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Throughout the years, new camsites came to life, and old camsites were burned to the ground for one reason or another. In some cases, for many reasons.

Some camsites were popular; others were obscure. But they all had something in common: Loyal fans. That, however, didn’t stop them from shutting down business.

This article will review each camsite that went out of business and what happened for them to suffer such a fate.

Why A Camsite Goes Out of Business?

Before digging into the relatively long list of camsites that are not long operating, let’s analyze why a camsite may close its doors. After all, taking the famous expression that sex sells, it is a type of business that is supposed to be lucrative and thrive.

Competition

That is the most apparent reason across all businesses. A camsite is as good as its camgirls are. If a camsite has almost no camgirl online, it will struggle to make money.

As competition appears, it draws attention from camgirls. They decide to give it a try and may leave their previous camsite.

A camgirl may leave a camsite for many reasons: slow traffic, lack of features, poor support, and low payout are the top reasons. For camgirls to join a camsite, it takes a camsite to be moderately better at these factors. That is what new camsites try to do when they go live.

Old camsites, on the other hand, already have some traffic. They are already making money despite all their flaws. Often, they don’t feel the pressure to improve because they are making money, though not at full potential. Losing a few camgirls may not affect their businesses. However, it becomes a snowball effect, and within a couple of years, they have lost more than a few camgirls.

Operating Costs

People tend to underestimate the costs of running a camsite. Bandwidth is expensive enough for static files. For streaming, the prices are even higher.

If the camsite already sees a decrease in earnings, paying for the stream bandwidth will be a big problem.

The real problem is that just because the site is not that popular anymore, camgirls are still streaming, and viewers are still watching the streams. That costs a lot. For example, after acquiring YouTube, Google had to redesign the whole structure and use its fiber lines and data centers to cut bandwidth costs over the risk of operating at a loss. Google is one of the biggest companies, with many resources and billions of users. Imagine a camsite that has only thousands of members.

Bad Management

This is so common, even with successful camsites. They have lousy management skills or sometimes no skills at all. They think the ship needs no captain and the business can run independently.

Years go by, and the site remains the same. Worse, sometimes critical updates that affect services are needed, but nothing is done.

Here is an example of how a change in management can be a drastic improvement: Streamate. It is now a reference to a great camsite. However, it used to have a very outdated system and design. It needed new features, and the ones it had were limited. The chat applet was buggy.

And on top of that, bots were running fake accounts. But a complete change of direction transformed Streamate entirely. They got their things together, updating the system and design, fixing all bugs, and kicking out all bots. As a result, Streamate returned to a prominent position and recovered from a declining popularity.

Can Your Favorite Camsite Go Out of Business?

I won’t say it is impossible. I can see some sites staying in business for many years. But other camsites, I think, can shut down at any time. Or they can be bought.

Nobody would predict iFriends or CamWithHer to go out of business. But they did.

Camsites That Are Now Closed

Before moving to the list, let me explain that this list considers relevant camsites that had success. It won’t consider white labels or short-lived camsites.

Also, some, if not all, camsites listed here may be unknown to you. That is because many of them shut down a long time ago. That doesn’t mean that they were small sites.

A special note for the term white Label because I will mention this often. It refers to a camsite that uses a platform of another camsite. Simply put, it is the same camsite with a different design and name. But they have the same camgirls and the same features.

When a camsite becomes a white label, it does not mean someone bought them. The owners may have decided to shut down their platform and redirect their traffic to a white label. This way, they can continue making money with their brand and traffic, but without the costs of running a camsite. It is a prevalent practice for dead camsites.

In total, the list of closed camsites has fourteen names:

• CamWithHer
• Camz
• DirectSex
• EuroLive
• ExtasyCams
• Friends
• LivePimpin
• Naked.com
• NeedLive
• OnHerCam
• PeekShows
• PrivateFeeds
• WebCamClub
• Webcams.com

CamWithHer

A Camsite for wealthy members looking for GFE.

For years, CamWithHer was known for three things:

• Exclusive top-model look camgirls
• Expensive private chats
• Strict non-nude rule

CamWithHer built its popularity on top of these three points. Interestingly enough, that was what killed the site.

American And Canadian Only. Or Maybe Not?

They had a public rule that they only accepted models from the USA or Canada. Indeed, many of their models were from these two countries. However, they had a few models from other countries. These models would appear on the site as being from the USA or Canada. They would never admit that they were from some other place. But I had one confirmed case of a Romanian camgirl who was accepted on the site because her look was very American, and she was bringing some sugar daddies with her. That was Barbara, nowadays known as SashaBelize. She is 100% Romanian, and when this was revealed on MyCamgirl, CWH’s admin asked me to hide this information.

