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Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

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Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#671

Post by riedel »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #242

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…

It is equally disturbing if museums see themselves forced to to move to forced to only fans in protest because of prudish US corps governing the web [0]. I think if there would be more middle ground it would be less of a business model.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28887142

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#672

Post by standardUser »

listless wrote: post #90

Is anyone willing to admit they subscribe to an OF and explain why over the free pornography alternatives that most of the internet is full of?

I have subscribed on and off to many different OF accounts. I usually just want to check out their spicy content, not chat or form a connection of any kind. But I have chatted with and formed connections with people on webcam streaming sites. I've also performed on streaming sites and met many awesome people through those interactions (and earned a tiny amount of money).

The OF content I pay for is usually from someone I discovered via Instagram or a camming site.

But the money I spend on camming sites is usually because it offers two things that aren't easily found elsewhere. 1) direct interaction with the models in real time and 2) seeing couples who are actually couples and have a real and pre-existing relationship. Part 2 is a tiny amount of camming content, but it is some of my all time favorite sex content.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#673

Post by AzzyHN »

paxys wrote: post #281

> The company counted an average of only 42 employees in 2023, down from 61 two years earlier. During the year, it generated $31MM in net revenue per employee (13-28x that of Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft) and $15.5MM in operating profit (27-560x). This is the wildest part. One company that is proving all the "why does need 10000 engineers?" takes true.

OF makes one product, and that product is maintaining a particular platform, that's why they don't need tons of engineers. They've just got to be a more attractive platform than their competition, and the money keeps coming in.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#674

Post by thefounder »

kreims wrote: post #669
RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #242

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…

The disturbing societal implications speak for themselves. Personally, I suspect a significant fraction of transactions on Only Fans or “influencer” platforms are money laundering or social engineering campaigns by deeply resourced actors. There may be a large number of clients that are bots making random subscriptions to keep the network alive and large enough to make moving targeted funds harder to observe. A plaus…

You would be surprised how many people pay for OF content. The novelty is that the clients are picked using mainstream social media. Most actually believe they talk with the influencer while in reality the “influencer” doesn’t even know where its content is distributed(not that she cares). Chatters and voice-overs are the norm.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#675

Post by MaxDorkroom »

qingcharles wrote: post #456
RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #242

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…

This view isn't matched by the stats. I have a friend who is a successful OF model and only a fraction of one percent of her subscribers ever DM her. A lot of them subscribe, see what they want and then immediately delete their accounts. There's no apparent relationship between her fans and her, for the most part.

[dead]

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#676

Post by throwaway29812 »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #611
IncreasePosts wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should there be a national minimum wage? Cost of living varies so much, it is impossible to derive a figure that is reasonable for the highest cost of living areas and the lowest cost of living areas.

Because there are a number of states that have repeatedly demonstrated that they can't be trusted to make basic, life-improving changes for themselves. Then respectable places like California end up footing the bill when they shake the proverbial can. A fair number of these states had to be held at gunpoint to eliminate slavery.

[flagged]

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#677

Post by codeAligned »

afavour wrote: post #441
agumonkey wrote: post #350

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…

> 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.

Wait, are you intentionally ignoring the fact that OF is the middleman? Because it definitely is, making about 1 billion dollars off of 5 billion dollars of transactions. Or are you saying OF is a "good non-toxic middleman".

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#678

Post by duckmysick »

kreims wrote: post #669
RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #242

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…

The disturbing societal implications speak for themselves. Personally, I suspect a significant fraction of transactions on Only Fans or “influencer” platforms are money laundering or social engineering campaigns by deeply resourced actors. There may be a large number of clients that are bots making random subscriptions to keep the network alive and large enough to make moving targeted funds harder to observe. A plaus…

To clarify, in this scenario, the confidential informant would be a streamer or an influencer - a person that has a sizeable following, operates in public, and creates a lot of attention? And that there's a large network of such informants and none of them were compromised (had their true nature exposed in public)?

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#679

Post by QuercusMax »

makeitdouble wrote: post #501
paxys wrote: post #281

> The company counted an average of only 42 employees in 2023, down from 61 two years earlier. During the year, it generated $31MM in net revenue per employee (13-28x that of Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft) and $15.5MM in operating profit (27-560x). This is the wildest part. One company that is proving all the "why does need 10000 engineers?" takes true.

My gut feeling is this number doesn't match our assumptions. For instance moderation and community management alone must be a huge pool of people. While the content and comments can be adult, they'll need to deal with all the payment related back and forth, including chargebacks, legal inquiries etc. Same for doxxing, underage filtering, spam and so on. I assume most if not all of it is a different company which isn'…

...and of course, the actual content isn't being created by employees.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#680

Post by Animats »

So this is a VC writing, observing that they have a stable, profitable business model. Creators get 80% of revenue, which is pretty good. It creates a moat - nobody taking a bigger cut is likely to get the desirable talent. Most of the creators don't make much, which is normal for creative industries. Music and books work that way.

OnlyFans has only about 42 employees. They didn't hire a bloated staff. That's impressive considering the sheer volume of content that passes through their servers.

It looks like OnlyFans has figured out how to do the porno business in a more or less legit way. So what's the problem?

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