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Nor did I. If you'll keep up, it's clearly explained that "costs" in that context refers to costs to the consumer (which I'm pretty sure you've well understood for the entire rest of our conversation, just not now that you're about to be pinned down into an actual assertion), that is "price" (which is misleading though because actual prices in terms of currency amounts aren't really involved here).
So go on. With that clarified, answer the question. How do you lower the ""price"/"cost" to the consumer of your product being illegal, heavily taboo, and difficult to access (mostly because of the previous)? You told me it was economic denialism to insist that was incredibly, vastly unlikely to be possible (and in any case not equivalent to some normal hypothetical scenario from an econ 101 textbook), so go ahead. Tell me how it happens.
Depends on what the price structure actually looks like to consumers. There are different consumers here, of course. Some "pay" by producing their own fresh content. Others pay via literal cryptocurrency. Others pay by running the risk of downloading malware. Others pay in time by jumping through hoops, either in digital land or in physical land. Others pay by the level of risk involved of possible prosecution. Others pay by providing reputation.
There are likely others, but I am kinda busy today. in any event, each of these things can be reduced.
Okay then I will await your proper response on how all of the costs can be reduced without altering the incentive structure created by policy here (or how child pornographers can in your estimation alter policy). Presumably then you will explain why it hasn't happened yet either despite it being so economically inevitable.
I mean, just think about the list I made. For like two seconds. Even try.
If today, hot dogs are one price, then tomorrow, hamburgers get cheaper, what do you think will happen to the price of hot dogs? Economic theory tells us that the price of hot dogs will go down. Why do you think that the price of hot dogs hasn't gone down today, despite it being "economically inevitable" (given the imminent shift in demand)?
The answer is simple: the demand curve today intersects the supply curve at a different point than tomorrow's demand curve does. That is the answer here, as well.
To respond to something earlier:
Because that's all we've been talking about the entire time and the whole concept of substitute goods relates to consumer behavior?
No, I'm a stupid economic denialist so you'll have to explain to me your viewpoint in detail.
And if the price hasn't gone down in 10, 20, or 30 years still? As an economic denialist, if I knew that hot dogs were illegal, I might think that has some influence, if you in your refined academic economic wisdom hadn't firmly deboonked the effect of policy on markets.
What's gone down here other than you wasting dozens of posts refusing to be explicit about your position to smugly pretend that denying the effects of policy on markets is some grand defense of academic economics?
For example, they could pay less in cryptocurrency. There are other items on the list.
I'm not sure what your question is. We're not 10, 20, or 30 years after the hypothetical change in the price of fake child porn. Can you rephrase the question?
Yes, they could. (I mean not really since there's a reasonable price minimum here based on production costs/expected value based on legal risk that I think the small number of sellers are usually pretty close to if not below already so maybe not.)
Yes, and please explain those in particular, like the whole illegality one. That's kind of a big one. Again, I'm a dumb economic denialist who thinks that it being illegal is a big market factor here in not reducing "costs"/prices", so you'll have to explain that aspect to me in particular.
Yes we are (except it's not hypothetical)? Modern lolicon was introduced around the 80s and became basically universally and easily available to anyone online (the same potential audience for online child porn) in the 90s (while also being far more accessible than the real thing even often on places like Twitter, with stuff like this recent Pixiv move being a small and highly recent opposing trend that's still overwhelmed by its mass availability). In your analogy, that's when the price of hamburgers plummeted. So when do hot dogs get cheaper then and how?
Is this to say that you think that the supply of child porn is nearly perfectly elastic?
We are discussing a hypothetical change in policy toward lolicon that has not happened yet. We're not talking about the past price history, which would be an empirical question.
I'm not sure elasticity is the most appropriate lens through which to the view the issue (as you don't have nearly enough of a sample size in points of fluctuation in the price imposed by policy here). The most direct thing to say is that its highly illegal nature creates a de facto high price/cost floor for producers and consumers.
You don't get that in talking about a possible future where it is much more taboo/illegal/harder to access we also implicitly (well, not just implicitly, at least on my end) talk about the existing world and its history of not being so? And that our whole argument is also specifically based on that because you're calling me an economic denialist for claiming that real child porn is incapable of competing with lolicon (and other fictional equivalents) on this exact basis despite your naive interpretation of how they should behave (and haven't behaved) as substitute goods?
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Where exactly is it "clearly explained that "costs" in that context refers to costs to the consumer"?
You need to take a reality pill about your own quality of communication. I'll come back and make another comment about the substance at my leisure (maybe faster if I see that you've taken a realistic reassessment of what's gone down here and changed your tone a bit).
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