By the way, CamWithHer was the very first camsite to contact me to change a review because it wasn’t that positive. The review also revealed that this model was performing nude shows on another site. But the fact that I was giving negative feedback about her was the main reason for them to contact me. They were very protective of their models’ reputations. The model in question was Kyra, nowadays camming on MyFreeCams as Kymmmy.

Shutting Down CamWithHer

When they shut down, the demand was for something else: Amateur camgirls performing explicit cam shows in public chat. Their whole business was based on exclusivity and the premium feel. Members would pay over $10 per minute to have an exclusive non-nude private chat with a camgirl who looked straight out of a Playboy magazine. The model would offer companionship and GFE to wealthy members.

By setting its prices so high, CamWithHer was filtering its audience but also limiting the traffic. Most camgirls had one or two members, and they were often sporadic. Meanwhile, they would see fellow camgirls working on MyFreeCams and getting generous tips. Eventually, CamWithHer’s models started camming on MyFreeCams.

With an average of five models online, CamWithHer was never that busy. The site has often been empty in the last few days, with no model online.

In 2018, CamWithHer became a CamSoda’s white label.

Camz

A VOD Paradise.

Camz was a camsite with many camgirls, but almost no one online. But what Camz had good was its massive collection of recorded private chats. The site was also known as CamWorld.

Members would sometimes use Camz to buy videos from private chats. However, since almost nobody initiated new private chats, its collection was outdated.

Everyone already had videos of their favorite camgirls at some point, and the site was useless.

Camz had a vast selection of camgirls, from the usual European studio models to Canadian amateurs, to porn actresses like SaraJay. They wasted considerable potential. Instead of getting their models to come online, they would rather sell recorded videos for a low price.

Camz went down at the end of 2013, and it became a Cams.com’s white label. I suppose they chose Cams.com because of the similar name.

DirectSex

The First White Knight Place

DirectSex was a camsite operated by a Romanian company, and as such, it had many Romanian camgirls. Although it also had camgirls from other countries, the site would work closely with Romanian studios.

It is considered the first camsite to see white knights in action. Camgirls would have loyal fans who would take them into long private chats and also defend and protect them anywhere online. Any porn forum discussing specific DirectSex models would get an avalanche of positive comments, love letters, and requests to take down negative opinions and explicit content.

DirectSex never had problems keeping its models or getting new ones for years because studios would do this job. But the camsite ultimately got punished for not keeping up with the competition. It had camgirls, and its camgirls had loyal fans. Some fans were obsessively in love and willing to spend money. But a camgirl’s earnings were limited to her time in private chat. The platform was begging for the tipping feature. But they never implemented it.

Meanwhile, like with CamWithHer, camgirls saw other camgirls getting big tips on other camsites. They saw this as a missed opportunity to make money with their obsessed fans. Supported by studios, models started moving to camsites to get tips, taking their fans.

In mid-2016, DirectSex ceased operations and became a closed camsite. The site was unavailable for five years. In 2021, the domain name started resolving again, and DirectSex resurfaced as Streamate’s white label through CamBuilder.

EuroLive

For Fans Of European Camgirls

As the name implies, EuroLive was a camsite focused solely on European camgirls. It was particularly focused on the French audience; hence, the site’s default language was French, and many camgirls would pretend to be of French nationality. EuroLive was a direct competitor to XLoveCam.

In reality, EuroLive had no camgirl from France. Most camgirls were Romanian. Some had some knowledge of the French language. It was good enough to feed the members’ fantasy of hearing a camgirl speaking in French while masturbating.

As an interesting note, initially, EuroLive was a “pay-per-click” advertising network. But it had a short life. After that, it became a basic tool to convert Euro to Franc and remained like that for a few years while they developed the camsite platform.

EuroLive remained in business for over fifteen years. It had almost no updates on its design, and it never introduced any new features. In the last version, the site was the same as its first version in 2006.

In 2022, EuroLive became a BongaCams’ white label.

ExtasyCams

The Place of Cheap Members

If CamWithHer was infamous for its high prices, ExtasyCams was notoriously known for its cheap private chats.

A detailed article has already been written analyzing the downfall of ExtasyCams.

