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Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

matthewball.co

831–840 of 878 posts

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? it’s so easy to make content

Well folks appreciate different things and to different degrees. Some are born with natural talents and others work hard for it. Regardless, folks generally get at least some respect for doing the work to produce things others appreciate. Stigmatizing OF work seems unfair when so much praise is heaped on creators and workers of all other kinds.

It is not unfair if it clashes with cultural values. It is like coming to HN, going against the majority sentiment, and expecting likes

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#832

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. I have paid for PPV. Why? I have disposable income and I feel good when I spend it supporting creators I like. I subscribe to several Patreons of artists and YouTube creators, I’ve got that yearly Nebula subscription locked in, I buy merch and CDs from local bands (even though I don’t really listen to them after shows), and I also will pay folks posting tantalizing stuff on the internet. Sure I can…

> Sure I can get similar things for free, but sometimes I want content from that person and I see no issue giving them a couple bucks for it. I can afford it, so why not? Why do they not deserve it when I’m willing to also sub to a Patreon for someone who makes cool digital art on Instagram?

I don't really understand this. Digital art on Instagram is generally unique, but porn is not. Sure, there are some onlyfans models that cater to a very niche kink - I get why people would pay for that. But most of them just post regular naked photos/videos of themselves.

What is the value proposition here? You probably wouldn't pay for a Patreon of an artist that draws those generic boring corporate illustrations that every company uses, even though they have a use and still take effort to create. So why would you support a specific person that makes content which is not in any way different from any other person like that?

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#833

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> the point is she chose to include transgender characters Which character in Troubled Blood is transgender? Is there a transgender character in The Ink Black Heart ? It's not Dennis Creed as I recall from my reading some time past, certainly not Edie Ledwell. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41536875

[flagged]

Is this non sequitur from a meconium account intended to convey a meaningful response, or is it a baby-bot randomly attaching nonsense to threads to establish a beachhead?

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#834

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Wait until we need to talk about billions!

How to forget one of the holy wars of natural languages, with half the world using it to mean "one million million", and the other half using it to mean "one thousand million". Still less confusing than "mph" (I always read it as "meters per hour" and have to go back to correct myself).

> Still less confusing than "mph" (I always read it as "meters per hour" and have to go back to correct myself).

I always read "mph" as miles/hour and "m/h" as "meters/hour"

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#835
post #821
post #767

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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…

> 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' Honestly, it seems like you're conflating many different things (e.g. the "mileage" thing above, "purity rings," and the pejorative connotation of "sell your body") in…

you have some good points, and i appreciate the exchange

one clarification, though: i wasn't talking about the pejorative connotation of "selling your body", but rather the idea that a prostitution transaction amounts to a sale of a physical good (a body) rather than a rental of the good (and a sale of a service). to be coherent, this entails the premise that the sexual encounter leaves that good seriously and irreversibly damaged—and that the prostitute's client is not similarly damaged. indeed, a weak implication is that he benefits from the transaction

as for male prostitutes, part of the same meme-complex in many cultures is that being penetrated is what damages and degrades you; this is often bound up with ideas of male superiority, because the male role in vanilla penis-in-vagina intercourse is the role of the penetrator. in other cultural contexts, what's considered degrading is sex with men, who are of course almost always the clients of male prostitutes. but i agree that there is a lot of variation

there is also a lot of variation between people, and someone might be fertile ground for the 'purity ring' meme not because they feel that sex degrades women (or penetratees) but because it's just dirty and impure all around. this is the underlying metaphor for idioms like 'taint' (as a synonym for 'genitalia'), 'dirty joke', 'dirty old man', and so on. but you may be aware that boys wearing 'purity rings' is kind of a man-bites-dog phenomenon, rare enough to draw comment. the wikipedia article says that it became the 'focus of media attention' on the jonas brothers (the celebrities you mention)

someone who finds sex repulsive might be relationship material, but not for a conventional allosexual monogamous relationship. they could work well with an asexual partner or a polyamorous partner

