These days, there are three main methods of getting hold of messy video to watch:

traditional membership site with downloadable files, you pay to sign up, and once logged in there are multiple scenes available to download, and more are added during the length of your membership. You can download them to keep, permanently.

streaming subscription sites. You don't get to download anything to keep, but get an enormous range of scenes to stream at any time as long as you're a member.

download stores where you can pick and choose individual scenes and only pay for the ones you choose to buy. As with traditional membership sittes, once bougfht the scenes are yours permanently.

To me there are advantages and drawbacks to each method, membership sites tend to be cheaper if you like a lot of the content they provide, but you never know what's coming next, streaming is great for variety, esp if unlike me you don't have a drive to hoard everything, while download stores are the way to go if you are hyper fussy, and want content that will still play after the zonmbie apocalypse.

But wondering what the general consensus, or spread of views is? I get that some folk may have more than one preference but for this poll, vote for your one favouritre method, and add comments if you want to raise more options or combinations.

This topic would have benefited the advanced poll feature I mentioned a while back in the dev forum. Would have been nice to put our answers in order of preferences instead of a single answer.


Me I'm :
1: Download Store
2: membership
3: streaming

For some site 2 can take the #1 place if it has lots of the content I'm into.

Or when it's coming. Subscribing doesn't necessarily work out cheaper if the site goes on hiatus for several months and you end up paying for a big bowl of zip.

I'm with you on that, but can see it'd be a bit of a coding nightmare.


That's fair enough.


Anyone doing that needs to be named, shamed, and shunned. That's completely dishonest unless the site tells you up front there are no updates **before** you sign up. To do otherwise is just dishonest. One of our proudest achievements at Saturation Hall is that in almost 20 years, we have never missed a scheduled update.

There are understandable reasons someone might miss the odd update, esp if they're a solo operator, and most people will accept if someone's ill for a week or two. But going long term without updates and without telling people there will be no updates is dishonest.

One of the reasons we initially built up our huge stockpile was because when I first signed up with CCBill their T&C were full of dire warnings of the terrible legal and financial penalties they could inflict if you failed to deliver the updates you'd promised your customers, so I was absolutely determined to make sure we always had future releases in the can. These days of course if someone can't or doesn't want to commit to regular scedule updates, they'd be better off running a download store, where frequency of updates isn't as important.

I still love individual downloads. I know it can be a pain keeping it somewhere organised and it's definitely the more dated model but once you've got it you've got it and it's easier to pick and choose the right scenes.

I'm not against streaming but it's just there's too many good producers and it would cost a ridiculous amount to be a member of all my faves. Also you never know who's going to pack up next, I've got wish lists in my head of scenes I want to get at some point before they're removed from availability entirely.

Downloads. Metallic paint content is not released consistantly so it's not cost effective to subscribe to anything. I just pick and choose as or when stuff is available.

Same boat here. Maxi dresses aren't exactly common in scenes and when they are I'm admittedly something of a choosing beggar when it comes to what I'll buy.

Plus I enjoy pictures of my girlfriend in a maxi dress as much as, if not more than a scene with a model in one so I'm not exclusively getting off to WAM content.

I just think this world is turning into death by a thousand subscriptions. I understand the business aspect of predictable revenue and totally get why a producer would choose that route. I just find it annoying and it's more of a pet peeve. The couple I have I just pay an annual fee and only because that particular individual was good to me and I appreciate them. It's money I would have spent anyway I just like to choose when I spend it to keep an eye on things.

I have specific tastes (and from what I've seen on the forum, I'm hardly alone in that regard) so I just buy and download the scenes that I want.

With a subscription platform, you're only ever renting the videos - you don't truly own anything. And after months or years of renting, the creator could close up shop and leave you with nothing to show for the months or years you've paid them, or just stop uploading new content and leave you high and dry after buying a year's subscription. I get that it's an anti-piracy step, but it's a very bad deal for the consumer.

We're becoming a nation of renters, and I can't stand it. You can't just buy a copy of your favorite move or album. You're renting software licenses. The way things are going, soon we're going to be charged a monthly subscription for food and toilet paper.

I chose downloads, but for a different reason than those cited: No producer always has new content that interests me.

The only time I've chosen the "traditional" subscription has been when a producer has a large "catalog" of material that interests me and then I'm likely to cancel after a month or two when I've DL'd the earlier material.

I always mention this every time a thread like this comes along, but at the risk of repetition, I think UMD is unique, or nearly unique, in its 'best of both worlds' subscription model and it seems like a really well kept secret.

