Richard Thaler's "Misbehaving" Volume 2 // Part 2

This blog post, the second of what I call "volume 2," will take a drastically different term than the one that predates it and the ones that come after it. In my quest to find talking points with which I can connect the topics of an ethics class with the ideas of a book about behavioral economics, I stumbled onto an idea I thought rather inappropriate before realizing I was onto gold. In this post, I will be stating the background for both the financial aspect of the pornography industry and using behavioral economics to demonstrate and explain many of the practices seen in the aforementioned industry. 

I strive to not let my personal beliefs leak into my professional writing, but for the sake of honesty and transparency, I will state them quickly and then move on. I personally consider myself opposed to the hyper-sexualization and commercialization of pornography in which profits are made off the backs of abused or objectified individuals. Because of this, much of the language used in reference to pornography statistics and facts will take on a negative or otherwise non-approving tone. This blog is not meant to be used for political or religious soapboxing, but rather to simply inform and educate. 

Pornography is many things to many different people. Depending on your religious views, the culture in which you were raised, or even your geographical location on the globe can impact how you feel pornography ought to be treated. To many conservatively religious groups like Jews and Christians, pornography is seen as sinful and worldly, and as such should be shunned and shamed at all times. This belief is based heavily on the sexual morals of the respective religions and nowadays has actually become quite a topic of conversation and argument. To other non-religious groups or those with different moral guidance, pornography is seen as not necessarily positive, but something of a lesser-of-two-evils type situation. That's not to say no one out there thinks pornography is positive because I cannot say for sure, but when it comes to the majority of religious and political heavy hitters, it is usually seen as either negative or neutral.  

Unfortunately, pornography is here to stay. As seen in the graph below (GRAPH), pornography use has skyrocketed since the late 1950s, although it does appear to have plateaued in recent years. This is likely caused by the equal stagnation of internet breakthroughs when it comes to pornography consumption. Other than some slight tweaks over the years, since the introduction of the World Wide Web, the Internet has been the go-to spot for pornography. 

As is also customary for industries and people, profits will be made no matter what. The pornography industry is no different, with average yearly generated revenue in the billions. Different sources and interpretations of what is pornographic and what is not generate wildly different revenue amounts, but a trend does seem to appear right around the 15 billion dollar mark. This places the pornography industry in the same ballpark as some of the big hitter industries of the world. Now it may not stand up to the banking industry's 3.4 trillion dollar market cap, but it definitely is material in its own right. 

Behavioral economics, as defined by The University of Chicago is, "behavioral economics combines elements of economics and psychology to understand how and why people behave the way they do in the real world" (Behavioral Economics, Explained). In layman's terms, it is the backbone and reasoning behind why people spend and don't spend their money. The entire purpose of behavioral economics is to understand, define, and predict how people are going to empty their change purses and how best to profit from it. I talked in previous blogs about consumerism and how it intrinsically rewards abuse and exploitation and unfortunately, this is no different. 

The pornography industry is capable of generating immense amounts of wealth and revenue, which for some people makes it nothing more than a money-making machine. In a study done by the research group Covenant Eyes, they uncovered some rather disturbing facts about just how prevalent pornography use is. At any given second in the world, around 28,258 people are watching some form of pornography, and around $3,100 of revenue is generated every second. If these were the statistics of any other entertainment service, they would be considered very profitable and borderline lucrative in terms of gains. 

What this means for us is that behavioral economics is absolutely playing a role here. This is not some prehistoric industry that rewards randomness. Rather, it has become a well-oiled profit-producing engine that doesn't show any signs of slowing down or stopping anytime soon. While the techniques used in the pornography industry may not be identical to the ones defined in Thaler's book, I do believe we can still see and identify the basics.

Attention-grabbing and click-farming are the bread and butter when it comes to marketing pornography. These techniques are well used in many internet industries (everyone knows those annoying pop-ups that come around when you are surfing the web), so it would make sense for them to make their way into the pornography industry. These techniques utilize and prey upon the brain's innate desire to take in information that it deems interesting. When pop-ups do just that, pop up, they trigger a natural impulse that draws our eyes to it, which hopefully will generate additional traffic for whatever product is being hawked at you. This can be used to help explain how pornography is able to abuse this system for monetary gain. By utilizing numerous pop-ups and other forms of click-farming (which is essentially just strategies to get you to click something), these websites are able to send people down internet rabbit holes, generating additional views and in turn, profit. As seen here, behavioral economic strategies, while not necessarily intended for this use, can be used by the pornography industry just the same as any other. Even though it is not the same scenarios used in Thaler's book like buying a comforter or being mindful of resource use, it is all the same behavioral economic theory.

"Behavioral Economics, Explained." University of Chicago News, 11 Aug. 2021, news.uchicago.edu/explainer/what-is-behavioral-economics. Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.