Potential Premium Service

I was already thinking about a premium section. That would give us the possibility to present elitebabes the way we envision it, and not the way we have to adjust to generate ad revenue. I effing HATE ads, but its necessary to keep everything running and updated 🙁

I like your suggestions, what we can do is:
- Option to turn on high resolution images for galleries with HQ source (most of the stuff we added within the last two years)
- 1080p or 4k videos for xerotica for new videos
- Download link for individual galleries, and videos network-wide
- remove third party ads network-wide (but still keep a link at the bottom of the gallery pointing to the content provider)
- weekly emails to the subscriber to inform about new galleries from subscribed models
- discreet billing

I am just not sure how many users would be willing to pay for it. Billing in adult is very difficult and billers take a huge chunk of the subscription. Also implementation is a nightmare, and to implement it network wide would be very costly.

By the end of the year we should have worked through most of the most pressing updates to the site, and then there would be time to try a premium section.

The main question is, how much would people be willing to pay for it? $5/month, $10/month, $50/year?

If you guys can think of any other feature for a premium section pls let me know!

Posted by: @vertigo

I was already thinking about a premium section. That would give us the possibility to present elitebabes the way we envision it, and not the way we have to adjust to generate ad revenue. I effing HATE ads, but its necessary to keep everything running and updated 🙁

I like your suggestions, what we can do is:
- Option to turn on high resolution images for galleries with HQ source (most of the stuff we added within the last two years)
- 1080p or 4k videos for xerotica for new videos
- Download link for individual galleries, and videos network-wide
- remove third party ads network-wide (but still keep a link at the bottom of the gallery pointing to the content provider)
- weekly emails to the subscriber to inform about new galleries from subscribed models
- discreet billing

I am just not sure how many users would be willing to pay for it. Billing in adult is very difficult and billers take a huge chunk of the subscription. Also implementation is a nightmare, and to implement it network wide would be very costly.

By the end of the year we should have worked through most of the most pressing updates to the site, and then there would be time to try a premium section.

The main question is, how much would people be willing to pay for it? $5/month, $10/month, $50/year?

If you guys can think of any other feature for a premium section pls let me know!

You mentioned "That would give us the possibility to present elitebabes the way we envision it, and not the way we have to adjust to generate ad revenue." What does this mean? What do you have to change because of a need for ad revenue? It would be interesting to know. Anyway, the idea by Ramsey to have games on the site could be interesting, but I assume it would be a low priority compared to other issues.

I believe a premium subscription should just be an enhancement to what's already there, and should not compromise the free version. YouTube Premium is an example of how not to do this, as it is advertised in a very intrusive manner and the free experience on YouTube has been getting progressively worse over the years. I expect that a premium subscription would not be the major source of income, but could be nice 'on the side' money. An alternative way to make more money would be to have more ads, but then that isn't a good thing for a lot of people. The site would run slower, and there is the chance that it turns people away, which is definitely a bad thing. The current level of ads is surprisingly low, but I'd rather that didn't change since one of the things that draws me to Elite Babes is that it doesn't come across as a dodgy website like others do.

Assuming the prices change depending on location, £4 a month is something I'd be willing to pay for, although it may be an on-and-off thing. One website I use (not porn) has a large download library of mods for a video game, and the regular download speed is capped at 10kbp/s. The website is really old, as the download speed shows, but the amount and variety of content means that, if I have a lot of things I want to download, I'll pay the £2.50, get one month, download a few gigabytes' worth of stuff, and leave it for a while. This is generally fine for that website - the owner is the executive producer of the game, funnily enough, so doesn't need the money. However, with something like the potential benefits for this subscription, this practise is less likely as there are reasons to stay subscribed even if you don't need to subscription. PlayStation Plus gives free games away, for example, and this one has higher quality photos and videos. If the Elite Babes subscription only offered faster and higher-quality downloads it would be a different story, but as it stands I see potential in the idea.