ExtasyCams was a Romanian-based camsite known by another name: Chat49. This name came from ExtasyCams’ main selling point: cheap private chats. Yes, they had private chats with prices as low as 49 cents per minute.

What do you get for 49 cents per minute? Nothing. No sane person would perform an explicit cam show for just 49 cents per minute. That is the price members pay, so the girl gets a lot less.

Members could safely get one of the two things for that low price: Casual conversation and voyeur shows.

You could join a girl in private chat, and she would chat with you. The price was low, and many girls would still consider 49 cents per minute too cheap even if they only talked. But for many girls who would sit there the whole day without many privates, having a guy paying for twenty minutes of chat was still better than not having a private one at all.

Since many girls were also working on other camsites, you could eventually catch them doing a show. Instead of paying a premium price, you could use ExtasyCams to sit and watch the show for a lower price. All the models would ignore any member trying to interact with them, and rightfully so. Bugging a model could potentially make her log off.

The site could efficiently work as a peep camsite. But the site failed. ExtasyCams was attacked by hackers twice. The first attack went unnoticed by admins for more than 24 hours, and it took them a couple of days to restore the system.

On the second attack, the site was down for weeks. When it returned, it had a new system and a new design. However, because it took them so long to return, camgirls moved to other camsites.

The site never recovered from these attacks. In 2022, BongaCams announced that they were buying ExtasyCams and integrating it into their system. In other words, they purchased ExtasyCams’ domain name and turned it into a white label. All the other domain names ExtasyCams had, like Chat49.com, had the same fate.

iFriends

The Veteran Paradise

iFriends was a large webcam platform with thousands of camgirls and decent features and services. So, it was a surprise when the site announced it was closing its doors forever.

With this, iFriends took to its grave millions of videos recorded from private chats dating back to 2005 and hundreds of fan clubs hosting unique and custom content produced by camgirls.

iFriends suffered the same problem as other defunct camsites: an outdated platform. They tried to update by creating a new version, but fearing the backlash, they decided to keep the old version alive and make it the default. The new version had a modern design, but it was confusing.

Their popular VOD and fan clubs were running on top of an outdated system that wouldn’t handle HD videos, let alone 4K. The fan clubs were buggy that would allow non-subscribers to access premium content.

Despite all these issues, many camgirls were still using the site, mainly as a platform to sell subscriptions. Most of the girls on the platform were veterans who only knew one way of camming, and they had been using iFriends for so long and had built close relationships with members that they didn’t want to try other camsites.

iFriends is perhaps the only defunct camsite that was doing well. But owners decided to shut down the platform. Unlike all the other camsites that turned into a white label, iFriends closed its doors. They replaced the whole site with the announcement that they were shutting down. This message remained there for a couple of years.

LivePimpin

The First Tipping Camsite

Few people know that LivePimpin was the first camsite to introduce the tipping feature. But because this underdog camsite was so unknown, with low traffic and only a few models, this game-changing feature didn’t help them to become a popular camsite.

They got the tipping idea to solve a problem. Like ExtasyCams, LivePimpin had cheap privates. That means that models’ earnings would be capped at a low limit. To overcome this problem, they created the tipping feature so members could give extra money to models. This way, models wouldn’t be limited to private chats.

Tipping didn’t work on LivePimpin because of the type of members it had. Because the site had cheap private chats, most members were unwilling to spend or could not afford more than a few bucks. Expecting them to pay a few extra dollars just as a token of appreciation was a delusional idea. A good idea applied to the wrong audience.

During its last years, LivePimpin had about 15-20 models online. Most newbies and small studios wanted to avoid the fierce competition on big camsites.

The site received a complete revamp in 2018. However, in 2020, for whatever reason, admins dumped the project before the investment could yield any return and turned it into an XLoveCam white label.

Naked.com

The Porn Actresses Camsite

Naked had so much potential. This camsite had unique American camgirls, extensive video-on-demand, and an exclusive deal with porn producers to provide them with porn actresses.

There needed to be more to make up for their poor marketing strategy and successive management changes. Naked.com was almost an obscure camsite due to its messy marketing. Occasionally, they would change CEO and introduce a new marketing strategy. But it would eventually fall apart a couple of months later, and the CEO would change again and start over.

They were buying traffic to show their models that members were using the site, but the traffic had a bad quality that would rarely convert into paying members. The few people who would spend money on the site would buy videos off their VOD collection rather than take girls in private chat.

