I built the IT infrastructure for one of the largest hardcore porn sites out there.
When we did a complete rebuild of it (because it was in horrible PHP code), we tried to do a redesign and the CEO of the company made us change it back.
Why? Because it was too nice and the UX was too good.
He told us that his customers actually appreciated a more 'dirty' and 'raw' feel to the site. It is porn after all!
So, we went back to the drawing board and did just that... many of the changes we made to the UX were reverted to intentionally make things a bit harder to use and make the site feel more 'dirty'... which is funny given the content was already super dirty.
Oddly enough, I somewhat agree with your CEO. In the hypothetical scenario where I would ever visit a porn site, I wouldn't ever want to feel like I'm being funneled anywhere. I would already not trust the site and feeling funneled would make me wary of falling into a scam/exploit/trap, even though most sites would most likely only ever want ad money and would never care to scam/exploit/trap me.
When we did a complete rebuild of it (because it was in horrible PHP code), we tried to do a redesign and the CEO of the company made us change it back.
Why? Because it was too nice and the UX was too good.
He told us that his customers actually appreciated a more 'dirty' and 'raw' feel to the site. It is porn after all!
So, we went back to the drawing board and did just that... many of the changes we made to the UX were reverted to intentionally make things a bit harder to use and make the site feel more 'dirty'... which is funny given the content was already super dirty.