I think that weekly email newsletter should be optional or perhaps should have a bit more to it. In the past I made a suggestion where I remember saying that people could write about models and galleries. Perhaps the newsletter could also include reviews for new galleries? I write quite a lot (as you can tell :D) so I'd be up for that if you need any help.

Another idea: I am aware that not all of the photos in a gallery are actually added to EliteBabes. It would be worth seeing if people would rather higher resolution images or more per set, assuming the latter was possible. Of course, in an ideal world there'd be both.

Sometimes I design my ideal vision for what a porn site would be, and one of these ideas could be relevant here. On one of the sites, in addition to the premium service you could buy individual videos, and these would have premium features enabled, such as downloading videos and higher quality, but the user would not have a premium account. The purchases are permanent, as if they 'own' the set. It would effectively be the difference between buying a song on iTunes and playing it on Apple Music. The latter requires a subscription that gives you all of the songs, while the former provides a premium experience for just that song.

While it would be very complex to implement it could be worth looking at. The way I'd imagine it is that on a gallery page there'd be a Buy button and this will let you buy the gallery (the price should be low as this would encourage collecting - perhaps 59 Pence in the UK?). In your dashboard there is a tab called 'Purchased Galleries' and this does exactly as you expect. You'd be able to filter it by model, category, etcetera, and sort it by model, date purchased, date of release, and more. The premium features stated above would come into play here - the images would be higher quality (perhaps the full galleries would also be enabled), and you could download them with a button. Amusingly, the latter feature would be less exploitable than a subscription, as there is no way to buy a month, bulk download a load of galleries and then not need to pay again.

A more advanced feature could also to make it more like a storefront - an iTunes Store for porn, if you will. We could have redeem codes for subscriptions or galleries, which I could see becoming funny joke gifts. Perhaps there could even be a way to gift subscriptions or galleries directly to members of the community here, like on Steam. And maybe we could have wishlists for galleries we'd like to have.

With the ability to have a collection of 'owned' galleries this does make the case for apps for PC and mobile again. It would allow Elite Babes to not be constrained by web browsers, but then the extra development time and not being able to launch the app on iOS are good reasons not to have an app.

 I like the sound of what you are both suggesting ,I would certainly be fine with paying a monthly subscription fee for hires pics or to be able download sets etc

What do you have to change because of a need for ad revenue?

Most of all I would love to have all the content on elitebabes, and not link to our other site xerotica. xerotica is monetized much more aggressive with invideo ads, slide ins. I dont like any kind of ads, and would love to remove them all on elitebabes and xerotica. But we still need revenue to pay for all of this.

I think that weekly email newsletter should be optional or perhaps should have a bit more to it.

I agree, I would like the newsletter to include updates of the site like Upcoming features, bug fixes.., and also make it as personalized as possible. It makes no sense to send someone who is into blondes the latest updates of asian girls.

rather higher resolution images or more per set

Unfortunately more is not possible. We already have agreements in place that allow us to post more images than other sites, but thats it. We can do higher resolution, but not more content.

While it would be very complex to implement it could be worth looking at.

The Netflix of erotic art sounds awesome, but this is an incredible difficult task, as we would have to make agreements with 50 different companies all over the world regarding resale rights. I love it, but I highly doubt we would get more than a couple of companies to agree to that. They are very protective of their content.

Most of all I would love to have all the content on elitebabes, and not link to our other site xerotica. xerotica is monetized much more aggressive with invideo ads, slide ins. I dont like any kind of ads, and would love to remove them all on elitebabes and xerotica. But we still need revenue to pay for all of this.

I found this quite interesting. Do you see EB as the ultimate hub and Xerotica as the side project for the time being? What about the small sites like Hegre Hunter? Personally I've found it weird how the different sites are so similar yet so separate. As far as I know you can't use the same account on the different sites, and Xerotica's presentation is really different to Elite Babes in some respects. To be honest I don't really use Xerotica. Because the videos are often cut short or not as hardcore as what I'd find on Pornhub, and the resolution is usually much lower than what can be found there as well, really I only go to Xerotica to watch videos of a select few models who do hardcore stuff that I can't find anywhere else. Taissia A for example. However now that downloads have been withdrawn even that is something I do less. Therefore downloads a premium feature for XE would make it something I consider.

