Some_Chucklefuck

Hi there, Kelsey. I have a long history in the adult entertainment industry, having worked for companies such as Playboy, AVN, Xbiz, as well as a number of hardcore producers such as Ox Media (Bang Bus) and others. You're right that pornographers do adopt new technology fads early, but at the same time their web sites and back end stacks are some of the most ancient stuff on the web.

Backend processing is handled mostly by NATS, and PHP is the predominant language for front-end sites. Very few have APIs, almost none are built with microservices, and a huge number of security flaws exist in even the most popular sites. Almost no one uses a digital marketing stack, and I've never seen a company properly instrument its analytics.

What do you think is primarily responsible for such a drive toward bleeding-edge interfaces, yet a lack of progress on their own sites and infrastructure?

I think I know the answer, but I'm curious as to what you think about it.

I agree with you on some fronts -- the move from PayPal in the early days to services like iBill (sigh) and CCBill allowed the billers to create a stranglehold on the industry, but then they themselves created awful backends and worse customer service practices. CCBill, for an affiliate, is a waking nightmare.

The SaaS services available to most adult entertainment companies are so poorly made as to be frightening.

It's a shame this AMA was so short, but would love to discuss with you personally. You may recognize who I am once we get in touch; I was a leading tech luminary (such as it is), and spoke almost every year at AVN, etc.

Did you sleep with your teacher?