During the pandemic, I was watching a lot of porn and wanted to learn the business side of things. From what I learned, a girl's first shoot is often the most money she'll earn for one shoot.

They can earn more but often require riskier sex (e.g. multiple men, more kink, anal, etc.) but for vanilla boy/girl scenes, it's usually it.

Women can often make more if they become famous enough that the demand is there but it's kind of like high school basketball players thinking they'll make the NBA.

One thing that did surprise me was that there is not as much exploitation as I thought there would be. There is, of course, some exploitation but, much like any industry, there are shitty people everywhere. Most of the adult industry are pretty good people trying to do good things.