As a result, Naked never really took off properly. The platform could not retain the porn actresses after their deals with their agents expired because the actresses knew how slow the site was. Independent models knew that, too, and slowly, they started moving out. Most of them moved to Streamate and MyFreeCams.

In 2019, Naked.com became a Flirt 4 Free’s white label.

NeedLive

The One That Threated LiveJasmin

NeedLive was a European camsite with multiple CEOs in its short life and a constant change of direction. Despite the messy history, the site started off doing quite well.

It started like a normal camsite, with the usual features and services. In the beginning, it wasn’t that big. But it was relatively popular among camfans mainly because many LiveJasmin models used to work there, too.

That is what caught the attention of LiveJasmin. In 2012, three years after its launch, NeedLive announced they were getting the “industry-leading engine of LiveJasmin.”

The announcement was full of buzzwords. The real deal was that LiveJasmin was buying off NeedLive and taking the models with them. After the merge, LiveJasmin proceeded with a migration that moved all NeedLive models to LiveJasmin. If you ever saw any model on LiveJasmin with the suffix “_nl”, that was a model originally from NeedLive.

NeedLive became a custom LiveJasmin’s white label. They invested so much money and time to make the site function like a completely different product with its services but fed by LiveJasmin’s models. After just one year, LiveJasmin abandoned the project.

NeedLive took over a couple of years later. They tried to start over and put the site on track. But it was unfruitful. Ultimately, they reversed everything and made NeedLive a de facto common LiveJasmin’s white label.

As a former MoneyVerse affiliate, I can say that business was going well for NeedLive before the merge with LiveJasmin. The merge killed the site, and maybe that is what LiveJasmin wanted.

OnHerCam

The Copycat Camsite Created By Shady People

OnHerCam was a camsite with a failure warning since day one. It was a CamWithHer’s copycat managed by a former CamWithHer employee. A rogue one, by the way. The company behind it, Trifecta, was called out by CamWithHer’s owner for its shady practices.

If you ever saw the two sites, you would think they were identical. That is because the OnHerCam founder stole the source code from CamWithHer to start their camsite. Yes, they copied the whole software, paid someone to create a new design, and put it running somewhere. Even the concept and rules were the same as on CamWithHer—expensive, non-nude chats for VIP members.

The models? Well, they stole that, too. With help from Abbie, a model manager previously working for CamWithHer, OnHerCam lured many models to join this “new and exciting camsite where they could double their earnings.”

From my communications with Abbie, I can say that she would reply on their behalf without their consent. This included providing premium content and signing them up as contest participants.

OnHerCams was having problems keeping up with their promises. Simply put, the site was a failure. Two people managed the whole operation: Sean Defreitas and Abbie.

The site had no traffic and no members, and the duo needed help turning it into a profitable site. Somehow, it was still making good money, but ultimately, bad management killed it.

Abbie Sadek was responsible for recruiting new models and handling marketing. She only knew how to recruit models using her contact book and enticing CamWithHer models. Marketing was done by asking for favors from her contacts in the industry. Connections that she acquired while working for CamWithHer.

The whole site fell apart when models came forward to expose the payout situation. They upheld payments from three months of work, owing thousands of dollars to many models. After that, no model wanted to work for them. Even without models coming online, the site was still running. Why? Because some members had their fan club memberships on auto-renew. OnHerCam was collecting that money until the cards expired.

It was a whole mess that ended up with OnHerCam suing Abbie.

OnHerCam was alive from 2008 until 2012. Many things happened to the domain name since then. Here is the history:

• 2012-2021: Flirt 4 Free’s white label
• 2021: Parked domain, and later a blog about their former models
• 2022: CamSoda’s white label

PeekShows

The Place For Veteran Camfans

PeekShows was an obscure camsite launched decades ago but stayed in business for a long time.

It had many studio models. Some worked on other sites, and some exclusively on PeekShows. The exclusive ones were veterans of the site and had a small, loyal army of fans. That army was the reason they worked exclusively on PeekShows. Even though they were not making huge money, the earnings were quite good enough for them.

However, PeekShows needed to be updated on the camsite. They developed the software years ago and considered it a done job. In software development, there is no such thing as a finished product.

As such, the site was slowly falling apart. They would try to fix some bugs. But, most of the problems were due to obsolete software the platform relied on. For example, until their very last days, PeekShows still used Flash, even though this software had been deprecated and every other camsite had migrated to modern stream solutions.

The platform was so old that to keep the site alive, it forcibly had to rebuild everything from scratch. When major browsers started removing support for Flash, it was the end for PeekShows. Explaining to members how to install and enable a deprecated plugin in their browsers was just cumbersome, not to mention a security issue.

