Coffee, Beer, and Porn
Two things happened this week that prompted this post.
The first was that I got a note from someone who works at an adult mega-retailer and really likes the films we make. She’s lobbying for us with the person who decides what they’ll carry, but cautions “…our stores are all about cheap pricing and long running times, I’m not holding my breath.” Of course we’re thankful and flattered by her efforts on our behalf, but we’re not holding our breath either.
Indeed, while places like Blowfish.com have carved out niches offering premium products at premium prices, the lion’s share of the adult market is dominated by buyers and sellers that see sex products, and especially porn, in much the same way that it sees coffee (Folger’s) and beer (Budweiser): a base delivery system for a mild buzz.
The second thing is that Peggy bought some cheap coffee. Premium coffee is normally one of our indulgences, but when she was shopping yesterday there was a bag of a less expensive brand on super discount, $2.99 to be exact, so into the shopping cart it went in place of the $9.95/bag brand we usually buy.
I have a one cup a day habit. It’s part of my wake up routine, a steaming mug of sweet, bitter, caffiene-infused creaminess that I sip as I put our house into motion in the morning, and this cheaper coffee just isn’t up to snuff. It seems to be every bit as caffinated as our premium brew, maybe even more so. But it just doesn’t taste as good.
Now how do you quantify taste? Cost? Sure. Caffiene content? Okay. But can a cup of coffee taste half as good? A third as good? And is a cup of coffee that tastes half as good, but costs a third the price a good value? (If there’s an MBA out there, how about a spread-sheet for the pure cane sugar and light cream squandered in this inferior brew? And what about the time I wasted making and drinking it?)
The history of beer in this country, and how we arrived at the post-war epoch of a very few, very similar brands of very thin lager (Jim Koch’s father, a brewmaster himself, once told Jim the ideal brew was “water that would hold a head”) is an interesting tale of immigration, legislation, technology and marketing, with more than a few parallels to the track that porn has taken over the last 40 years.
In the Seventies, I remember seeing the beginings of the New American Beer in the form of my father’s wacky friends seeking out ever more exotic imports, and ultimately brewing their own beers as an alternative to the Bud/Miller/Coors hegemony, and thirty years later there’s a rich and thriving market in what’s come to be known as “craft-brewed beer”.
Coffee has travelled a similar path, to the point that Starbuck’s is now a reviled corporate uber-culture of its own. (But don’t you wish you had bought stock?)
Will porn travel the same path?
When I look at what Peggy and I do, its looks an awful lot like the approach my dad’s friends took to their brewing: premium ingredients (film, real relationships, first-rate crew), and the kind of time and money no cold, calculating businessman would lavish on porn (or beer, or coffee).
Or maybe it’s even a little like Jim Koch’s outfit up in Boston. No, the Samuel Adams Brewery is not as big as Anheuser-Busch, and it never will be. But it is making money, and it’s making pretty good beer too!
