Skepticism is good. It’s healthy. One should always question the validity of any statement or claim. Adult webmasters are some of the most skeptical people I know. Frankly, I’m proud to be part of an industry where even the smallest member has the right to stand up and cry: “Bullshit!”

"The choice is up to you. You can trudge blindly through with your faulty plans. You can ignore us or you can shut up and listen. Listen and learn."

I am also humbled by the brilliance of my peers and betters. There are some damned smart people in online adult. Internet porn draws from all professions, educational levels, social classes and cultures. I know webmasters from all over America and the world. It’s a hell of a thing to realize that I’m dealing with people that are literally mapping out the roads and rules of Internet commerce. It’s astounding to be part of history.

Welcome to the future, newbie adult webmaster. When you become one of us, you become an authentic pioneer. I’m not exaggerating our importance. Every single advance made on the web is made because of adult webmaster beta testing.

We’re the ones that perfect the technologies and business models eventually adopted by the non-adult realm. We showed the world that the Internet makes money. We’re the ones that invented the popup ad and we’re the ones that figured out how much surfers hated them. We’re the folks that brought you streaming content when nobody else was willing to spend the money or time. We realized long before anyone else that text ads are often better than graphic ads. We honed and polished the affiliate/sponsor model. We figured out that surfers hate slow-loading pages. We were optimizing our sites for search engines back when Google was a gleam in its developer’s eye.

On top of all of it, the adult Internet is and will be the battle ground for free speech rights. If net neutrality fails, it won’t be our fault. We’ve been out there fighting for years and we will fight for years to come. Let the moralists and pearl clutchers spit on us. We know who we are and we know what we’ve contributed to society.

This is why we are sometimes cocky and snarky when a newbie comes along, full of big ideas and misguided bravado. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve watched a noob announce that he/she is going to change online porn with his/her big idea, only to be laughed at by veteran webmasters. Chances are, no matter what the big idea may be; it’s probably already been done ten times over. Or worse, the painful process of watching as that newbie is told his/her idea just won’t work. It’s not that adult webmasters are cruel, it’s just that we’re realistic. We’re not better than you are but we have a damned good sense of what will and will not sell on the web. More importantly, we know how to sell porn on the web.

Say you come to an adult webmaster message board and declare that you’ve got gobs of experience with this skill or that ability. Then you declare that since you’ve mastered a non-adult venture, selling smut on the web should be a snap, don’t be surprised if some of us laugh. You’re the ten-thousandth newb who has made this particular declaration. You’re the ten-thousandth newb that has had to be set straight. We’ll do our best to tell make you understand that all your previous experience means nothing. We’ll let you know that there are no easy outs in this industry. We’ll inform you that you have to learn from scratch just like every adult webmaster before you.

The choice is up to you. You can trudge blindly through with your faulty plans. You can yell and rant and call us assholes. You can ignore us or you can shut up and listen. Listen and learn.

The fact is that all those stories you’ve heard about overnight millionaire webmasters are just stories. If ever there was a time for easy money in online porn, that time is over.

Today’s professional adult webmaster has a working knowledge of every aspect of this business. Some specialize in certain skills but all of us are experienced enough to realize that there are no short cuts. There are no sure things. All success takes diligence, patience and the ability to recognize changing markets and trends. When we tell you that there’s no magic niche or sponsor program, we’re not being vague. We’re telling you the truth. What works for one webmaster won’t work for all webmasters.

As I wrote at the start, it’s good to be skeptical. Take all advice with a grain of salt. But don’t fool yourself into the mistaken belief that you know better than the professionals in our industry. You don’t. If you did, you’d be a professional already.