I think this industry is a lot like the restaurant business.

In the restaurant business, there are a lot of cooks, waiters, and waitresses that think if they owned the restaurant they could do it better and make a ton of money. First, they would pay the staff more money [because they are staff and restaurant staff are underpaid]. Then they set out grandiose plans and try start their own restaurant.
Once they get started, they realize how much it really costs to run a business, they miss important things because all they really know how to do is be a waiter and not a business owner, they pay too much for everything, don't know how to market and ultimately the restaurant fails.

In the porn world. models, programmers, marketing staff all have done the same thing. They have grandiose plans, they are sure they know everything and they are going to make it big and show everyone else how it should be done.

Running a business takes experience, it takes capital [lots of money up front] and it takes hiring good people to help you. Underfunding and overpaying are the two biggest problems I see in new businesses. A model will try make his own site and then pay _his_ models double the going rate and then cannot make ends meet. A programmer will try it by himself then wonder why his site that has shitty photography does not get any recurring members. The marketing genius cannot make things work because he didn't have enough to survive the first six months without any income from the site.

I try to be kind to newbies, give them some free advice and tell them where and where not to cut corners in their legal costs. A few will make it, but like the restaurant business the majority will drop out in a year's time.

Damn. I was lucky. My product was in high demand and I got in at the right time! Thank you Craig and Patrick :-)