Everything is cyclical. The more atrractive girls get tired of slugs fucking them, and they bail. This leaves the OLD, fat and undesirables. THAt is why business is on the downslide. I find very little that even catches my(our) eye(s) lately. I tend to spend more time on BP where the up-n-coming reside.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/12/sex-trade-study_n_4951891.html?cps=gravity

Is that you are talking about different tiers in the market.  People at the low end don't go up and folks in the high don't go down. From seeing what is going on the high demand has gone up ==> prices going up. It is very common for the high rollers to spend $500+ hour on providers like water running out a facet.  

There are definetely more Providers than there are Clients. The Economy does have an affect on Business. As far as prices getting lower, In the case of the girl I'm seeing, I can get FS for half of her original price. I've been seeing her for over a year and I'm on her Regular Client List. When new Clients call her she charges them her full Regular Price. 99.9 percent of the time they don't make an appointment to see her. Her prices are much more reasonable than other girls.

I've only been here for three years, but have seen quite a few girls migrate from BP or entry-level agency to indy.  Central NC has a LOT of ladies that I'd love to see - very attractive - I've not seen a net falloff of attractive talent here, but steady replacement.  Pricing here is pretty much capped off at about $4/H.  Past that, the ladies seem to tend to move to Atlanta or DC or NYC if they want to move their price structure up.  Some touring girls drop prices $1/H when they come through NC from their big city rates.
Economy here is still sluggish, not as much discretionary income floating around.

in Florida.

No wonder you say "yuck"

The study was full of holes and clearly showed they'd only sampled the bottom half of this business

You would have to go back 5-7 years to understand!

Dear Inicky:
The question we all should be asking is the author an active hobbyist and if he is has he written reviews? The story would of been considerably more credible because then he really would have first hand knowledge of the full range of prices within the industry.  He would also know that the top end of the industry only see certain people that can be verified from respectable and reliable sources within the community. That is why you got to be trickin so you don't play tricks on your readership.

So they didn't have visibility to the upper half.  Perhaps the reason that they aren't in the hobby (or not willing to hint that they were) is because actually participating in the illegal activities would probably nix any chance of grant funding and offend the delicate sensibilities of the "vast majority".  To see how the upper half behaves and understand a bit of those economics would probably ruin the author's "legitimacy" with their sponsors.

The Erotic Highway Board fame for her reaction to the article.

She responded thusly:

1.  The sample size used in the article is far too small to have any scientific significance.

2.  The use of incarcerated respondents is invalid as they tend to answer in ways that they hope will encourage their captors to treat them better rather than with regard to the truth.

3.  The authors have dubious academic credentials and the journal in which the study appeared in not peer reviewed and therefore has no academic standing.

In other words, it is junk.

I haven't read the Times article since it was first posted, but I think a lot of the survey results came from pimps and hookers who'd been busted.  That automatically skews the data to the low end for obvious reasons

I would never put much credibility in that site, but I can tell you that the 200-350 market is one that caters to mostly career hobbyists, and will always be up and down. Really low and really high end markets, are not affected as much as that one particular market, which is why I only stayed in it for a few months before I knew better. To make 1200 a week (what I needed at certain points) at 300 I would have to have entertained 4 guys a week, every damn week. Um, no thanks. There are women who need 2k a week at 300... do the math.  The hourly market is the best seller and the biggest killer when the economy crashes, so why anyone wants to even bother with it is beyond me, but to each their own. Some have no choice but to keep the hour, or they would go broke.