Live data from Hacker News

Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

matthewball.co

761–770 of 878 posts

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#761

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…

This is very close to my feelings about the swathe of AI tools being released. The ability to write an essay, create unique art, spit out a SQL script, write a pithy limerick... all these things are being cheapened somewhat.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow, how is listening to music performed by another human live different from watching another human performing a sexy act live ? The analog to actually having sex would be playing with the band on the stage.

Fair point. The reason I don’t think only playing with the band counts is: in a hunter gather tribe 70,000 years ago, did everyone sing all of the songs all of the time? Or did some people just listen, at least some of the time? Practically speaking I think it must have been the latter. Of course there are lots of unnatural aspects in live music still, like too many people, too loud, etc. But recorded music is wholly…

Highly recommend the book "This is your brain on music", as it explores this question (among other interesting things).

According to the author, having separate words for singing and dancing is a relatively new phenomenon in linguistics, and the concept of a performer and an audience as a distinct separation is also relatively recent. He likens it to conversation - sure in any given instance there may be people more or less involved in the dialog of a conversation, but we would all think it very strange if someone said "I only listen to conversations, I don't talk in them" in the way someone today might say "I only listen to music, I don't sing/play/dance".

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#763
post #754
post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or 'cute guy turns out to have enough of a hangup about your past sex work to not date you' (which apparently doesn't necessarily imply he's not relationship material, though i'd think it ought to) Obviously such a person is not relationship material for a sex worker, but why would you think he ought not be relationship material for anyone else?

well, i was more thinking about a former sex worker, a group which includes many more of your friends and acquaintances than you're likely aware of. i'd think of it as much less of a red flag for anyone else! still, it's a clue that what he wants out of the relationship is not an equal partner but a sort of brood mare or something. here in argentina, the kind of guys who would have a problem with former sex work ofte…

> well, i was more thinking about a former sex worker, a group which includes many more of your friends and acquaintances than you're likely aware of.

People say stuff like that, but I'm skeptical. It probably indicates more about "your friends and acquaintances" than mine.

> still, it's a clue that what he wants out of the relationship is not an equal partner but a sort of brood mare or something.

I don't think you can infer that from not wanting to date a former sex worker, and you seem to be fixated on a certain stereotype (which may be super common in Argentina, for all I know). Others may not want to date a former sex worker for other reasons, for instance because the choosing sex work indicates a willingness to use intimacy transactionally and to be manipulative (or at least insincere) as well as experience and habits of doing that.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but what I'm really looking for is the account given by its adherents. I want to hear in their own terms, because I genuinely don't know if I can understand the idea in terms of my own experience. I can make it make sense to me, sure; anyone can do that with almost anything. I don't have a guide to how closely that would correspond to the sense made of it by the people who actually pursue it. Third-party opinio…

Fair points. If I may add my own perception of their reality, these are often nymph like teen which maps the usual boy feminine ideal.. so instead of fantasizing about it in comics or animes they have real ones behind screens to interact / drool / peep on, which is also a very boy like mindset. Later on your understanding of beauty, love, relationship evolves beyond that thin layer. It's their neverending christmas.

That's certainly a perspective.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#765

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…

> it feels like you could have said the same towards people buying pricy concert tickets when there's royalty free music abundantly available. The analogy holds. Most people don't pay concert tickets for the music itself. It's the experience, the crowd, the physical presence of the artists, etc.

Yeah... if the main goal is to listen to the music - most concerts are a terrible way of doing that.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your women in tech won’t be SWERFs last two decades all the representation was sex worker exclusionary, fighting for a libidoless morph of the corporate world, talking over and on behalf of any women that thought or acted differently glad that was temporary booth babes and atmosphere models coming back soon

only if i can be a booth hunk

With some waxing and a tan I could probably swing this gig. Not sure it'd be worth the associated male attention though.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#767
post #763
post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, i was more thinking about a former sex worker, a group which includes many more of your friends and acquaintances than you're likely aware of. i'd think of it as much less of a red flag for anyone else! still, it's a clue that what he wants out of the relationship is not an equal partner but a sort of brood mare or something. here in argentina, the kind of guys who would have a problem with former sex work ofte…

