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Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

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Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#841

Post by benterix »

ath3nd wrote: post #422
akimbostrawman wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I wonder why that's a socially acceptable way of "selling" their body, but prostitution is not. Probably because its not the same at all. Getting naked and spreading your legs is neither as productive nor difficult as serving your country. Neither should it have the same social status.

> Getting naked and spreading your legs is neither as productive nor difficult as serving your country We have different moral compasses, I guess. To me, obeying military orders (which often result in killing people) is neither productive, nor difficult (as a big part of thinking/initiative is replaced by blindly following orders). Military personnel basically outsource a large chunk of thinking and assessing good/ba…

> Imo, money spent on weapons and the military could be better spent to build more social housing, solve healthcare problems, etc.

In an ideal world, 100% yes.

In our world, where every now and again a crazy power-hungry dictator appears and wages a war against a weaker country and is killing civilians - unfortunately it's a comfort we can't afford.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#842

Post by joenot443 »

luuurker wrote: post #369
joenot443 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly recommend this thread. I think these kind of honest post-mortems from founders are super valuable and Cyan's delivery is frank and charitable. It seems she and Justin Mares are running some kind of micro-funding for passionate https://www.inflectiongrants.com/

> Highly recommend this thread. Shame that Twitter doesn't let people without an account to read it.

It is a shame. The accountification of the web is a huge bummer, I'm totally with you on that.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#843

Post by eszed »

lucb1e wrote: post #684
eszed wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just guessing, but OF's social interaction (or "interaction", if you will) with creators was more appealing whilst we were all starved for human connection.

There's various places where you can talk directly with the person offering their services though, that's not something OF newly introduced to the internet -- if that's what you meant by their "social interaction" since I haven't used OF so could be missing a detail

Yeah, it sounds like nothing they did was really new (though maybe packaged and marketed in fresh ways), but did manage to line up with the zeitgeist - perhaps including the Pandemic - in ways other companies didn't.

It's all in the timing, sometimes.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#845

Post by philwelch »

gspencley wrote: post #617
philwelch wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get porn anywhere. The selling point of OnlyFans is specifically the parasocial connection. These people are paying money to exchange DM’s with LLM’s and third world gig workers pretending to be their favorite porn star.

You're making an assumption. I owned an operated a "free" adult website for 18 years. For 15 years it was my primary source of income. During those years I always got a kick out of "there is so much free porn online, why would anyone ever pay for it?" The way that my website worked was that it was very content-rich and content-focused. The content came directly from the affiliate programs that I was advertising for.…

I appreciate your comment and I find your stories interesting. I'm saying this because I'm going to clarify my point in a way that might otherwise come across as dismissive. I know people pay for porn. I was specifically talking about what differentiates OnlyFans from other paid porn sites, and that's the parasocial aspect. It's not just an unhealthy thing that some people do; it's a huge part of how they distinguish themselves from the decades-established online porn industry.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#846

Post by steve_adams_86 »

Ekaros wrote: post #630
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it was always monetized as well, but the internet allows for both for a massive increase in followers and an increasingly easy path for money to move from the followers’ wallets to the celebrities. It seems new or unprecedented, but similar models have existed on smaller scales for thousands of years at least.

Think back to ancient philosophers. Who got students to pay for their work or students parents, or just outright donations... And later various artists both those creating works and performing them. Patronage is very old model.

yes, these are perfect examples. I was going to add people like Jordan Peterson here in Canada, but now I’m not sure if he’s entirely different. Maybe he would have qualified as a philosopher worth teaching people 2000 years ago. He’s certainly intelligent. Perhaps his model of gathering attention is the part that’s different, yet even that I’m not entirely sure of… But people like him do seem to be part of that new phenomenon that the internet has enabled.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#847

Post by GuB-42 »

chgs wrote: post #838
GuB-42 wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most people who form parasocial relationships don't actually believe it to be two-way.

It feels like it is two-way, in other words, it is an illusion, but just like with optical illusions, you don't have to believe them. For example, mirages may look a lot like water, but people who are familiar with them know it is just a trick of their senses and don't assume there is water there. Same thing for parasocial relationships, even the most intense. Proof is, parasocial relationships with fictional characters is common, and most people who feel a bound with Harry Potter are not crazy enough to believe the feelings are shared, as they are aware that Harry Potter doesn't actually exist.

And yes, I believe that parasocial relationships are extremely common and in most case, positive or at least harmless. I don't believe reading biographies is always parasocial though, it could just be the search for academic knowledge, without any feeling of connection, but done repeatedly, in can become one, which is again, not necessarily a bad thing.

You can absolutely have a parasocial relationship with Anne Boleyn, and I suspect most people who study her in depth do, as picturing oneself with her can help better understand her life and its historical context. It is essentially a mind hack, instead of just using logic, you also use emotions.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#848

Post by rldjbpin »

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.

survival bias for platform services.

funnily enough out of the 42 employees still there, i assume less than a fourth are actually engineers.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#849

Post by AshamedCaptain »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #466
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would I be happy if after the education I paid my daughters they decide to work in public sanitation? Think honestly about it. Do you think I have anything against sanitation employees?

Bad comparison. Public sanitation workers keep our society functioning, they're a cornerstone of civilization. Online prostitution, on the other hand, ranges from providing 0 value, to extreme negative consequences, such as the current porn addiction epidemic, or the loneliness epidemic.

The GP, trying to show how 'bad' profession A was, was making the argument that the average HN reader would look badly on his progeny participating in profession A. I simply made the argument that the average HN reader would also look badly on his progeny doing profession B. Obviously, my point is not to throw shit on profession B but rather show that GP's argument simply does not work.

The fact that you think profession B > A only reinforces my point and shows, precisely, that GP's argument does not work.

Re: Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics

#850

Post by standardUser »

matrix87 wrote: post #807
standardUser wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What toll exactly do you expect people to have to pay? I've been naked on the internet for money. That content is still there. It has not impacted me adversely in any way, nor has it had a negative impact on the many women I know who have created adult content. If anything, for me it has been fun and liberating. I think you're just projecting.

Some jobs have more of those expectations. If you don't have to worry about them that just reflects your own advantageous position

That seems like a false claim - that "advantageous" jobs are less likely to care. I'd argue people seeking high-visibility, high-prestige jobs are more at risk from backlash about having made porn. But thanks for playing.
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