Hello!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Yes, people have come and gone. People are attracted to our industry for a host of reasons, some because they think it's easy money and others because they are just plain attracted to the porn aspect of our industry and a burning desire to naked chicks in public. Some of us in the industry - no names mentioned - had no real connection to the industry, attended one of our conventions, made a few friends, and then found themselves addicted.
What most people fail to understand is that this is a business, not unlike any other. The hours are insane; I was here in the ICS offices from 8am until 1am the following morning, only to find myself right back here at 8am again. (I'm exhausted.) It also takes business skills, management skills, and most importantly - accounting. Most people fail in this business because they lack these basic skills.
Another thing that cracks me is people, like the one pictured above, who come blazing on the scene, quickly create an interesting personality / reputation for themselves, only to make some very bad choices and have their reputation and thus their business destroyed. This looks easy, and after working for a medium sized company for a short time they think they are a "God" in our industry only to discover that it isn't that easy and takes a huge amount of effort.
I'd also venture to guess that we will see some huge hurdles in the near future, mostly in the part of new laws. Issues such as Acacia will not much of a problem; They thought we would role over and instead we spanked their ass. The problem will be from the Goverments. Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler fought a twenty year battle to publish their respective mags; We haven't begun our battle and we as a group surely do not have the morals and values that the mag publishers have - Not with some of the sites we are pushing. I see new laws in the future where free porn will be banned, or perhaps huge restrictions on certain TLDs.
In many ways our industry is just like any other industry in it's early stages - The strong will survive, and the weak will parish. We already see this where the larger companies are dominating everything. (Name the last time you went to a show and attended a party from a company you've never heard of before....)
This is a wonderful industry to be in. But it's a serious business and those who are serious about it will still be here five years from now.
/rant