A whole new meaning to gay for pay
A new company has launched, with a bold claim: ‘We’ll pay you to watch porn.’
The new tech company, Vice Industry Token, says the free-to-watch porn ‘tube’ model (Xtube, Pornhub etc) has huge flaws. They say not only is it bad for porn producers, but it leaves consumers with poor quality porn to watch.
And that’s why they are launching a new ‘attention economy’ model. In return for watching porn, you’ll get tokens as rewards. Which you can then spend on watching – you guessed it – more porn.
Speaking to Gay Star News, their CEO Stuart Duncan says:
‘There are over 150,000 adult websites worldwide, through which customers can view porn. That’s a lot of producers, making content that is available for free. This is because the porn relies on ads on free content to support its revenue. Making porn easily copied, pirated and shared online.’
So how can Duncan afford to pay people to watch porn?
Well, he’s created his own currency. There are now a million Vice Tokens – or VIT. And like Bitcoins, they are a cryptocurrency or virtual currency. Essentially this means the currency is stored as bits of code online, rather than bank notes in a vault.
Duncan is betting that people will eventually want to trade these Vice Tokens for cash. If that sounds crazy, then remember that’s exactly the way Bitcoin began. And the principles are the same. Now people trade the once cheap Bitcoins, for thousands of dollars.
But beware, watching porn won’t necessarily make you a millionaire. Many cryptocurrencies are starting up and none of them are achieving Bitcoin’s success.
Meanwhile, some banks are now even refusing credit to people buying even Bitcoins. The banks fear people are trading the currency for too much actual money and if the bubble bursts, it may leave people in debt.
GSN always warns against giving your bank details to organizations you don’t fully trust or speculating on products without independent financial advice.
So essentially, Duncan’s ‘reward’ is similar in concept to Bitcoin – because there is no guarantee you’ll be able to trade it for cash.
‘Using blockchain technology, our new model ensures content producers get a reward for creating content. Then curators get a reward for identifying relevant content. But most significantly, viewers get a reward for watching porn.
‘You earn VIT tokens through the act of liking content. But eventually, you’ll be able to buy and sell VIT from and to each other.’
Until then he has told GSN you can use your hard earned Vice Tokens to buy magazines, adult toys and lube, porn and private cam sessions – among an array of other adult-focused products.
Again, there may be a catch, as you are likely to only earn a ‘fractional amount of Vice Tokens’ by ‘viewing content, liking, commenting, or sharing’. That means the Vice Tokens you end up with will probably only be enough to get you discounts on these products – much like the in-store reward cards you get at many shops and online businesses.
Vice Token also states in its small print, that ‘refunds’ of bought VIT, are only available to investors. And it remains unclear when it will be possible to exchange your VIT for cash.
How much gay porn is there to watch?
Currently Vice Token has just one partner tailored to the many gay and bi men out there – Playmen.
But Vice Token assures us: ‘there will be all kinds of porn.’ GSN has reached out to Playmen for comment.
However, with porn representing 30% of global internet traffic already, will users bother to watch porn just to get their hands on this new cryptocurrency?
‘People are always going to watch porn – it’s a booming global business. The current advertising-driven model is hugely flawed. In contrast, the Attention Economy model lifts the bar for everyone involved.’
Duncan even goes as far to argue his model will make porn better:
‘It rewards viewers for authentic attention, and incentivizes producers and curators to develop high quality, engaging content for which viewers will be willing to pay real attention.’
Vice Token aren’t the only startup calling for better porn. Speaking to GSN recently, gay YouTuber Davey Wavey said bad porn, was making gay and bi men everywhere bad at sex, and that’s why he’s launched his own porn site.
The company is nothing to do with Vice Media who sent a cease-and-desist letter to the startup in November, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Vice Token begin selling their cryptocurrency later this week.
