A migration has started, fostered by the panic wave caused by SESTA/FOSTA becoming law of the land. The situation is yet far from being clear.
Sluts Migration
The shutting down of Backpage (no related to SESTA/FOSTA) and the preemptive changes adopted by Craig’s List, Reddick, and other social media hubs, have sent flocks of users looking for alternatives.
I am sure new ones will be born. My online cruising has never being sourced by the closed outlets. I have never been a big user of hooking up apps, like Grindr or Scruff. They are probably having an increase in subscriptions. I have not checked my profiles there in a while, and cannot make a comparison before/after SESTA/FOSTA.
I am often active in Adam4adam, though, and the difference there is noticeable. The number of hits in my profile has more than double in the last week. Most of them seem to be the kind of user other friends describe to me from Craig’s List. Guys looking for a quick fix. Many do not have pictures or do not unlock their picture when making contact, which shows ignorance of the regular A4A protocol. Obviously, they are newbies exploring a new hunting field.
Pros Migration
Not only there is a general migration of users looking for regular hook ups. Sex workers are extremely concerned about losing the advertising outlets that bring them most of their clientele. These outlets are operating changes trying to respond to the new legal circumstances.
Rentmen, as reported earlier on, is manually reviewing every client and escort profiles, cleaning them out of any language they consider risky. Rentboy.pro has become friendboy.pro, has replaced “rates” by “scores”, took down their FAQs and is currently still going through changes. You may criticize these moves, but it is just people trying to protect their business in an unpredictable and unclear legal context.
Mintboys remains unchanged. What many, including myself, considered a controversial and misguided business model, turned to be a visionary one. Out of the flock of websites advertising male escort services, they probably are the ones in the safest position.
I have no idea what is going on with all the other smaller escorting outlets. The one I check now and then is Hardcore Thug Escorts, they have not changed anything at all.
If I were a pro publishing in Rentmen, I would be diversifying my advertising outlets. If (and this is a giant if) law enforcement decides to focus on the gay escorts market, Rentmen will be their first and obvious target. Friendboy.pro and Mintboys are fully free and immensely less popular, it is reasonable to believe they would be third category targets.
Sites Migration
An option for professionals is to create your own independent advertisement system. It is easy to start your own blog and to connect it with your social media accounts: Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Only For Fans, Just For Fans, (you can keep adding) they all are easy to work with each other and allow you to reach out directly your target market.
After the Rentboy fall, serious escort websites have already migrated and have their servers abroad. It is he case of the three major outlets, Rentmen, Friendboy, and Mintboys. If you are starting your own blog, make sure you are hosting it in a server and a company based abroad. Some American based server companies are preemptively blocking all adult content. Ask to a friend who was saving his porn in Google Drive.
I Like Pinga is hosted by an adult theme friendly company, but based in America. I am very happy with TMD Hosting, but I am considering migrating to another company. The decision is still in the make.
Boytoy is hosted abroad and I am not aware of any changes being planned. Daddy’s Reviews and the M4M forums, that have been working as separated websites for several years now, have just increased the level of independence between them, and the Forum’s Terms and Rules have been updated. I ignore where the servers are located in this last case.
