Well, I’m fed up again, and this time, I’m sure that I will not be alone. The topic today is the latest bit of spam to infest my Inbox, and to make matters worse, it wasn’t an offer to increase the size of my penis, but to sell me “The Software the Adult Industry is Trying to Ban…”
The spam read: “Want free porn for the rest of your life? Are you sick of wasting money on porn sites that rip you off? Sick of seeing the same images and videos over and over again? We are too! That's why we have designed a revolutionary new product that will change the way you download porn forever!”
“ImageSlurp is all you need to get all the porn you will ever need. All you have to do is open the program and ImageSlurp automatically downloads the hottest, newest porn on the internet straight to your hard drive! No fucking around with Credit Cards, no popup hells, not even a single banner! All you get is thousands of new pictures and videos everyday.”
“ImageSlurp was designed to be discreet. You can hide it from your wife, girlfriend, even your boss! No one will know you are receiving all the porn you could ever need right under their nose. You can even tell ImageSlurp how much or how little you want to download, depending on your internet connection. You can also choose whether you want only images or videos or both. Sound too good to be true? Check it out today and see what ImageSlurp can do for you!”
With such an intriguing offer, how could I not click? When I did, a sharp looking, Flash-enhanced site greeted me with the following: “Are you tired of wasting hours searching the web for good quality adult content? Are you annoyed at adult pay sites which promise limitless images and movies only to rip you off once you sign up? Are you sick of pop-ups and adware infecting your computer? There is a simple solution... ImageSlurp.”
“New ImageSlurp is taking the net by storm! ImageSlurp is quite simply, putting porn sites out of business. This revolutionary new piece of software searches the net for you and will download images AND movies at no cost! You will never again have to sign up to an adult web site and give away your credit card before you know what you are getting.”
“Quite simply, this program has a built in archive of every single porn image on the internet that is updated with over 100,000 fresh locations every day, as the internet updates itself with more sex. All you have to do is download the porn! You set the limits. Specify a daily megabyte allowance of fresh porn, and ImageSlurp will deliver.”
Am I telling you about this because I want to sell you a copy, or encourage its use? No freakin’ way! – or as the software’s publisher so proudly proclaims, this is “The Software the Adult Industry is Trying to Ban…” And being part of the Adult Industry – but not so naive as to think we can “ban” anything – I am doing my part to warn those of you who might be hurt by such programs (and similar automated-download scripts and site rippers), of its existence, in the hopes that someone more technically adept than I might find an effective protective solution (ie. disallow user-agent in .htaccess) – and then post it here if possible.
This story is not quite so simple, however: there are greater lessons to be learned from this new product’s offer; an offer which targets the needs of most porn surfers – needs that most webmasters either ignore, or are ignorant of: These needs include security and privacy, a desire for diversity of content without the let-down of sites that over-promise and then under-deliver. Ease of use, automated operation, no consoles, ads, misleading blind links, troublesome adware, or any of the other nuisances that so constantly annoy surfers, and a raft of other benefits await those who are willing to pay the $149 that this software costs – and I for one believe that they will have no shortage of customers…
And this is something else to consider: those who will pay the price for this product are not kids without credit cards, deadbeats and losers who want something for nothing – they are connoisseurs seeking quality content; content they are willing to pay top dollar for, and content that they have so far been unsatisfied in their search for. As long as webmasters build sites with the problems cited above, and continue to treat all of their customers like idiots, products like ImageSlurp will continue to erode our already rapidly diminishing prospect base.
As I sit here thinking about these larger issues, I can’t help but rethink my original attitude towards this new product, and worse yet, I have to believe that we brought the need for such a thing upon ourselves. Have an opinion either for or against? Click the link below and share your thoughts! ~ Stephen