> well, i was more thinking about a former sex worker, a group which includes many more of your friends and acquaintances than you're likely aware of. People say stuff like that, but I'm skeptical. It probably indicates more about "your friends and acquaintances" than mine. > still, it's a clue that what he wants out of the relationship is not an equal partner but a sort of brood mare or something. I don't think you…

i do think sex work is more common in argentina than in other places i've lived. misogynists don't seem to be

i'm not just talking about a simple stereotype, though; i'm talking about a whole misogynistic ideology which is so widespread that you have to understand it in order to give any coherency to widely used phrases like 'sell your body' or 'purity ring'

i don't have any experience with prostitutes or camgirls as a client or social media manager or anything, so i can't really speak to their transactional use of intimacy and manipulativity, or lack thereof. they certainly seem sincere enough in the social interactions i've had with them, though hard to shock and rather unwilling to 'go along to get along' or to use euphemisms

intuitively i'd think that such a 'willingness to use intimacy transactionally and be manipulative' would tend to improve their earning potential, as with waitresses who are willing to flirt with clients, or psychologists whose work depends on clients trusting them with intimate emotional details, but many other factors seem like they'd come into play in all of these situations

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#768
post #763
post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, i was more thinking about a former sex worker, a group which includes many more of your friends and acquaintances than you're likely aware of. i'd think of it as much less of a red flag for anyone else! still, it's a clue that what he wants out of the relationship is not an equal partner but a sort of brood mare or something. here in argentina, the kind of guys who would have a problem with former sex work ofte…

> well, i was more thinking about a former sex worker, a group which includes many more of your friends and acquaintances than you're likely aware of. People say stuff like that, but I'm skeptical. It probably indicates more about "your friends and acquaintances" than mine. > still, it's a clue that what he wants out of the relationship is not an equal partner but a sort of brood mare or something. I don't think you…

> and to be manipulative

sex work seems to be anything but manipulative. It is rather blunt. Give me money and I will provide this service. Said service can be pretending acting like someone who actually love doing it for you or have feelings but this "acting" is not hidden.

If your issue is manipulative and insincere people, I would say the people you want to avoid are people working in politics, marketing, insurers or people reaching some level of management in general.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#769
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…

OTOH this is not the same as "VHS" porn of the past decades. A few decades ago, there weren't that many "productions", performers were much fewer and some porn performers name were known by anyone, regardless if you had seen porn with them staring or not. A person getting out of the business and trying to make a new career would have a high chance of meeting people, especially men, in real life who might have seen at…

This is a topic I can speak on. I was a top male performer on one of the live sites about 10 years ago. I've went on to having a successful career in software, it helped me afford getting through college, I'm not sure I would have had the career I did without that help.

I think the odds of getting recognized were a bit lower for me being a male, my peak live viewership was a little over 1k viewers. A video of me also got reposted and featured on PornHub gay and was able to accumulate ~100k views before I was able to get it taken down. There are still plenty of videos around that I wasn't able to get taken down but the big sites like PornHub respect DMCA takedown requests.

Regarding getting recognized, I think you are somewhat right but it likely still happens. I had 2 people recognize me in person, only 1 found my real name because they recognized me at my college graduation. Nothing came of it besides them trying to add me on FaceBook. I think for girls they would be more likely to get recognized if they are successful because they get a lot more viewers.

I was lucky that nobody that did recognize me posted anywhere about what my real name is since that would be a way to find the videos of me when people search my real name. I think that is probably the biggest risk with performing is that if that association happens, it would probably be hard to wipe that association from the internet. One way out of it for women though is that they could take their spouses last name when they get married, their new name wouldn't be associated with the old porn name.

I have told people in my life about that past job. It had no impact on any of those relationships and never really came up again. So if it did come up again, I don't think it would have much impact on my life. In my mind, sex work is real work and those who do it should not be shamed for doing it.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#770
post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not surprising.

[flagged]

You broke the site guidelines repeatedly in this thread. That's not cool. We have to ban accounts that post this way.

I'm not going to ban you this time because you've also posted good things and I didn't see a pattern of it in your account history. But please don't do it again.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

(I'm not commenting on your views about porn or anything else. We don't care about that. But we care a lot about you following the rules, just as with any other commenter.)

Post reply on HN