The Erotic Highway
Is that the net effect of FOSTA/SETSA was muted by other economic conditions.
.
Here's how my calculus lays out:
.
Pressure driving prices up:
1. FOSTA/SETSA greatly increased costs to providers for finding and screening new clients. It also increased costs for doing hooker business like payment collection, banking, trick pad rental, security, and legal fees. It's reasonable to expect providers to pass on at least some of those increased costs to customers in order to maintain the same revenue and margin (i.e.: Profit).
2. Travel costs: probably increased as providers who lost some or all revenue from new clients may have turned to travelling more (and perhaps farther) to reach repeat or "safe" referral clients. It's normal to see a provider charging 10-25% more for an outcall session while on the road to cover driving/air costs, hotels and I suppose a higher-than-local no show/cancellation rate.
3. Economic impact on "disposable cash," as mongers who have been employed are getting smaller raisers each year, or who have had to find new jobs at lower salaries, coupled with increasing costs for COLA, Taxes, etc., they simply have less cash left over to spend on mongering. As a possible result, a provider may need to recoup the lost revenue from losing clients (or seeing them less frequently) by spreading the loss across the remaining clients. We will discuss this topic again in "pressure driving prices down.":
.
Pressure driving prices down:
1. With a high cost of new client acquisition or current client retention due to FOSTA/SETSA, providers may need to lower (or at least not increase) prices to induce clients to choose them or stay with them. You may see references in various posts here from mongers who mention getting "grandfathered" in at an "old" rate.
3. Economic impact on "disposable cash," as mentioned above suggests that mongers simply have less cash available for spending on mongering. That could mean provides might lower prices (or offer shorter sessions, etc.) to keep clients booking, or risk seeing fewer new clients, or current clients booking less often. I have seen this same issue impact strip clubs in my market (Los Angeles). Feedback I get from stripper friends and from my own behavior suggests that PL's who spend in strip clubs tend to have perhaps 30-75% less cash "in pocket" than perhaps 5 to 8 years ago. This is corroborated by what strippers tell me about their average take home pay, which typically is $400-$1000 for "really good" strippers, compared to $800-$2000 (or more) 5+ years ago. (Note: There is a compounding impact from recent laws in California requiring strippers to hire as employees, but the general declining trend in individual PL spend remains.)
2. Revenue curve optimization: If a provider takes the time to do the math (some do, some do not) they will see a correlation between price multiplied by the number of sessions booked, versus total revenue. In other words, raising prices will result in more money earned as long as the same number (or a higher number) of sessions are booked. But there is a "tipping point" where higher price will result in losing bookings as mongers find what they perceive as similar "quality" of provider for a lower price or a more convenient/lower cost experience to book and attend the session (i.e.: hotel costs, travel time, work schedule needs, etc.). The result of prices raised too high will ultimately result in reduced total revenues. On the other side of the curve, reducing prices will probably result in booking more sessions and increasing total revenues earned, but only to a certain point. As the number of sessions booked grows too high, the provider will need to consider higher costs (location, travel, medical?, etc.) plus the hard barrier of her capacity to offer more bookings in a single day/week/month. In other words, a girl's got to sleep!
.
So where does that leave overall prices: I have no fucking idea! But my guess is that, on average, they have stayed fairly flat across each metro-market area. Why? because ultimately, there are only so many mongers in a given area and they have only so much cash to spend. If the hooker "market" works like most other commerce markets around the globe, local economic and market forces, plus availability of "equivalent" competing services will be the main driver of average session price.
.
TLDR Summary: I suggest that prices have not substantially changes in the last 2 to 3 years.
.
Life is good.
.
The Cat 
Is that the net effect of FOSTA/SETSA was muted by other economic conditions.
.
Here's how my calculus lays out:
.
Pressure driving prices up:
1. FOSTA/SETSA greatly increased costs to providers for finding and screening new clients. It also increased costs for doing hooker business like payment collection, banking, trick pad rental, security, and legal fees. It's reasonable to expect providers to pass on at least some of those increased costs to customers in order to maintain the same revenue and margin (i.e.: Profit).
2. Travel costs: probably increased as providers who lost some or all revenue from new clients may have turned to travelling more (and perhaps farther) to reach repeat or "safe" referral clients. It's normal to see a provider charging 10-25% more for an outcall session while on the road to cover driving/air costs, hotels and I suppose a higher-than-local no show/cancellation rate.
3. Economic impact on "disposable cash," as mongers who have been employed are getting smaller raisers each year, or who have had to find new jobs at lower salaries, coupled with increasing costs for COLA, Taxes, etc., they simply have less cash left over to spend on mongering. As a possible result, a provider may need to recoup the lost revenue from losing clients (or seeing them less frequently) by spreading the loss across the remaining clients. We will discuss this topic again in "pressure driving prices down.":
.
Pressure driving prices down:
1. With a high cost of new client acquisition or current client retention due to FOSTA/SETSA, providers may need to lower (or at least not increase) prices to induce clients to choose them or stay with them. You may see references in various posts here from mongers who mention getting "grandfathered" in at an "old" rate.
3. Economic impact on "disposable cash," as mentioned above suggests that mongers simply have less cash available for spending on mongering. That could mean provides might lower prices (or offer shorter sessions, etc.) to keep clients booking, or risk seeing fewer new clients, or current clients booking less often. I have seen this same issue impact strip clubs in my market (Los Angeles). Feedback I get from stripper friends and from my own behavior suggests that PL's who spend in strip clubs tend to have perhaps 30-75% less cash "in pocket" than perhaps 5 to 8 years ago. This is corroborated by what strippers tell me about their average take home pay, which typically is $400-$1000 for "really good" strippers, compared to $800-$2000 (or more) 5+ years ago. (Note: There is a compounding impact from recent laws in California requiring strippers to hire as employees, but the general declining trend in individual PL spend remains.)
2. Revenue curve optimization: If a provider takes the time to do the math (some do, some do not) they will see a correlation between price multiplied by the number of sessions booked, versus total revenue. In other words, raising prices will result in more money earned as long as the same number (or a higher number) of sessions are booked. But there is a "tipping point" where higher price will result in losing bookings as mongers find what they perceive as similar "quality" of provider for a lower price or a more convenient/lower cost experience to book and attend the session (i.e.: hotel costs, travel time, work schedule needs, etc.). The result of prices raised too high will ultimately result in reduced total revenues. On the other side of the curve, reducing prices will probably result in booking more sessions and increasing total revenues earned, but only to a certain point. As the number of sessions booked grows too high, the provider will need to consider higher costs (location, travel, medical?, etc.) plus the hard barrier of her capacity to offer more bookings in a single day/week/month. In other words, a girl's got to sleep!
.
So where does that leave overall prices: I have no fucking idea! But my guess is that, on average, they have stayed fairly flat across each metro-market area. Why? because ultimately, there are only so many mongers in a given area and they have only so much cash to spend. If the hooker "market" works like most other commerce markets around the globe, local economic and market forces, plus availability of "equivalent" competing services will be the main driver of average session price.
.
TLDR Summary: I suggest that prices have not substantially changes in the last 2 to 3 years.
.
Life is good.
.
The Cat