EPISODE · May 27, 2019 · 8 MIN

Pornography

from 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy · host BBC World Service

Did pornography help develop the internet? And has the internet made it more difficult for porn producers to make money? From photography, to cable television, to the video cassette recorder, there’s a theory that pornography users are some of the earliest adopters of new technology. Five in six images shared on the Usenet discussion group in the 1990s were pornographic, one study claimed. But, as Tim Hartford describes, the internet has made it easier for people to access pornography, but made it harder for anyone to make money from it.