Interesting
So my room-mate and I were talking tonight, and the topic de nuit was pornography. Yeah, yeah, yeah, moral filth and all of that. And I'm not disagreeing with that, but if you think about it, the adult entertainment industry has been one of the chief driving forces behind technological innovation for some time. Let's think about it: the porn industry was really the first adopter of the VCR; the internet itself has grown in size and scope in its ability to cater to any little niche fetish imaginable; credit card security software first became an issue on porn sites; and let us not forget digital photography and the whole notion of pictures on the web; it was the porn industry that pushed for the introduction of video on the web; from these two springs their spawn, the webcam, used for video-chat, which allowed for real-time erotic interactivity; P2P use was driven as much by the desire for hard-core video as it was for free music; even now, any bittorrent site worth its stripes has a section devoted to hardcore porn/XXX/hentai. As much as we may find it distasteful, pornography has been useful in advancing technology. Just some thoughts. This may be totally off-base, but it is thought-provoking.
2 Comments:
I think it's more that they've been quite innovative in getting people's attention...since they can't be mainstream, they have to be more creative to get themselves out there. Thus they've also been the forerunners in a lot of internet circumvention...things like grabbing those mis-spelled popular domain names, popups (which as much as we all hate them...work), spamming (again...nobody likes it but it works), also many video streaming technologies. My theory is that they're more innovative in technology because they have to be to thrive.
Also, it's important to note that technology has enabled porn viewers to indulge their habits in greater privacy, without having to wear the social stigma of going to an adult bookstore or naughty theatre.
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