There's a general trend to this for all porn. When the pandemic hit, it basically caused an overabundance of supply of women willing to do porn, while at the same time spurring competition. Meanwhile, logistics issues created bottlenecks that hindered quality.
Talent couldn't travel as easily because of pandemic era restrictions. I remember Paris White actually got stuck with a small porn production team for months because of the lockdowns. I think this may have actually contracted her career, limiting the diversity of her portfolio, which might also have become a problem for new talent in the industry. Contracted career spans for super stars would cause women with the talent to succeed on their own to turn to such sources rather than producers.
While the on-screen talent was the most obvious impact from this, cameramen often couldn't be relocated to the filming location too, so locals had to be sourced for the role. This actually benefited some sites, especially soft core, because they could mail out the equipment and let the women do most of the work (see "In The Crack.") Sites like POVD or ATKGirlfriends actually pulled back their investments because of this.
Meanwhile, publishers that didn't invest in sites like POV or incest fetishes, decided to diversify. It became better to produce more unique content than quality content of any one type because it enabled better market capture. Everyone had a Naughty Step-Sister/Daughter/Mom spin-off. This meant the same sites that suffered from logistics problems were now facing increased competition too, further hindering production capacity. Porn compilation albums became a means to distract from the fact production was at a low, and never actually recovered. If we compare post-pandemic production of new content for sites like the aforementioned, they're often a half, or even a quarter, of pre-pandemic numbers.
Going forward a few years, and supply of women willing to do porn commercially dwindled because economic availability improved. There was still a supply for the Only Fans pipeline, but at this point it represented a new avenue to success, not a surplus of talent. If women with assets well enough to succeed in porn could simply do it on their own, then that business model became the most productive pathway. Producers would have to pay more to acquire the same level of talent that was easy to come by before the pandemic. Given all the damages the pandemic did to production, they are reluctant to do that.
There has also been a shift in business models to adapt to this market. FTVGirls has notably lowered their production standards and seems to be under new guidance. This has enabled them to keep up with production capacity, even if the content seems less candid, playful or artful, and the talent less selected.
Other sites have sought to hedge against competition, either by creating their own version of competitor's sites, or by buying them outright. For instance, ECG bought Black Ambush and rebranded it to BBC Surprise. In response to 4KPorn using fake cum shots, Blacked and other sites began doing the same. "Content is king" has become the rule for porn, too.
Then sites like ECG, Net Video Girls, and Backroom Casting Couch have had a lot of "one-offs" by catering to women of the webcam variety. That business model has actually amplified their success in this era. If a woman can launch a webcam career by doing one or two shoots with an established company, then that enables their model to have access to a larger supply of talent, all the while maintaining the bottleneck on the competition.
So, when will it change? When will quality come back? Well, porn producers will have to be willing to invest more in production standards. The return on investment doesn't seem high enough for them to do that. This could be a legitimate concern, or just a sunken cost fallacy from fear of pandemic era restrictions making a comeback. For example, the ATK sites used to lease properties internationally for making their content. They've since restricted it to just California, though have produced a few in Florida, and the softcore content has become very linear and scripted.
I imagine the situation isn't that different from VR gaming. Meta pumped tons of money into the industry, only for there to be a rug-pull years later. Now developers don't know how much to invest in the product, so they're cutting their studios back. The answer here is unfortunately that only time will tell if and when the porn industry recovers, or if it merely becomes something new.
