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Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

matthewball.co

361–370 of 878 posts

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#361
post #276
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to millennial reality, we don't begrudge anything non-harmful that people had to do to make ends meet. I know too many people with masters degrees and student loans working food service to not think OF is smart if you can find your niche.

There are plenty of millennials who have conservative views about something, and don’t forget that the damage is done regardless of the motivation. From the perspective of the victim, it doesn’t matter whether the person who just sent their boss the link to their OF is a zealous right-wing Christian or an incel bitter about being turned down. Millennials are more accepting about sexuality on average but a double digi…

I doubt any boss would open an onlyfans link and if they tried I'd expect the company firewall would block it.

I could imangine a boss getting links to those videos on some other site that looks innocent [perhaps at home] but the boss is unlikely to do anything as those are what you do in private. The only exception would be if you work for a church where such is not allowed - and even then if it is a much younger you, you can rebent of your past sins.

the above is about work. If you were trying to marry the guy (who presumably isn't your boss as an ethics) it would be different some guys would not accebt that.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#362

The widespread impact of the OF economy is obvious to many gym-goers. At my local gym you can see the usual assortment of bodybuilding guys (same as it's been for decades), and then you can see 2-3 girls who are clearly trying to make it into the top 0.1% of hotness so they can cash in on OF (or maybe Instagram). This latter group is a recent phenomenon.

Why do you assume women in gyms are trying to make money on OnlyFans?

There is a new-ish phenomenon of some women going to the gym, setting up suspiciously placed cameras, and then uploading to TikTok (or Instagram or OF) with complaints that the people in the background - who do not want to be recorded - are "staring."

It is usually obvious what they're doing. It's not merely "there are women in the gym."

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The formula for success in any field is simply to make a product that other people want to consume Well, the formula for success in selling products is this. Most people don't define success in terms of business acumen. Except, of course, businessmen. If you perceive our society as centered around successful people, of course you'll see it as merit-based. If you perceive our society as poorly run and catering to th…

This is just arguing over phrasing. It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to do, if you’re making YouTube videos, or music, or paintings, or cakes, or web apps, or cleaning diveways, your ability to succeed boils down to your ability to provide something other people want. That is the objective source of your merit. Perhaps your own idea of success in life is something that revolves exclusively around your own satisfa…

I don't think its black and white. I think sometimes success is a matter of luck. For example, in large organizations there can be a lot of roles generated where there isn't always that much direct pressure and people can be hired through luck (e.g. getting on with the boss, some types of diversity hires, being loyal to a company even if you are not that good etc.). If teams of people make products/reports etc. sometimes it can be hard to shine, and 'talkers' who don't contribute much can get promoted into a 'lucky' role. Its not black and white.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#364
post #333
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re the cohort putting our hand on the stove to remember you get burned. Vices like gambling, obscenity, prostitution, drugs, etc are banned or heavily controlled societies over because they have significant negative cultural effects. “Why do YOU care what other people do in their private lives?” was always a stupid justification: if everyone in your community is addicted to vices, that DOES affect me.

Yet humans have fared mostly fine as a whole with even a moderate level of those things, legal or not, consistently happening throughout history and cultures. The biggest problem we have is when these vices are driven underground so the vice itself is conflated with the additional risk of having to put one’s self in a dangerous situation to engage with it. Looking at western culture (the only one I feel confident spe…

> Looking at western culture

It's not a "western culture" thing. Many western cultures do, sure. Many eastern cultures do as well. Not literally puritanism and that specific history, but very similar kinds of thoughts and ideas.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#365
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to millennial reality, we don't begrudge anything non-harmful that people had to do to make ends meet. I know too many people with masters degrees and student loans working food service to not think OF is smart if you can find your niche.

Err.. count me out of this. I wouldn't deny a job for a former sex worker, but definitelly I wouldn't want to have any kind of personal relationship with one.

That's fine for you (though I'd challenge you to ask yourself why), but younger generations and many in older generations like myself are realizing that sex work is just work. Bodies are just bodies. Relationships and past sexual history are in the past.

It's another flavor of bodily autonomy.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#366

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 basical…

> parasocial relationships

sounds like you meant "professional courtesy"

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

being open about your own past != having to know/ask everything about your partner's past

I guess I fail to see why one should be open in the first place if this isn't going to be reciprocated by your partner.

There is a difference between solicited and unsolicited information. In my experience people who can't live with someone without asking them the number of past partners are the toxic ones.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the OP is right about the parasocial aspect. OF content and other such platforms is about the personalization aspect. Sure, there's some kinks/fetishes too.. but it is primarily about engagement. In some ways, it's just an explicit, subscription based, social media platform where it feels like you're being treated uniquely... But most times you are not.

How is that particularly different from, say, concerts? The social aspects are what drives value.

This comparison is backwards.

Listening to music performed in person by other humans is the natural way of things, like actually having sex with another human.

Recorded music is much more like pornography.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is relevant: https://x.com/cyantist/status/1832921451986632777 A similar app creator talks about her experience and why it failed.

Highly recommend this thread. I think these kind of honest post-mortems from founders are super valuable and Cyan's delivery is frank and charitable. It seems she and Justin Mares are running some kind of micro-funding for passionate https://www.inflectiongrants.com/

> Highly recommend this thread.

Shame that Twitter doesn't let people without an account to read it.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#370
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 problem here is that ceratain members of our society think sexuality is immoral and that sex performers deserve ostracism. The idea that someone shouldn't be hired for a job because they have/had an OF is puritanism plain and simple. I expect that fewer people actually care about the "morality" and simply want to use morals as a weapon against women in the workplace.

This. This is the real social problem we should be fighting. SW should not impinge on career or social status.

As a hiring manager, if anything I'd want to consider sex performers as a green flag in a job history. Speaks to resourcefulness, social skills, courage and self confidence.

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