I think a lot of people miss the fact that the UMD subscriptions come with a discount coupon valid for every scene in that subscription package that you decide to download and buy to keep.

For example my Slymsford's Subscribers Plus package*, comes with 65% off the download price of all the 1500 + scenes that are included in the subscription.

I like the UMD model because it means that I can not only stream more scenes than I would know what to do with, I can also use my subscription as a way of trying before I buy, and then only downloading the scenes I find I really love (having streamed them).

Again to use my subscription service* as a model, it's $17 a month to subscribe to the Plus subscription, on the 3 month option..so with the 65% download discount on every purchase, and the money saved by never downloading a scene I don't want (as I can stream it before paying to download, to ensure I love it) it quickly becomes a really good way to save money for my regular and semi regular customers. That's why I love the UMD model.

If I could only either stream or download, I would download because, as people have said..it feels much better to actually own something. Luckily Messmaster's streaming model gives the best of both worlds.

*As you may have noticed, other wam producers and subscription packages are available

Great question! I generally prefer streaming, signing up every once in a while when there's new content in a store, but canceling once I've consumed it.

Besides that, I have a traditional membership to Saturation Hall, both to support your work and to get the hi res photos. Beyond that, I'm not sure if there are many offering setups like that.

I like to rotate between producers with streaming for the variety, when I eventually loop back around there will be plenty of new uploads in each of them too to check out

I prefer to download stuff individually but I've subscribed to sites in the past to download multiple videos at once. Streaming is a no go for me.

Lots of interesting comments, and votes, so far, please keep them coming!


Just have to say thank you for the support, it really is appreciated.
Hope you're enjoying what we're releasing.

Nothing beats getting an email with a new custom to download.

Ideally downloading is the best. I'm really picky though, so sometimes I really only like small parts of a lot of the videos that come out. So sometimes it's a gamble downloading a video, maybe cheaper, and nice to be able to keep it, but you might get a video you just wind up watching once and deleting.

The membership thing with download videos was nice. Is that even a thing anymore? I think most of the stuff I liked I've joined up with over the years and it's now no longer a thing because we have streaming and that makes more sense for content producers to offer as an option. I'm old fashioned and like picture sets, and some of these sits had both videos and pictures to download which was nice.

Finally the streaming thing is usually a win over downloading because you can get an idea of what scenes work for you, only downside is you don't get to keep them, but you can download them later, or if the store has tons of videos that you do like, you could just join up again down the line and watch them again. Downside to streaming can be lag. In the past I've had some instances where videos lagged, but lately it hasn't been an issue, but it can be something that happens.

So...in conclusion, I like all three options and can't just pick one...

Download, there are plenty of videos i can't find anymore or some produces suddenly close up shop and I'm glad I have their content forever in my collection to enjoy.

Individual downloads for me. I prefer to pick and choose something that I particularly want to own. Nothing wrong with the other options, but I just prefer owning the file and I don't like committing to a high subscription price, generally, even if it means I get access to more scenes.

These days it seems like "pirated" should be a poll option...

-JD

Unfortunately yes

Forgot to add: I also create my own content now using generative AI. This includes not only image generation models, like the ones I posted using the model to produce women covered in syrup, but also text-based ones.

For me, I have never really had the opportunity to explore my interests in real life, so being able to explore them with generative AI has enabled an outlet I've craved for a long time.

The power to compose WAM-based stories on the fly using modern off-the-shelf language models has been titillating to say the least. Just today, I have already used a language model (https://huggingface.co/sophosympatheia/Midnight-Miqu-70B-v1.5) to compose 10,000 words of a story and am able to interview the characters in it and roleplay with them as well whenever I want.

There are particular scenes I've watched for many years and I've recreated them in story form using language models to enable chatting with the people in them and exploring the emotions and tactile sensations experienced.

When you use web-based solutions like ChatGPT, you're limited by what OpenAI or Microsoft will allow you to create, but when you run a model locally, you can create whatever you want with no limits. There are no guardrails in place and you can explore whatever depraved sexual scenarios your heart desires.

Also, beyond the upfront cost for a computer to run them, the models themselves are open-source and free for non-commercial use. Even without a top-end computer, a lot of the smaller models are getting substantially better and can produce some very impressive results.

There is absolutely nothing like it that has ever existed to unlock raw creation, and it just keeps getting better over time!

Personally, I prefer laserdisk, but since that isn't an option I'll take digital download as a close second.

What about obtaining wam directly from cameras from recording it and producing it yourself?

I don't know if that beats customs though because it seems like a lot of work to produce wam.

I did actually consider including that as an option, but didn't want to encourage them.