The webcam modeling world is not dying it is evolving...like any other business/industry.
And the 'easy' money made you forget to make a business plan, to think of yourself as a small business owner.
I have had the same experience as a small business owner, though in another field. It started out as easy money, I could earn my daily wage in 4-5 hours, but of course things evolved, and a lot of others joined the field making it less lucrative. I leveled up, and tried to stay ahead of the curve. All in all I managed to stay ahead of, or ride the curve for 15 years until I had the choice of making a massive investment that would mean that I was stuck in this uncertain field for the rest of my working life, or quit the field. I quit.
I don't regret quitting, though I sometimes miss the money I made, but also I don't regret having had the experience of running my own business, it gives me another perspective in my current position as a 'wage slave'.
To generalize, and this is meant metaphorically, not a quip about how some models do their business, it applies in all business fields:
You can either sit on your ass waiting for the money to come to you, watching the revenue stream slowly drying out, or you can get up off your ass and do something proactive to increase your earning potential.
From what I see on this forum a large portion of the more vocal models on this forum have chosen the latter solution and I wish them all the success in the world, they truly deserve it.
No, its dying. I have been doing this since 2016 and i had a business plan. I have increased my marketing and promotion. I am currently active on over 50 platforms, stores, social networks, clipsites and more. As far as performers with diversity go, you can buy my content on VHS, VCD and 4K Disk I'm diverse. I'm on old sites like chaturbate and new sites like cambunny. Now here is what market research is showing. (since i have studied marketing to a diploma level).
We are in a cost of living crisis all over the world, pubs, restaurants, hotels are all shuttering doors because they are no longer able to pay rent. The cost of electricity in most places is up over 100% this has led to people tightening their belts, which means less luxury spending, beer, video games are all down. Not just cam, however you cant get free beer, you can go to pornhub for free porn as a result as people are tightening their belts to meet the new cost of living the first luxury to go is the porn. Further evidence to this is that bonga over the last 24 months have successfully acquired multiple other cam sites as they collapsed. These sites were not individual models, they each had plans and marketing blueprints. Sites such as manyvids have spent the last 24 months increasing cross promotion restrictions because they think the lost revenue is women selling offsite, when its actually just lost revenue.
Now the shorter people have been operating the less they are feeling the industry retraction, this is because their are both less leaks and more a feeling of freshness about them. The industry also took an immense hit as a result of Mastercard last 2 years of insane partner restrictions. Many sites increasing limits and reducing marketing as a result. The industry felt shock waves as pornhub lost a great deal of its content, because while many people did not like having content on porn hub, pornhub was partnered with MindGeek and provided the largest percentage of online marketing of pretty much any platform, an incredible amount of cam marketing went through that site and as pornhub lost its content less people visited and all those cam ads greatly reduced.
So without money, marketing, with sites closing down and being absorbed, thats a collapse, thats dying not evolution. Its what happens during economic recessions which is what we are walking in. Additional marketing restraints have occurred since elon purchased twitter. User retention is down, the right wing mentality of the site now has made users less prone to follow links and purchase (by the way you can confirm the traffic drops of all these sites using similarweb, you can confirm the increase in cost of living pretty much anywhere, business closures again, just google it).
I guess what I am getting at is your first statement is incorrect and your second statement is condescending. I'm sure people would enjoy more constructive responses than. Telling us we dont know what we are doing. Personally i have an adaptive business plan, I have advisors who assist me. (And for the record girls and guys if you want any help from me or my people, let me know we can beat this storm together). I came here today to discuss a site that is dying, How do I know its dying? I'm still in the top 1-2% of the site and its not money to write home about.