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Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

matthewball.co

641–650 of 878 posts

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shocking part is how new generation have a fully rational reinterpretation of all this, they call it "ethical sex". It's beautiful to them (probably in contrast to the boat loads of issues IRL social and intimate relationships can bring with them). And anything not aligned with their view causes a lot of angry arguments.

The circle of life. People said the same thing about Playboy when it first came out, about Internet porn when it first came out… People have been “falling in love” with strippers for as long as strippers have existed. In many ways OF feels like a positive step because it allows the removal of toxic middlemen that stand between the model and their customer. To my mind the bigger issue is how much of it is a total scam…

You might be interested in the latent space podcast about using Ai to do exactly this, as compared to offshoring.

https://www.latent.space/p/nsfw-chatbots

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because clearly it’s not about the content per see which is a dim a dozen and available for free in trove. I think you should step back and look at it with a bit of distance. Is the content they're paying for really the same as you think is available for free, and do they even get it under the same conditions, in morality and circumstance. Not knowing your life, it feels like you could have said the same towards pe…

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.

Funny enough, I follow an OnlyFans creator on Xitter, and they've been complaining that OnlyFans was cracking down on kink/fetish content. I guess OF only wants parasocial slop on their platform!

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#643
post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it also is quite a special demographic, which is hard to nail down. There are a lot of people that don't have many social contacts but would never pay anyone for only fans. Perhaps you need to have a special character trait to be able to use such services. But while there are successful people on only fans with either more or less clothes on, the vast majority of creators probably sell their dignity for a few…

This framing, "sell their dignity", is your moral judgement (coming from your cultural, religious, or some other) background. I don't see it as any less dignified than any other work. You sell your labor to someone who pays you less than the value it produces. Now, if you want to argue that median creators get payed only a tiny fraction of their time, and like Twitch/YouTube it's a losing game for most, then we're on…

> don't see it as any less dignified than any other work

You do not, and that is your moral judgement. Rationalizing earning money by any means necessary is a very slippery slope, and the discussion is much more nuanced than popular media would lead you to believe.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#644

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…

> [...] 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 you're making assumptions about people's motivations that aren't consistent with evidence.

Pornhub and similar sites are full of content that is a dime a dozen and available for free and does not suggest any kind of "parasocial" relationship with the viewer. It's just two or more people fucking. And it's the same as it was ten years ago. And yet... More of that content keeps being made. Porn production companies exist. Pornstars making money for fucking on camera exist. Clearly there are people willing to pay for new porn that will just end up on free-to-view sites anyway.

Your mental model of "it's all about the parasocial relationship" doesn't explain these facts. Thus your mental model can't be the whole truth. I suspect it's at most a fairly small part of the truth.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following that logic: ‘Reading words etched into a stone or inscribed on papyrus by other human hands is the natural way of things, like actually having sex with another human. Reading words created via machines is much more like pornography.’

Words etched in stone? Bah! Words were created for speach! > For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your…

He's not wrong- the average bookcel doesn't have the same sort of oral recall that storytellers of past had. Not that it's a bad thing.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#647
post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that they delete their account immediately afterwards?

Buyers remorse after purchasing pornography? I don't know why you're surprised.

Or regular embarrassment, or I don't want to "get in" to onlyfans, just this one time then I'll delete.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#648

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…

That's what going to turn our society upside down before we realise what we're dealing with. Sex is a lot like doing drugs that as a side effect make you release your life energy. The same energy that creates new life in the right circumstances. In the nature, obtaining sex is difficult, which limits the amount of this sex drug we can consume. AI removes this "obstacle" from our way and opens the gates to such dungeons of our mind that we thought never existed. The effect at the society level will be a giant short-circuit when the electric energy that makes our bodies alive will rush down and burn the wires.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#649

I know it is pedantic, but could someone please enlighten me as to where does MM means millions? It's so easy to stick to international units, folks. Please. PLEASE!

M is 1,000 in Roman numerals. MM is short for M*M, so 1,000 * 1,000 = 1,000,000 or MM.

The M lives on in languages like Spanish where the word mil means one thousand.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would certainly not like to live in a future where selling your body to make ends meet is considered normal. To me it is already concerning that normalization of prostitution is happening to some extent in mass media. Sex is in all (?) human cultures viewed as most intimate and private expression of civilized love. It is also how we teach our kids about sex. Pornography and prostitution serve only our primal desire…

We all have to sell ourselves in order to live. I'm sure that there are plenty of people working at jobs that they thoroughly dislike. Shouldn't we concentrate on making sure that people really have a choice rather than on discriminating against people who make a choice?

Discrimination against people making the wrong choices is natural. Discriination against people repenting for the wrong choices is wrong
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