I worked for Kink for about a year and a half in the mid 2000s. The owner, and a handful of the people in the videos, are friends of mine.
Your characterization of the company is wildly inaccurate. The company started with one kind of shy British guy who liked to tie up girls & get tied up more than he liked writing banking software. There weren't any lawyers - not even through the end of my tenure in 2007 - and if you ever watch any of the early material, it's almost comically Ed Woodish in production value. Peter hacked together the original website software himself. It was innovative in the sense that that Kink had one of the earlier affiliate programs in adult, but the main focus was always on producing content that was genuine - for people into that kind of thing. Those interviews that you call "comical" aren't made up.
Furthermore, "...customers are leaving for content that even Kink wouldn't touch" offensively paints folks into BDSM as miscreants. It's also not true. Kink's audience is leaving, but for content that is free. Porn economics have changed; tastes probably not so much.
Your characterization of the company is wildly inaccurate. The company started with one kind of shy British guy who liked to tie up girls & get tied up more than he liked writing banking software. There weren't any lawyers - not even through the end of my tenure in 2007 - and if you ever watch any of the early material, it's almost comically Ed Woodish in production value. Peter hacked together the original website software himself. It was innovative in the sense that that Kink had one of the earlier affiliate programs in adult, but the main focus was always on producing content that was genuine - for people into that kind of thing. Those interviews that you call "comical" aren't made up.
Furthermore, "...customers are leaving for content that even Kink wouldn't touch" offensively paints folks into BDSM as miscreants. It's also not true. Kink's audience is leaving, but for content that is free. Porn economics have changed; tastes probably not so much.