It was 2012, and Fabian Thylmann’s goal was world domination. The man who had put together Manwin, an emerging online-pornography giant, now controlled most of the top ten porn “tubes” — aggregators that, like YouTube, contain thousands of videos and are wildly popular, because much of their content is free. If he could get hold of the two biggest, XVideos and XHamster, he could put it all behind a pay barrier and build an online porn empire. If competitors emerged, he would buy them, too. What antitrust authority would rein in a monopolist in a business that upstanding people pretend does not exist?But neither of his targets would sell. The French owner of XVideos is said to have turned down an offer of more than $120m with a scornful “Sorry, I have to go and play Diablo II.” Mr Thylmann later sold out of Manwin (since renamed Mindgeek), after coming under investigation by tax authorities in Germany, his home country.
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21666114-internet-blew-porn-industrys-business-model-apart-its-response-holds-lessons
The internet blew the porn industry’s business model apart. Its response holds lessons for other media firms
It was 2012, and Fabian Thylmann’s goal was world domination. The man who had put together Manwin, an emerging online-pornography giant, now controlled most of the top ten porn “tubes” — aggregators that, like YouTube, contain thousands of videos and are wildly popular, because much of their content is free. If he could get hold of the two biggest, XVideos and XHamster, he could put it all behind a pay barrier and build an online porn empire. If competitors emerged, he would buy them, too. What antitrust authority would rein in a monopolist in a business that upstanding people pretend does not exist?