an opportune time, it’s quite another to survive in spite of change and market lows. There is no field faster changing than the adult Internet.

Those changes are far from over. Even now the Internet is in rapid flux. On top of daily new technologies, there are so many legal restrictions being applied to the web as a whole. The adult net is experiencing this transformation multiplied by ten. Not only are we affected by trade and spam law, we’re considered by many to be a growing cancer in the body of human society. Almost daily some country or town somewhere is trying to include us into new Internet related legislation. Add to that the constantly changing stances of credit card companies and what results is a whole lot of acclimatization for porno webmasters.

There are a lot of people who put all their eggs in one basket and then lost the basket. Never stick to one sponsor or depend on one site. Operate as if it could all change tomorrow because it can and probably will. Have backup plans. Be prepared for the worst. Read the message boards and industry articles. Unlike the forefathers of seven years ago, today’s adult webmaster has many resources, which keep them up to date on all that affects us. Rely on them to inform you. Take to heart all cynical replies to accusations and fear mongering. Usually the truth rules out about how things will go for the industry. You can’t fight change but you can prepare for it. Those who can’t adapt will not survive.