This is how the porn industry rewired the world

We live in a world where as many people have instantaneous access to porn as to clean water.

At peak times, close to a tenth of internet traffic is devoted to streaming adult content. But while porn has quietly taken over the world, it seems that this industry is no longer just about sex. It's about clicks, attention, data. And while the ubiquitous and instantaneous access to pornographic content has impacted our sexual relationships and habits, it’s also deeply changed how we see the world and our own place in it.

The porn industry was the blueprint for the attention economy and the forefather of personal branding. It’s also one of the starkest examples of our phones knowing us better than we know ourselves.

Patricia Nilsson, Financial Times reporter and author of Guilty Pleasure: The Pornification of the Internet, the Economy, and Everything Else joins Oli Dugmore on this episode of The Exchange.

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