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Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

matthewball.co

231–240 of 878 posts

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you sell your body, most societies will punish you. Thats [sic] fine, […] How is that 'fine'? I would like to see a future where someone doing sex work to make ends meet (or even as a freely chosen profession!) is not ostracised for it. Sex is part of society whether you want it or not, and so is paying for sexual acts.

I would like to see a future where people shouldn't have to prostitute themselves to make ends meet. Some cultural norms are outdated, but prostitution is still degrading and dangerous for those practicing it, especially for the women; who may not be doing so willingly, prostitution being the main incentive for human trafficking. And the online medium doesn't change that by much. Some people may be willing to pay for…

> but prostitution is still degrading

Why? Especially compared to e.g. advertising/marketing? At least in the former case, all parties to the transaction are there voluntarily, for an honest, mutually beneficial exchange of value.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few key points to understanding the OnlyFans business which are not covered by either article (and the one on xsrus.com is pretty old and is off by several billions regarding revenue now). * Point #1, OnlyFans is the biggest thing in porn by far, its rise is meteoric. * Point #2, OnlyFans is in the business of selling relationships. It's not a tech company and attempts to analyze it as such are therefore…

> In reality none of the models who are successful have time to talk to fans, everything is outsourced It depends how you define “successful”, but I would say that’s not true. I personally know several OF models for whom it is their fulltime job (earning decent money), and they do not outsource anything. Highly popular models almost certainly do, but there’s a lot of smaller creators who don’t

for now, but chat will be llm-fied before the content is created by an ai, that's for sure.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you sell your body, most societies will punish you. Why though? It is an interesting issue when you look closer. For an individual, it's more obvious - I wouldn't like to be with a prostitute because of possible hidden diseases and lack of trust - but there is no way of telling how many sexual contacts my new partner had, whether paid for or not. But I wouldn't have any problem working with an ex-pro in the same…

same here, i think some people are just a little too submissive and uncritical to the so called rules of society. also engaging in porn or even prostitution isn't really "selling" of one's body.

Those rules aren't taken from the thin air though. It's really easy to argue that sexual gedonism is detrimental to society, and its online incarnation is even more so: as any addiction it steals productive time from people's lives, it puts hormones over culture which patently breeds violence, it leads to social atomization, and consequently to mental issues (which means violence again), economically bad on a level comparable to fentanyl imports, and the list goes on.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#235
post #118

Not a moralistic take, but one issue that interests me is the second-order impacts associated with the long tail of producers in OF who do not make a career from it. With traditional adult entertainment, creators are aware of the social ramifications (e.g., social stigma, familial ostracism, difficulty dealing with the future, and so on), and there is a decent theoretical economic framework to measure that. I am not…

> the additional toll it will take on the creators in terms of social ostracism, future prospects, future opportunities, and mental health. Is it such a big problem nowadays as it used to be? My impression is that society in general, and younger people in particular, have become more tolerant of such things; at least in Northern Europe.

In fact, it might be a great way to filter out narrow minded people / organizations you don't want to deal with anyway

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#236
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same here, i think some people are just a little too submissive and uncritical to the so called rules of society. also engaging in porn or even prostitution isn't really "selling" of one's body.

People working in the mines, or the military, I wonder why that's a socially acceptable way of "selling" their body, but prostitution is not. Even we, behind a computer screen and getting back pain and wrist RSI, we also "sell" our bodies in a matter of speaking. I can only imagine that the negative perception of prostitution as "selling" your body is coming from mainstream religions which are the great society moral…

>I wonder why that's a socially acceptable way of "selling" their body, but prostitution is not.

Probably because its not the same at all. Getting naked and spreading your legs is neither as productive nor difficult as serving your country. Neither should it have the same social status.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the additional toll it will take on the creators in terms of social ostracism, future prospects, future opportunities, and mental health. Is it such a big problem nowadays as it used to be? My impression is that society in general, and younger people in particular, have become more tolerant of such things; at least in Northern Europe.

that's the thing, the more people do it the more it gets accepted. the same is happening with drugs for example.

All the data I keep seeing suggests drug use (including alcohol) is on the decline.

https://nida.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/2023/12/repor...

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH this is not the same as "VHS" porn of the past decades. A few decades ago, there weren't that many "productions", performers were much fewer and some porn performers name were known by anyone, regardless if you had seen porn with them staring or not. A person getting out of the business and trying to make a new career would have a high chance of meeting people, especially men, in real life who might have seen at…

There must still be a substantial risk that someone would find out at some point? Once one person knows gossip spreads.

I would bet lot of producers and consumers live in different countries. A lot of online porn is produced in eastern europe and ex-USSR and societies there a lot less prude and religious compared to US. Some bullshit politicians might state otherwise, but US is far more conservative.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#240
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you sell your body, most societies will punish you. Thats [sic] fine, […] How is that 'fine'? I would like to see a future where someone doing sex work to make ends meet (or even as a freely chosen profession!) is not ostracised for it. Sex is part of society whether you want it or not, and so is paying for sexual acts.

If you want to take purely moral grounds, there's nothing to make prostitution or Onlyfans "wrong", except if done with exploitation. At the same time, it contributes to the demographic crysis, and if you care about results, you have to put pressure against the lifestyles that are nudging people away from starting a family and having kids. Drug dealers are also part of society, yet we still frown upon them.

An individual has no obligation to respect a societal order that doesn't respect them back.
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