This is the six minute/medium version of the VIDEO that seems to have caused YouTube to ban delete my channel and ban me from future channels. See https://innovationcafe.us/why-you-cant-find-innovation-cafe-on-youtube for details.
The 6 Minute Version of the VIDEO:
00:00:00:00 – 00:01:16:00
Welcome back to Innovation Cafe. Today we are going to look into how adult content has driven the development of technology. Evolutionary biology tells you all we’re trying to do as humans is pass our genes on to the next generation. And that makes anything having to do with reproduction very interesting to humans. As a result, adult content has the ability to bring in money and attention and those two things also happen to be things that supercharge the speed of innovation.
00:01:16:05 – 00:01:42:17
Before we get going, I am doing multiple versions of the same video. For the deep dive, you’re going to click the card above you. So let’s hit it. Throughout history, adult content has been a powerful catalyst for advancements in technology. Our journey begins in the 1400s with Gutenberg’s printing press. It is well known for having turned out the Gutenberg Bible, but it’s less well known for having turned out a lot of different books.
00:01:42:24 – 00:02:14:09
Erotic literature found a very substantial audience and pushed printers to refine their techniques for higher quality and efficiency. This demand accelerated the evolution of printing technology. Fast forward to the 19th century and the birth of photography. Almost as soon as cameras were invented, people began to use them to capture intimate images. This shouldn’t be surprising for anyone who lived through the smartphone revolution, where smartphones were delivered on a Monday and by Wednesday or even earlier
00:02:14:16 – 00:02:42:27
people were taking intimate images. The demand for intimate images on film back in the 1800s drove significant innovations in photographic techniques, in lighting and equipment, and pushed the boundaries of what cameras could do. This continued with motion pictures. The adult industry’s interest in movies spurred advancements in camera technology, film production and projection methods. An interesting figure in this is Hedy Lamarr.
00:02:43:00 – 00:03:08:23
She was a famous actress and appeared in one of the first mainstream films to feature significant nudity. Beyond her acting career, she was a patented inventor who co-developed frequency hopping spread spectrum technology. It is what made possible modern wireless communications like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Moving into the late 20th century, we encounter the video format war between VHS and Betamax.
00:03:08:24 – 00:03:34:07
Betamax was technologically superior, but VHS won the market. Why? The adult industry adopted VHS. This choice influenced consumer adoption on a pretty massive scale and, combined with other factors, made VHS the household standard. Wasn’t too long before we entered the digital age. The adult industry was among the first to recognize and capitalize on the potential of the internet.
00:03:34:10 – 00:04:12:18
Adult websites drove a substantial portion of early web traffic. If you’re downloading adult images, you don’t want to wait for hours for each image. So of course, this demand pushed tech companies to improve infrastructure at an unbelievable pace. Innovations in video compression, streaming technologies and cybersecurity measures were accelerated. The adult industry needed a way to drive traffic to their sites where they would charge them, and as a result, there was a ton of money going from adult content websites to more mainstream websites in exchange for hosting banner ads.
00:04:12:24 – 00:04:41:13
And that helped fund some of the earliest internet companies. But with the introduction of adult tube sites, the old model where people paid for content was essentially demolished. So what was the industry to do? Turns out that performers exercised control over their destiny. How? Sites like OnlyFans. Unlike a tube site on OnlyFans, the adult model can interact with their fans.
00:04:41:14 – 00:05:10:08
They can create content that their fans ask for. They develop a relationship from the fan to the adult actor. That relationship helped drive traffic and funds directly to that actor. This model drove more advancements in live streaming technology, microtransaction processing, and robust authentication systems. The demand for high quality, efficient video streaming pushed the development of content delivery networks, and advanced buffering solutions.
00:05:10:15 – 00:05:33:20
There are a couple of areas where the mainstream still hasn’t caught up with the adult, and the biggest one probably is virtual reality video. There is a ton of VR content in the adult space, but mainstream studios have been very slow to adopt virtual reality. Similarly, metaverse technology is driven in large part by adult. So what’s the takeaway?
00:05:33:21 – 00:06:01:16
Innovations sprout from places closely tied to fundamental human desires. If there’s enough demand and there’s enough funding as a result of that demand, wherever that funding is going, it’s going to be well situated to push technological progress. And in this case, it was the adult industry. Thank you for joining me. If you found this discussion interesting but still want more, go ahead and click the video for the long form.
00:06:01:17 – 00:06:09:02
Until next time, stay engaged. Stay creative. Stay curious. Stay awesome. We’ll catch you next time.