Another idea I have relates to something that you've already been experimenting with. It might not be good for premium but it will probably increase traffic to the site in general. Smaller OnlyFans models such as this one don't get much attention, as OnlyFans is rather like YouTube, in that you have to be lucky to have any success on it. This puts Elite Babes in an interesting business position. My idea is to add smaller OnlyFans creators to the platform, perhaps as a premium exclusive.* This could be a win-win for both sides - the models get promoted on the largest erotic site on the internet, it allows users here to get to see OnlyFans models for much less, and it can provide a boost to ad revenue or extra justification for subscribing to premium. Think of it as the equivalent of the PlayStation Plus Collection. You're signing up for higher quality and easy downloads, but you justify your purchase with the OnlyFans catalogue, similar to how everybody buys PS Plus for the online multiplayer, but justify their purchase with the free games.

*I am not certain whether this should be a premium feature. It has advantaged for both sides of the argument, but I think that it being a premium feature could be annoying as you'd be paying for content you'd need to pay for anyway. Plus, the increase in traffic to the website would be much greater if the content was free. Something to think about.

I agree, I would like the newsletter to include updates of the site like Upcoming features, bug fixes.., and also make it as personalized as possible. It makes no sense to send someone who is into blondes the latest updates of asian girls.

Would this include some data collecting on users to find what they like? Or something like Pornhub's settings for likes and dislikes, where you can pick what you want to see, don't mind seeing and don't want to see?

Do you see EB as the ultimate hub and Xerotica as the side project for the time being?

Yes EB is the lead project, that consumes most of our time.

What about the small sites like Hegre Hunter?

They are just relicts that we keep updating because they draw some traffic, but its not anything we focus on.

OnlyFans creators to the platform

They lock down their content pretty hard. We try to get some creators to cooperate, but OF is not built this way. They draw their traffic from social media and make money through upsells once you signed up. They dont want to share any content outside of their network.
But there are already other sites popping up like ifans.com, and they want to work with us. Lets see how that goes.

Would this include some data collecting on users to find what they like?

Most certainly. All of 2023 will be spent trying to customize the EB experience for each user. Its mostly a technical challenge to beef up all the hardware to customize the index page for each user, like pinterest for instance.

To be honest I don't really use Xerotica. Because the videos are often cut short or not as hardcore as what I'd find on Pornhub

Thats the reason we focus on EB and erotic art pictures. There is no way to compete with sites that steal content like pornhub or xvideos. Also, in the long run, a business model based on theft will fail.

Most certainly. All of 2023 will be spent trying to customize the EB experience for each user. Its mostly a technical challenge to beef up all the hardware to customize the index page for each user, like pinterest for instance.

Some users will be concerned about data collecting. Will it be possible to opt out?

Posted by: @vertigo

To be honest I don't really use Xerotica. Because the videos are often cut short or not as hardcore as what I'd find on Pornhub

Thats the reason we focus on EB and erotic art pictures. There is no way to compete with sites that steal content like pornhub or xvideos. Also, in the long run, a business model based on theft will fail.

I don't think Pornhub can be classified entirely as 'stolen content' since much of it is made by individual people like you and I, but I agree that Pornhub is so established that there's no point chasing after its success - even its sister sites don't hold a candle to Pornhub.

Funnily enough, I think Pornhub is actually a profitable company, which actually gives it a one up over YouTube which has never turned a profit.

Sorry for the necrobump but recently one of my suggestions from my original post was added. This was the reward for getting 100 contribution points in a month. My version of that would be for it to give a month of premium, but as there is no premium subscription at the moment this instead gives ad-free viewing. I wanted to ask, have the admins put more thought into a potential premium service?

On another note I've noticed that the blog hasn't been updated in ages. Is this something that's going to come back? If it's a problem of time, I wouldn't mind contributing to it every few weeks.