LOS ANGELES — On Sunday, Mashable examined the question of whether millennials will be the saviors of the adult industry..
In an article titled "How millennials are saving the porn industry," writer Mark Hay takes a look at the spending habits of the millennial generation on adult content. According to Hay and his sources, millennials are not only making up a large or majority percentage of those paying for content, but individually they're also paying more than previous generations did, even before the advent of tubesites.
"A few years ago there were predictions that [millennials] would be the death of the industry," states xHamster's Alex Hawkins in the Mashable article.
Today, according to Hawkins, millennials are making up "the largest paying porn consumer base for several producers, outspending older generations substantially," Hay writes.
There are several possible explanations for why a generation raised with access to nearly unlimited amounts of free content have started paying for it.
XBIZ's own Alejandro Freixes suggests to Hay that part of the reason is that millennials have been trained by "Freemium" apps and streaming services "to drop a couple bucks here, drop a couple bucks there."
Hay also points to the millennial desire to prioritize convenience and immediacy over cost, as well as a tendency to follow online influencers.
"Reports also began to reveal that millennials actually care less about finding a low price and are more willing than older generations to pay a premium for convenience, immediacy, and content they care about," he writes. "And millennials increasingly care about — will follow and buy from — influencers."
Whatever the reason, adult content creators and distribution platforms report a marked increase in the number of customers identified as millennials.
Pornhub's Corey Price says that millennials make up 55 percent of their free access users, but 66 percent of their premium customers.
Paper Street Media COO Salima says that 60 percent of the company's paying customers are millennials; Hawkins says that over 50 percent of xHamster's paying customers are from the same group.
Freixes believes millennials are spending more than older generations; Hawkins backs this up, saying xHamster's data shows millennials spending approximately double what older generations are spending.
Click here to read the full article which appears as part of Mashable's Horny on Main series of articles exploring sex.