The point is that Playboy owns most of the porn channels on cable or satellite. Not the studios themselves. Guccione and Goldstein stayed in print and went bust.
Frankly what better metaphor for Playboy is there than that the actresses who pose in it are professionally on the way down.
It is also WHEN Playboy came out. A new class of urban professionals emerged at a time when labor saving devices and instant/frozen foods meant a man could have hot meals and clean clothes without having to support a wife. All that new disposable income could be spent on Thunderbirds, pony cars, hi-fi's, and the swank, space-age, double martini bachelor pad. The whole Rat Pack lifestyle WAS the Playboy man.
When I see Hefner now, I see a man terrified of old age and death, pathetically clinging to youth.
I don't know. I see one of the great American capitalists, enjoying his success.
And I don't even buy his magazine.