Since it’s a new forum, may as well have the big dumb thread. Where do you all think this is going. From where I sit: platforms ate the independents, AI content is flooding everything, the compliance screws keep tightening, and payments get harder every year. But there’s still money if you’re not lazy. Convince me I’m wrong.
this thread is exactly why i joined. popcorn.
See this is what I wanted. Dave’s right that gaps open, Nate’s right that most people skip the fundamentals, and Steve is a cautionary tale in real time. Good thread.
The fundamentals have not moved in years. What is actually scarce now is being trusted and being found. Competence is table stakes.
the barrier to a decent site dropped so far that being found matters way more than being good at this point.
the funeral framing is only half right. every time a thing dies in this business the money just moves into whatever replaced it. tubes killed paysites, cams ate part of the tubes, and the people who kept earning were the ones who followed the money instead of mourning the old thing.
Steve got AI into that post three times and still didnt name one thing youd actually do on monday. Big words, zero instructions. What would you literally open first?
coming from mainstream, from the outside this place looks more stable than the industry i left, not less. everyone in here is convinced its dying while quietly making money anyway. the panic and the bank balances dont match.
every time a big platform swallows the middle they leave a niche behind thats too small for them to care about and perfect for someone small. i dont try to beat them, i just work the corners they cant be bothered with.
everyone keeps chasing the new shiny thing while the boring operators who just ship on time keep winning quietly. kind of sad that being reliable counts as an edge now but here we are.
the ones who built their own audience and their own traffic are fine, better than fine actually, because the competition thinned out. owning your distribution was optional in 2018 and it’s survival now.
yeah i came in for the arguments and stayed for the actual tactics people drop mid fight. as the new guy what im taking away is build your own audience and do the boring stuff, ignore the AI hype. thats my summary anyway.
funny, from inside it looks less stable and from outside more stable, and the truth is somewhere in the middle. the fundamentals never really changed. the people who quietly ship and dont chase every trend are the ones still here. always were.
matches my experience after 15 years. the doom threads always over-index on platforms squeezing independents, which is real, but the basics of running a site that makes money havent changed. traffic to an offer, own your audience, dont rent your whole business from one source. every year some channel dies and another opens. the ones who treat that as normal weather instead of the apocalypse are the ones still posting here.
the affiliates and operators who kept an email list, a direct audience, or their own traffic mostly adapted fine. the ones who got eaten had rented their whole business from a platform. tie yourself to something you actually control and the state of the industry matters a lot less to you.
Honestly? This is the perfect climate to 10x. Consolidation just clears runway for disruptors with a growth mindset. I’ve been circling back on a couple of plays that could really put some funnel velocity behind this whole vertical. The energy in this space right now is unmatched, you just have to trust the process.
stable? sure, if you squint. back in 2009 a guy with a gallery and a few trades made a living, nobody needed a compliance department and three processors to sell a membership. its more professional now, ill grant you. more stable, more boring, more middlemen taking a slice. downhill since, but comfortably downhill.
the doom-vs-hope threads are the entertainment and the real tactics are buried three replies down. state of the industry is the same every year, harder than last year, easier than next year, and everyone announcing its dead is still logged in. lol.
consolidation does clear out the lazy operators and leave room, but 10x-ing into that room takes capital and stomach most people underestimate, so the opening is real and the ability to seize it is rarer than the optimism suggests. 2026 is a great climate for the well-capitalized and disciplined and a brutal one for the thin and distracted, same as always, just more so. the room is there, the question is whether you have the resources and nerve to take it while everyone else retrenches.
the split between the doomers and the tactics people in this thread is the whole state of the industry, the macro looks scary from outside and the operators actually doing the work are heads-down finding the openings the fear creates. both are true at once, the top-line story is consolidation and pressure, the ground-level story is that pressure clearing space for whoever keeps executing. read the doom for context and ignore it operationally, the business is still won at the level of shipping good work in a lane.