The shock is brutal for Aylo. Since 25 of the 50 US states and the UK imposed age verification by ID to access pornographic content, Pornhub has seen a large part of its audience disappear in its two most strategic markets. According to data reported by Wired and attributed to statements made by Aylo, the platform lost around 80% of its traffic in these jurisdictions following the introduction of the new rules. This decline is all the more striking given that, according to the annual Pornhub Insights 2024 report provided by the group, last year the United States remained the leading contributor of global traffic and the United Kingdom the fifth. The economic stakes behind this contraction are therefore major.
For Aylo, the model is based on a simple premise: more traffic means more specialist advertising revenue, more premium subscriptions and greater visibility for the studios that distribute their content via the platform. Pornhub Insights 2024 shows that the world’s top 20 countries account for 79.2% of daily traffic. A drop in the two Anglo-Saxon markets with the highest rankings in this top 20 automatically redefines the group’s financial trajectory. Such variations are particularly sensitive in an industry already excluded from most of the major traditional advertising networks and heavily dependent on high volumes to compensate for low prices per impression.
Faced with this situation, Aylo is looking for a way out. In letters sent to Apple, Google and Microsoft - as reported by Wired - the Luxembourg holding company is calling on the technology giants to introduce age verification built into the devices themselves. The proposed logic is simple: rather than requiring internet users to provide a digital copy of their ID to a third-party site or service provider, a phone or computer could verify age just once, then transmit an age signal to the services that need it via an API. Aylo claims that this mechanism would better protect privacy, reduce the risk of personal data leakage and prevent Internet users from migrating to non-compliant platforms.
According to the information reported by Wired, the reactions of the companies approached have been cautious or even reserved. Google highlights its own identity management tools, Apple refers to its content filters for minors without proposing a universal API and Microsoft points out that responsibility lies with the services and not the operating systems. They nevertheless point to a structural point of tension: web governance of sensitive content remains fragmented, with no consensus on the relevant level for applying age controls.
For Aylo, the absence of a favourable response has further weakened an already complex equation. Constrained by national regulations, the company has to choose between complying with identity verification requirements, with greatly reduced traffic, or withdrawing from certain territories and temporarily giving up millions of visitors. Both scenarios result in a significant loss of revenue, and affect the group’s ability to invest, innovate or maintain its relationships with content producers. The figures from Pornhub Insights 2024 illustrate the importance of American, French, Mexican or Filipino traffic in overall volume, but they also highlight that the loss of the world’s first and fifth largest markets creates a discontinuity that is difficult to absorb, even in a globalised sector.
This shock comes at a time when Aylo is simultaneously trying to strengthen its internal standards. The company recently announced the creation of the Adult Studio Alliance, a group aiming to harmonise safety practices and respect for performers. But these efforts, aimed at improving production conditions, are coming up against much heavier external forces: the global rise of laws to protect minors, the growing influence of militant groups hostile to the industry and growing reputational risks.
At this stage, there is no evidence to suggest that device-based age verification would be embraced by regulators or consumers. The only certainty is that Aylo’s business model relies heavily on its ability to remain accessible in major consumer areas. The consolidated data from Pornhub Insights 2024 shows a landscape where global demand remains strong, diversified and largely mobile. But they also show that the relative weight of the United States and the United Kingdom is such that their partial disappearance causes the entire structure to falter.
According to the data published by Pornhub in its Year in Review 2024, the global ecosystem nevertheless remains stable in several respects: usage is massively mobile, the average length of a visit reaches 9 minutes and 40 seconds and young adults aged 18 to 24 stay the shortest. This data obviously does not reflect the impact of US or UK legislation, but it does show that the global market remains dynamic, which makes the loss of two critical consumption centres all the more problematic for Aylo. US traffic, for example, has increased in length of use compared to the previous year, which the company highlights in its report. None of this, however, offsets the mechanical effects of a closure or withdrawal over an entire territory.
For a Luxembourg-based company whose business depends on international digital flows, this crisis illustrates the new contours of a regulatory risk that has become global. By seeking to convince the technology giants to rethink age verification, Aylo is perhaps playing its best card in a negotiation that goes far beyond its sector. It remains to be seen whether anyone in this chain of responsibility will agree to take her on board before the market reorganises itself without her.