The last time I checked, PeeksShows wouldn’t even load correctly.

In 2016, PeekShows announced they were shutting down and becoming a Flirt 4 Free’s white label.

PrivateFeeds

The Alternative Camsite

PrivateFeeds was a basic and generic camsite, but it was popular among camfans. Most of its success was due to models, mainly from European studios.

The site had nothing unique or different to offer other than a lower price. Its models were camming on multiple sites like LiveJasmin, Cams.com, CamContacts, and Streamate, charging a higher fee per minute in private chat. However, on PrivateFeeds, a private chat was at least 20% cheaper. That was the whole reason why PrivateFeeds had members.

But like other failed camsites, it also needed an updated platform. The first version saw daylight in 2001. It had a significant design overhaul in 2009 and another in 2012, but those were merely cosmetic changes. The site had yet to develop any new features.

In 2015, the domain started redirecting to MyFreeCams. After a few months, PrivateFeeds became Streamate’s white label.

WebCamClub

The VOD Archive

WebCamClub was a camsite founded by a dating site company. They had the funds and the potential to be a big game player. But after years, DatingGold dumped the project.

The site had thousands of models. Many were studio models, but some were independent camgirls. WebCamClub had invested a lot by hiring camgirls to perform scheduled shows and to spend a specific amount of hours online on the site. AmberDawn was one of these models.

These scheduled and private shows were automatically recorded and available on their VOD service. This strategy helped WebCamClub build a massive collection of videos. Compared to a private chat, the videos were significantly cheaper. For merely 49 cents per minute, users could watch a video.

While DatingGold was highly successful with its dating sites, WebCamClub, on the other hand, was draining money.

2013, they dumped the project and turned the site a Streamate’s white label.

Funny fact: WebCamClub contacted me in 2009 asking to review some of their camgirls. They offered me free credits, and for that, they gave me the credentials for an account. The username was wccreview with $20 in credits. I am not sure how much they thought I could review with $20. I ended up getting my account and buying credits for myself.

Two years later, I was surprised to see that this wccreview account was still available with $20 in it. That was when I noticed other people had used this account to take random camgirls in private. It was the global review account that they shared with multiple affiliates.

Webcams.com

The One That Was Sold to PornHub

The last on the list is Webcams.com. They had the best domain name ever for a camsite.

In 2005, they were basic. But back then, any camsite was basic. Three years later, Webcams.com got serious with a new design, logo, features, and more models. They were a real contender.

But they lacked advertising and traffic despite having many exclusive camgirls. The site was barely at its total capacity.

I remember seeing beautiful young camgirls sitting there for hours without private chats. I talked to some of them, and they all had the same complaint: no members.

Webcams.com even had models from a well-known Ukrainian studio (the same studio where KerrySweet used to work) that were in high demand on other sites but were rarely in private chat on Webcams.

The site also had a decent VOD service with thousands of videos, but that was the only feature members used often.

In 2010, management announced many changes, including a new design and the introduction of new features. But it didn’t change much. Some models even moved away because they couldn’t figure out how to work with the new platform.

In 2016, a little over ten years after its launch, Webcams.com was bought by MindGeek (now Aylo, owners of PornHub) for an undisclosed amount. But the domain name alone would be worth millions. The site was taken down for some weeks by the new owners, promising to come back soon. 

Well, they never really came back as an independent product. Instead, MindGeek turned the site into a MyDirtyHobby’s white label.

Other Camsites That Didn’t Get a Mention

• CamSpot: Strange camsite full of fake profiles. After shutting down, it started redirecting to MyFreeCams. Later, it became a Chaturbate’s White label.
  
• ChatGF: This very small camsite was created by a cool guy. The problem was that he was a one-band show for a project that needed more hands. But it had interesting features and good models. It is now a SecretFriends.
  
• SkinVideo: Shaddy company. They were an adult VOD service that got into the camming business after suggestions from some camgirls. Later, people discovered they were creating profiles with pictures and everything for all camgirls who had inquired about their new service. Even though the girls had never created an account or signed any agreement. That explained why no models were coming online: they didn’t even know they had a profile. They pulled the plug on the project after a natural backslash.
  
• Spread4U: It was a custom version of Cams.com since the beginning. But somehow, they had some camgirls that were not available on Cams.com. When FFN changed the rules for the Cams.com affiliate program, Spread4U was converted into a typical white label.