Peer or Predator?

Unfortunately, one can only make the rules in an environment that is unruly. Much like the Wild West in days of yore, the Internet is populated with frontiersmen, prospectors and snake oil salesmen. Especially in the adult Internet, there are thousands of prospective moguls out there looking for anyway to make a buck in this virgin territory. They've seen the articles and journalistic exposes on ordinary citizens who became millionaires overnight because of online porn. They want some of this juicy pie before it's all gone and they are going to use any means to get a piece. Sadly, while the majority of those dealing in online smut are good and honest souls, there are those who are not honest and not good. There are bad guys out there and recognizing them is even harder in the anonymity of the Internet than it ever was in the real world.

There are large criminals like those who promote child porn. These bastards are easy to define as evil and a good thing about your peers is they do a great job of locating and reporting the sites of child pornographers to law enforcement. The adult Internet is not only paving the way for future technologies, we are also policemen by proxy for cyberspace. If you encounter an illegal image on a web page an adult webmaster can point you to the proper authorities. If you need to identify an online business, rest assured your fellow smut peddlers could deliver to you a name, address and phone number. Your fellow smut peddlers on the whole are sincere and honest humans who simply want to create their own future. Then again, there are some adult webmasters out there who are not honest and not sincere. They may not be obvious criminals like pedophilia pushers but nevertheless you need to be wary.

Just because you've spent countless hours in ICQ chat with someone does not mean you know him or her. Just because a webmaster is known by regular members of a message board does not mean that webmaster is honest. Just because a webmaster was virtuous when they had a TGP does not mean they will be able to be virtuous as an affiliate sponsor. A lot of adult webmasters have been cheated by those they considered friends.

You have to remember that the adult Internet is comprised of a lot of people who have never owned a business. While they may have once been exemplary employees, as business owners they lack a sense of ethics and cannot handle true responsibility. They assume that because our profession is looked down upon, it's perfectly okay to behave like a criminal. They depend on the anonymity of the Internet to cloak them from the law and their peers. They dip their hands in the till of their business and when it comes time to pay the piper, they make up excuses and beg for more time. They re-direct legitimately traded traffic to their profit sources. They promise technical work in trade for content and never follow through.

Not all adult webmasters are thieves and cheats. The majority of them are honest and sincere. But money does strange things to people. The fact that this new medium is being run by people who have never met each other encourages and environment of secrecy and deceit. That college kid in Milwaukee who steals content and then resells it on CD to the general masses knows that it's going to take a good long while before the authorities find him. He knows that if someone reports him to his host, he can just find another host, change his nickname and reinvent himself. He knows that the Internet is still vastly under-regulated. He knows that there are many trusting and naive newbies out there for the plucking.

To choose to be an adult webmaster means you have chosen to be part of an exciting and revolutionary new medium. Because it is new, it is unmapped and untamed. There are beasts lurking behind the bushes and sometimes you are the one who discovers them. Just because it's scary and there be monsters, doesn't mean you should stop exploring and paving new roads. Keep moving ahead. Watch out for the bad guys and always cover your ass.