How powerful is online pornography? Well, it just single handedly took down Playboy magazine.
As part of a redesign that will be unveiled next March, the print edition of Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses. But they will no longer be fully nude.
Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”
We should let that sink in for a moment. Online pornography has become 1) so widespread, 2) so economic and 3) so explicit that the most powerful and most famous "adult" publication in the world has to completely change its business model. Let the reader understand: This is happening not because people find Playboy offensive or immoral, but because they find it boring.
There are people who deny that pornography is addictive, or that its consumption gradually causes elevated levels of craving. If that's true, then there is simply no explanation for the utter triumph of hardcore, online pornography. There's no explanation for why executives at Playboy are admitting they can't compete with "every sex act imaginable." In a world where porn is a self-contained diversion, this doesn't happen. In a world where porn rewires the human brain to want more and more and get less and less, it happens.
Oh, and one more note, especially for parents. The smartphone your child is using? It has apps, and those apps–the same apps that all your child's friends use every day–have what Playboy now aspires to.
The magazine will adopt a cleaner, more modern style, said Mr. Jones, who as chief content officer also oversees its website. There will still be a Playmate of the Month, but the pictures will be “PG-13” and less produced — more like the racier sections of Instagram.
Don't want to give your 13 year old a free, lifetime subscription to Playboy? Skip the iPhone.