The conventional wisdom is that the slowdown is due to the economy -- men saving their money instead of spending it on women. I'm wondering about an alternative explanation however: That the availability of free, good quality porn on the internet is reducing demand.

For those of you in the hobby for a good while, has access to free porn cut down on your frequency?

Also, there seems to be so many more providers then just a few years ago and they are all competing in a smaller market which lowers prices. You have women who would have never dreamed of escorting for a living who have been put in that position by a poor economy and still have to pay the bills. There's also a growing Sugarbaby population where the woman might not escort in the traditional way but will be compensated in different ways for sexual favors.

Unless, as some brothers have said, access to porn increases the desire to see a provider. If porn is used as a substitute it is because of budget, as others have also said.

I think "paid" porn (buy or rent) hurt the strip club biz
which forced strippers to enter adult movie biz to make money.
Then "free" porn hurt the adult movie biz forcing pornstars
to enter escorting biz (most were probably escorting before
anyway but now they are doing it more frequently, openly, and cheaper). And with pornstar escorts now available and at cheaper rate I'd
figure the end result has been that free porn has indirectly increased
mongering.

My personal downturn in visits owes itself to general downturn in expendable income, the increase in a lot of ladies prices, and the huge number of references required. Makes it a matter of planning and sharing personal income so I'm less likely to hobby spur of the moment which is what I used to do a lot. Now if its too much work, I got all these great websites so its not too bad.

There is so much good porn video for free on the internet that I spend more time at home beating off. And after masturbating I am less inclined to go looking for a "provider," because I know it will take more time for me to get hard and get off, and if I'm paying for sex by the hour (or fraction thereof) I want to get my money's worth. If I have a session that is costing me money I want to have at least one great orgasm, and that's difficult to do after a session with Youporn, Pornhub, xvideo, etc. If there is a girl I like and that I am thinking about seeing, I have to plan ahead of time to make sure I don't beat-off for a couple of days to make sure that I enjoy myself to the max when I am with her.

It would probably be worth mentioning that I am in my fifties. Maybe when i was in my twenties I could have beat-off once in the morning and again in the afternoon and still have been able to get an instant hard-on with a live woman in the evening. But I don't have that kind of stamina these days, and I have less "sensitivity" and it in general takes me longer to get off even in the best of circumstances. But back then the women I saw were usually women I was in relationships with, so I didn't have to worry about getting my rocks off while the clock was running. I don't know what my life would have been like then if I had been a monger, and if there had been free 24-hour a day porn movies in my apartment on a computer (which was like unimaginable science fiction at that time.)

Okay, that's enough about my personal life. I'm glad you don't know who I am in the "real" world. I can only tell stories like this because of my RB handle!

(Reg'd in '01, retired in '04, back in '08)