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Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

matthewball.co

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Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#241

Post by ath3nd »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #221
ath3nd wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even coming from mainstream religions, that's annoyingly knee-jerk. Sure, prostitution is shameful and sinful and whatnot, but what about maliciously lying to your neighbor, trying to get rich off their misfortune? Even from a mainstream religious perspective, marketing gives prostitution a run for its money, and outside that framework, arguably it's less shameful to do OF than to be a "regular" influencer, or go int…

> At least with this kind of sex work, all parties to transaction tend to benefit, and all are in it voluntarily

Beautifully put!

> Sure, prostitution is shameful and sinful and whatnot

Only according to some. Imo it's much more immoral to work in fossil fuels or the police/military (where you abandon morals to execute orders).

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#242

Post by RandomThoughts3 »

What I find fascinating/disturbing with OnlyFans and in some way with Twitch and streaming in general is more the client side than the creators. Here are basically people paying, and paying a lot, for parasocial relationships. Because clearly it’s not about the content per see which is a dim a dozen and available for free in trove.

I think it says something quite dark about our society as a whole that we have basically commoditised distress and are encouraging some people often themselves in dire circumstances to prey on others to the benefits of the middle men. I find these new pimps scarier than the old sort in that they pretend to have clean hands.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#243

Post by lotsofpulp »

akimbostrawman wrote: post #236
ath3nd wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

ath3nd did not write same social status, they wrote socially acceptable. Relevant username, I guess.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#244

Post by broken-kebab »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #221
ath3nd wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even coming from mainstream religions, that's annoyingly knee-jerk. Sure, prostitution is shameful and sinful and whatnot, but what about maliciously lying to your neighbor, trying to get rich off their misfortune? Even from a mainstream religious perspective, marketing gives prostitution a run for its money, and outside that framework, arguably it's less shameful to do OF than to be a "regular" influencer, or go int…

It's whataboutism, isn't it? It surely hypocritical when someone only fights other's sin while ignoring own (and one mainstream religion has a special piece about it - speck in a brother's eye). But my harmful behavior still doesn't make your harmful behavior good, and vice versa

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#245

Post by sulandor »

llm_trw wrote: post #129
tennisflyi wrote: post #7

Seminal article (I guess), https://xsrus.com/the-economics-of-onlyfans > It’s just as easy to imagine demand for the “real thing” going down due to the emergence of more substitutes as it is to imagine the premium for parasocial authenticity going up. And yet only Generative AI “creators” will truly do whatever “you” want and only for you. And unlike real ones, they speak in every language and are available at any ti…

>When (AI is) mentioned it has a negative correlation. I have an llm inference rig that I enjoy on the weekends and the problem for the first time in my life is that I have supernormal stimulus which doesn't seem to reduce in potency the more I use it. It's gotten to the point where I don't visit porn sites any more because the locally generated material is better than what I can find there, and these are just the fi…

> What do you do when reality is a distant second to the digital world?

realize it's a torus and wander happily in circles

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#246

Post by lotsofpulp »

mgaunard wrote: post #167
bad_user wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not "to make ends meet". OF work allows people with no skills to get income in line with the top 10th or even 1st percentile of the population. Would you rather be flipping burgers all day for 30k or would you rather take a few nudes every week and make 300k?

Source? Like all entertainment sold with near zero marginal cost, why should only fans work also not follow an extreme power law formula for compensation.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#247

Post by michaelt »

safety1st wrote: post #75
tennisflyi wrote: post #7

Seminal article (I guess), https://xsrus.com/the-economics-of-onlyfans > It’s just as easy to imagine demand for the “real thing” going down due to the emergence of more substitutes as it is to imagine the premium for parasocial authenticity going up. And yet only Generative AI “creators” will truly do whatever “you” want and only for you. And unlike real ones, they speak in every language and are available at any ti…

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…

> Point #2, OnlyFans is in the business of selling relationships [...] Customers pay OnlyFans because they feel they are obtaining a relationship with the model,

Is there any hard evidence this is true beyond a tiny deluded fraction of the userbase?

Aren't 99% of users just straightforwardly transactional, trading money for access to photos and videos, just like subscribing to a newspaper?

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#248

Post by paulryanrogers »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #221
ath3nd wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even coming from mainstream religions, that's annoyingly knee-jerk. Sure, prostitution is shameful and sinful and whatnot, but what about maliciously lying to your neighbor, trying to get rich off their misfortune? Even from a mainstream religious perspective, marketing gives prostitution a run for its money, and outside that framework, arguably it's less shameful to do OF than to be a "regular" influencer, or go int…

> At least with this kind of sex work, all parties to transaction tend to benefit, and all are in it voluntarily.

Haven't some OF creators come out admitting they were pressured into it, or at least doing it more than they'd like.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#249

Post by djbusby »

lynx23 wrote: post #122
braza wrote: 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…

Well, those civilians who can think for themselves, especially about the consequences of their actions, are clearly in advantage. I am lacking empathy for those who are apparently so hooked up to the here-and-now that they seem to ignore the future. If you sell your body, most societies will punish you. Thats fine, societies have all sorts of norms we all need to learn.

> If you sell your body

That's how all labor works.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#250

Post by lotsofpulp »

creer wrote: post #36
doix wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm sure millions of people had this idea. My friends and I talked about it at some point as well. The problem is the payment processor. How the heck do you accept adult-content related payments? That is the hardest problem to solve when it comes to these things in my book.

Second is the issue of promotion: how to you become known to enough fans to make it worth it. The sites offer a true service of discovery.

Seemingly, it is posting a variety of content on Reddit that incentivized people to click on usernames which then advertise the OF.
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