Early webcam houses required outside funding and often added pornography to survive

Evidence

Concurrent with the growing popularity of MTV’s Real World, a series of ‘cam-houses’ popped up in the late 1990’s. Unlike other camgirls, women in these cam-houses served as on-air talent rather than self-producers, although they may have been nominally involved in the technical and financial side of running the site. Most camgirls broadcast in silent, still images, but women on cam-house sites were usually featured in streaming format— that is, with full-motion audio and video. The expense of streaming meant that cam-houses like HereandNow had either corporate sponsorship or private funds, which tended to dry up quickly. As a means of raising income, a cam-house would sometimes choose to feature pornography and charge a subscription to viewers. — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls, 290

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the history-of-online-creator-economy knowledge from prior chapters on camgirls and early web monetization.
• DEFINE: Defines ‘cam-house’ as distinct from solo camgirl self-production, a format where talent is hired rather than self-produced.