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Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

matthewball.co

791–800 of 878 posts

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a horrible way to go about life, and I am glad most do not share your outlook and do take moral responsibility for their actions.

I would simply not let my children decide to buy drugs based on what the free market provides

Unless you plan on keeping your kids on a leash 24/7, best you can hope for is they won't get curious and their friends won't pressure them into it.

There's a reason regulation exists, it's to stop morally bankrupt people from exploiting people. Unfortunately it doesn't go far enough, like with the existence of OF.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#792
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.

If transactional sex becomes the norm, while amorous sex becomes scarce, there a few unwanted consequences for the whole society. A few examples: the access to reproduction for the poor is decreased, men in particular feeling unwanted, unable to find a partner and in general feeling uninvested in the common good, which inevitably leads to violence. Yes, it is extreme, but incels in the Western world are a thing and so are 30 million Chinese men who will not have a partner because there are fewer women in that generation.

This is why in general it is frowned upon by "certain members of society" as you call them.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#793
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd say the set of people who want an AI girlfriend and the set of people whose defining trait is a lack of empathy is probably a bigger overlap than you think. The defining trait of people who want an AI girlfriend is ugly, lonely men. Is lack of empathy the defining characteristic of ugly men? Or is it simply that people in general hate ugly people and thus ascribe various ills and character faults to them? I'd s…

I know plenty of ugly men in committed, loving relationships. You're the one bringing up looks. I don't think it matters what you look like; if you want to date a computer you have some kind of psychiactric disorder.

Just because "plenty" of ugly men might end up with something, does not pose a contradiction.

Nobody "wants" to be in a romantic relationship with an ugly person or computers.

Now just because some people end up doing that, does not mean that it is what they want. It might just be the best option available to them.

Given the choice however they would always rather have someone handsome and gorgeous instead.

Looks are supremely crucially important for somebody to seriously crush on you, be genuinely infatuated with you and have a deep burning desire.

An ugly undesirable dude or ugly fat chick is not ever going to experience this, surely they might (or might not) end up with a pleasant relationship of convenience... but it is not what they want. Works of fiction and computers are the only way they can experience a glimpse of desire and infatuation aimed at them.

This really isn't that hard to understand for people who have empathy.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#794

> 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…

People are always so defensive of this stuff but the metrics at any company will show you users are more engaged and convert better in apps than on web by a lot. While the individual claims might not be true for an individual browser experience, the average brings down the whole and users still hold the perception that apps are easier to use. It is why companies continue to invest despite mobile being a PITA.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#795
post #740
post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the wildest part. One company that is proving all the "why does need 10000 engineers?" takes true. Generally speaking, needs engineers because it's rational to keep hiring while each incremental engineer generates more value than they cost in salary and overhead, even if some of those engineers are at less than 50% utilisation and have to generate pointless make-work for themselves to get past performance r…

that sounds like a path to an unsustainable situation where your company is run by socially adept fratboys and charismatic politicians instead of hackers, with company leadership insulated from actual facts on the ground by many layers of middle managers with strong incentives to lie? even if those incremental engineers are generating more value at first, they won't be able to continue doing so when most of the compa…

too much assumptions in the first sentence

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#796

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…

You could say that about anything related to the internet. But yes when shown extreme examples it’s obvious how unokay it is.

As a person who tried to start a startup but had been hacked and assaulted by the organizations who seem to maintain their monopoly by whatever methods they can use it’s more like a mob of pimps than a single pimp.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Websites also never throw up a dialog saying "This app has expired. Please update it to continue." Almost all my apps do this to me about once a month. [Obviously I don't let Android update my apps automatically in the background. That way lies madness.]

Had a big bank’s app force me to update. Ok, updated it. Ok, looks like a total UI refresh. Tried to schedule a bill payment (which previous version could do, uhh, for 10y+) and threw a dialog saying “coming soon”.

Apple requires apps to be updated at least once every 3 years, keeping the dependencies of an app up-to-date is not easy

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#798
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.

We can’t all be purveyors of a TnA

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really thoughtful comment. (An upvote was not enough :-)

Haha, the thoughtful parts are Vonnegut’s. I found an abbreviated quote from the bit I’m thinking of in Bluebeard . Loses some of it, but gets his point across: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/277466-simply-moderate-gift... But I am quite sure I saw similar sentiments at least one other place in his work, and I think a couple places—years and years ago I read most of his novels, plus most of the collected short fict…

His first novel, Player Piano, is about a different, but related theme.

It's about machines replacing human work, but it's not at all about the machines. It's about the people. It's about human dignity. Or, as Vonnegut says, it's about "a problem whose queasy horrors will eventually be made world-wide by the sophistication of machines. The problem is this: How to love people who have no use."

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would have no reservations about a business selling class A drugs to kids? Free market after all.

[flagged]

Just like society should raise people to know the difference between its and it's. JFC.
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