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have subscribed. I have paid for PPV. Why? I have disposable income and I feel good when I spend it supporting creators I like. I subscribe to several Patreons of artists and YouTube creators, I’ve got that yearly Nebula subscription locked in, I buy merch and CDs from local bands (even though I don’t really listen to them after shows), and I also will pay folks posting tantalizing stuff on the internet. Sure I can…

> Sure I can get similar things for free, but sometimes I want content from that person and I see no issue giving them a couple bucks for it. I can afford it, so why not? Why do they not deserve it when I’m willing to also sub to a Patreon for someone who makes cool digital art on Instagram? I don't really understand this. Digital art on Instagram is generally unique, but porn is not. Sure, there are some onlyfans mo…

> content which is not in any way different from any other person like that?

Because their content is different enough. Getting back to the art example: everyone’s art is unique BUT you can still find other artists that are similar. Sure there will exist other models who look very nearly the same at first glance, but everybody is, in fact, unique! And even two people with nearly identical physiques may create different material. The differences may be subtle to some but very distinguishable to others.

I might just have an eye for the small differences too. I am friends with several people who take lascivious photos of themselves for fun and/or profit. I get to talk with them about it - context, lighting, angles, etc. I just dang ol’ appreciate the craft! It’s not always an attraction thing or arousal thing: the human form is gorgeous and beautiful and utterly divine and manifests in so many different shapes and sizes! And taking well-crafted photographs of any subject is an art!

And maybe that’s why I gravitate towards it - so much pornography is like junk food, but not all adult content has to be! Some of it is like a well crafted meal, featuring quality ingredients prepared well by a skilled cook :)

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#837
post #314

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The vast majority of people are also not paying OnlyFans.

9.4% of men in an official Swedish study from 2017 said they have paid for sexual services (0.5% of women). It's a minority but still almost 1/10. I can only imagine that OnlyFans has normalized this behavior a lot since then. There's also the narrative that people on these platforms are choosing to do this because they make a lot of money, and that it's less problematic than the rest of the porn industry somehow. I'…

I wonder how many of those were going to a strip club on a friends drag do

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#838
post #687

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You can like Ryan Gosling and catch every movie he's in. But if you're buying a tabloid so you can see photos of him getting coffee at Starbucks, that's parasocial.

It is also parasocial if you just like Ryan Gosling and watch all his movies. You still have one-way feelings for a personality. It is just that it is not pathological. Parasocial relationships are not bad per se. Let's say you are thinking about Donald Knuth when working on a computer science problem, nothing bad here, taking inspiration from the leaders in the field. But it is also a parasocial relationship, it is…

There’s no neat boundaries - read a Ryan gosling autobiography. How about an autobiography of Einstein. Or a biography? What about watching a film of a historical figure? Do I have a parasocial relationship with Anne Boleyn because I saw Six?

If you’re ignoring the “believe you have a two way relationship” then everything could be defined as parasocial.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as any addiction it steals productive time from people's lives, it leads to social atomization, and consequently to mental issues (which means violence again), economically bad on a level comparable to fentanyl imports, and the list goes on. Well the same could be said of social media, mobile phones, netflix binge, computer games (although I don't agree with the violence part). So why single out sex then?

You are tying to make an argument for destigmatizing sex work, but for me I think it really points out how we should really increase the stigma towards those working for social media giants, sports gambling sites, and other tech companies whose main operating model is actively getting people addicted to something and then profiting off of it. Social media is one of the worst developments for society in recent history…

While I agree with you in general, I see no way to actually sensibly enforce this. Whatever activity you take, it can be abused.

For example Google is abusing their position by feeding a stream of right-wing and related stuff to my mother because she clicked a Trump video a friend(?) sent her so that she watches more of this stuff, gets more negative emotions, and continues to spend her time on their site. Trying to regulate these things is terribly hard and whatever idea you come up with, the folks at big tech will find a way to go around them.

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