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Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

matthewball.co

711–720 of 878 posts

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fascinating perspective. I wonder if there was any pushback when recording was first introduced? A quick search shows... of course there was! https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/06/06/the-record-eff... https://archive.is/PDR04

Kurt Vonnegut wrote in a couple of places about how recording and mass reproduction destroyed the social (and monetary) value of small-time creative or artistic-expression talent, like knowing how to play the piano OK or being a pretty-good singer or dancing decently well, or being a quite good (but not top 0.1% good) storyteller, or being fairly good at sketching people. Took social, and perhaps making-a-living valu…

I see the same things emerging in the computing realm. Really, we don't need you to come over and help with X, ill just get off-the-shelf commoditized do-hickey and we'll be all set. I'd like to think the same won't be said for developers in the future.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#712

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…

I have an onlyfans and I constantly see people talking about this parasocial relationship thing and how people are managing accounts. Maybe for the big people but I know a lot of onlyfans models by way of working in the industry for 20 years. My first sysadmin job was for a porn company where I interacted with talent a lot. I don't know anyone amateur with social media management.

Anyway, a lot of people who have never used the site before think it's mostly what you said. It's not. The parasocial stuff is tiny unless you're doing specific kinks for people.

What I tell most people not familiar with the industry is that it's usually more like seeing someone in real life (NOT a porn star, celeb, etc, amateurs only) that you've got a crush on naked for only $10/mo. It has the amateur thing a lot of people love. Another reddit comment is always "Why pay when porn is free?" Have you never had a crush on someone? And amateur porn is probably the biggest "kink" I feel weird even calling it a kink, I'm practically on the "who doesnt like amateur porn??" end.

That's 90% of the customers. Lots of people who think a youtuber or instagram or whatever not professionally showing themselves off is just hot and want to see them naked.

I've never spoken to a single customer. I'm a straight man and most of mine are men and I have no interest or desperation for money to do para/kink stuff.

I really don't get why so many people think onlyfans is about messaging talent back and forth. It's kind of annoying to constantly read because it always comes from non-OF users who have this weird morality/ethics problem with sex work. It makes no sense if you know anything about porn. Most people jack off in silence and close their laptop and there aren't thousands of onlyfans models with media managers. Most are 18-25yo women who work corporate jobs or bartenders and have their own life to live. They treat it like youtube, upload content a few times a week and never look at messages.

Don't kink shame, stop with the "I don't know why anyone uses this instead of that, you're a loser if you pay for porn" thing. You like what you like, other people like what they like.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#713

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…

> Because clearly it’s not about the content per see which is a dim a dozen and available for free in trove.

Naked people aren't fungible.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#714

> Usually, such a ban would destroy a media platforms’ business model, but browser-based experiences are fine for viewing photos and videos and sending messages (in contrast, most games can’t even run). And while apps tend to offer better user experiences and far simpler payment processes, most OnlyFans customers aren’t dissuaded by the need to use a browser, nor the extra hoops involved in manually entering a credit…

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Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that success is earned through luck rather than merit is a firmly ideological position, regardless of the domain you’re talking about. If you succeeded via luck then that provides a better moral justification for the related ideological position that you should be deprived of the fruits of your labor as much as possible, for redistribution to others who were simply less lucky than you. It’s really just sour…

One of the few domains where this is testable has also demonstrated this. Writing is about as hard to break into as anything, yet Stephen King demonstrated success writing under a completely unknown alias. [1] No he didn't immediately received the same level of reception and success as Stephen King does, but neither did Stephen King at first! That's why it's skill + dedication. If you look at some of the old videos o…

> One of the few domains where this is testable has also demonstrated this. Writing is about as hard to break into as anything, yet Stephen King demonstrated success writing under a completely unknown alias.

I don't think it actually demonstrates this. As your wording hints, the hard part of writing is getting yourself out of the slush pile and into an editor and publisher's hands, and Stephen King's actions relied on his existing relationship with said editor and publisher to publish under a different name. He never demonstrated pulling the feat of escaping the slush pile again.

In modern content creation, the similar metric is getting to, say, 1k views, or even as prosaically simple as being part of the 50% of streamers to get 1 view. It's not sufficient to have talent to get to even that level of success; there is a lot of luck necessary to get you there.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feels like you're being treated uniquely... But most times you are not. That's just any customer business. When you go buy a house it feels like the agent is really looking at your personal circumstances and trying hard to be your friend. When you go cut your hair the staff will remember your name and ask about your day. Your dentist will keep track of your operations, personalize your care and make sure you're…

The first time my dental hygienist asked a small talk question referencing something I said last visit, I was impressed by their memory/vaguely flattered . The second time it happened I was pretty sure they're just writing notes about what to say in my record. Especially when the new hygienist did the same trick :)

I worked in the pizza business before there are some regular customers that you pretty much would call friends. similar to work friends.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#718

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.

> I have a friend who is a successful OF model and only a fraction of one percent of her subscribers ever DM her.

I have a friend who produces a few successful OF models and makes about 5-10x a good SF tech salary. He has a whole army of sexters who impersonate models and DM with fans. Vast majority of his income comes not from subscriptions, but from content sold in these DMs, content which is presented as "exclusive" to the buyer.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#719

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!

I'm amending this because I've found that MM is commonly used in finance, so it's not like the author chose to go rogue.

Also

> It's so easy to stick to international units, folks. Please. PLEASE!

should be to stick to the language's usage of units. Not necessarily international units.

Even though the comment doesn't exactly apply now that I know MM can be used in finance, but I wanted to correct it to have a broader coverage.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dtaisk Afai. Cof Lemma, 19:1, 2, 549-552 / https://www.jstor.org/stable/25414613 Let me first give you four quotations. Firstly: “Our youth loves luxury, has bad manners, disregards authority, and has no respect whatsoever for age. Our children today are tyrants; they do not get up when an elderly man enters the room—they talk back to their parents—they are just very bad.” Secondly: “I no longer have any hope for the…

Firstly: The Plato quote is fake - It was crafted by a student, Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907. Secondly: Hesiod was right, his culture no longer exists. ;-) Thirdly: Yep, that quote is fake too. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/22/world-end/ Can't find any sources on that fourth one, but I suggest that the British Medical Journal might want to update their article.

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