[HN Gopher] OnlyFans seeks new funding and a pivot away from porn
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OnlyFans seeks new funding and a pivot away from porn
Author : xenocyon
Score : 30 points
Date : 2021-06-21 17:48 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Pivot away from the model that has made you great. What could go
| wrong.
| Giorgi wrote:
| Ah yes, kill the business model that makes you popular, like
| digg, and tumblr
| whateveracct wrote:
| porn wasn't what made tumblr likeable though..
| genmud wrote:
| Yea, but it was a huge amount of their traffic [1] and they
| never have recovered [2]. Even during the pandemic, while
| people were spending more time online, tumblrs usage has been
| lackluster, while other sites like fb have had consistent
| growth [3].
|
| So, to say porn might not have been what made it likeable
| might be true, but porn certainly was one of the big drivers
| of traffic.
|
| [1] - https://www.statista.com/chart/17378/tumblr-traffic/
|
| [2] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/261925/unique-
| visitors-t...
|
| [3] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/346167/facebook-
| global-d...
| whateveracct wrote:
| the site is better without that traffic tbh
|
| i'm discussing the site as a product. it's a better product
| now, and that sentiment is pretty widespread by its engaged
| users. Sending the porn to other, more growth-obsessed
| platforms was worth it.
|
| How long tumblr will last - i don't know. Its users are not
| very monetizable. But as a social media website, it is
| comically superior to twitter and facebook. And my argument
| is the exact things that cause you to say it is bad are why
| it is superior.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > It's also looking to attract more advertisers, some of which
| may be wary of its porn ties.
|
| I don't understand why a _profitable_ company wants to attract
| this cancer.
| evgen wrote:
| If I were to guess it would be that to those on the inside it
| is obvious where the PPV porn numbers top out at in terms of
| near-future revenue and that these numbers are not sufficient
| to justify the valuation growth that they want to see.
| Profitable is nice, but if you want to build a unicorn you have
| to aim for bigger profits and lower risk than what the current
| OnlyFans model provides.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I really dislike this entire mentality so much. At what point
| did we go from a place where you have a diverse set of
| companies making good revenues and profits and serve their
| audiences well to this crappy model of everyone trying to be
| the next Instagram.
|
| Adult content creators are probably going to get booted off
| at some point for 'ad-friendliness' despite the fact that
| they helped build most of it.
| CPLNTN wrote:
| If they did this they will end up like tumblr: in the
| oblivion. They have the luck to be profitable, differently
| from tumblr. Them pivoting to non porn would be a choice,
| not a necessity like tumblr
| bsder wrote:
| On the Internet, you're either growing or dying.
|
| Do we have even a single example of an Internet company
| that has been constant and consistently profitable over 10
| years?
|
| Tarsnap, maybe?
| wand3r wrote:
| Basecamp
| bsder wrote:
| Who seem to have recently had a meltdown and compensation
| seems to be part of it.
| CPLNTN wrote:
| Yeah, a meltdown in the Twitter virtue signaling bubble.
| lethologica wrote:
| Craigslist.
| llampx wrote:
| There are plenty of such sites. You don't hear about them
| in the Web Dev/Startup bubble because they're just
| getting on with life and their business model, not open-
| sourcing the latest JavaScript framework du jour.
| naravara wrote:
| If I were them I would spin off the adult stuff into a sub-
| brand. It can be the same technology, administration, ops,
| everything. Seems easier than strangling the goose that lays
| golden eggs.
| jorams wrote:
| But "the adult stuff" _is_ their brand. The fact that you
| can use the service for anything is more of a sidenote. The
| question "do you have an onlyfans?" implies "adult stuff".
| ozten wrote:
| Recently there was a great interview on IndieHackers with two of
| the top earners on OnlyFans
| https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/211-aella-savannah-solo
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Why do this and not just create an OnlyHoldings with OnlyFans as
| one of the wholly owned companies, and divert some capital from
| that business into a new venture then cross-promote on the
| existing platform.
| Ken_At_EM wrote:
| I personally would agree with this approach. It sounds like
| someone on their leadership team was never fundamentally or
| spiritually at peace with being a platform for pornography.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > Companies such as Sticky's Finger Joint, a restaurant chain
| specializing in chicken fingers, have joined OnlyFans as part of
| their marketing strategies.
|
| I assume people aren't paying a monthly subscription to follow
| their favorite chicken finger company. So is OnlyFans trying to
| pivot into the next big social media platform? Are they trying to
| compete with Cameo and Patreon or are they trying to compete with
| Facebook/Instagram and Twitter?
| rarec wrote:
| Sounds like what caused the mindshare death of Tumblr.
|
| Pivoting away from the core reason you make money even if it's
| not the intended use case seems like a great way to cause the
| death of your company.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Tumblr is doing fine though. The people making good posts &
| talking to each other didn't leave.
|
| It may be fewer users (and fewer $$), but tumblr is waaay
| better since the NSFW ban. And I'd even say due to it.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Tumblr is doing fine though.
|
| Citation needed. My impression is their MAU and time spent on
| site went to the floor.
| whateveracct wrote:
| ? those metrics do not affect how good of a product and
| website it is for me and all the people who use it tho
|
| maybe if you have your business boy hat on for some reason
| it isn't doing fine?
| elliekelly wrote:
| You're forgetting that those metrics are hugely important
| to tumblr because those metrics are hugely important to
| tumblr's customers: advertisers. The reason they claim
| the policy change was necessary in the first place.
|
| I don't know what you mean by "business boy hat" - could
| this be a typo?
| whateveracct wrote:
| well they had the indirect effect of making the product
| better for their (unpaying) users.
|
| When it comes to tumblr, I quite frankly don't give 2
| shits about their advertisers. Why should I? Maybe the
| site will be shut down someday? You'd think that ship
| would've sailed.
| moralestapia wrote:
| What? You're delusional.
|
| Those metrics are literally the bread and butter of
| social networks.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Not only did Tumblr activity collapse after the NSFW ban, but
| in the subjects I follow, activity seems to have settled on a
| niche of transwomen blogging about hobby or interest X, where
| their posts are mainly about being a transwoman interested in
| such things and not the hobby or interest itself. I
| understand that Tumblr has value for those transwomen wanting
| to express themselves and build community with others, but it
| has become a network relevant to only a tiny, tiny percentage
| of the population.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Is it possible you are in some kind of algorithm filter
| bubble?
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| No, it's just that intellectual subjects on Tumblr always
| attracted a certain share of neuroatypical people, and
| once the majority of users left Tumblr, only the
| neuroatypical remained.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Tumblr has plenty of discussion about hobbies, TV shows,
| anime, video games, etc. If you like a certain thing,
| tumblr is a great way to be exposed to people discussing
| it, making text jokes about it, making fanart about it,
| etc. That has been literally unaffected by the NSFW ban in
| the many fandoms I follow on it.
|
| There are people like you describe, but it doesn't dominate
| the platform imo. It's easy enough to get a lot out of
| tumblr.
| TX0098812 wrote:
| Hmm..
|
| "tumblr is waaay better since the NSFW ban" and "It may be
| fewer users (and fewer $$)"
|
| These don't seem to add up.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Yes they do.
|
| There's as much or more tumblr activity for my dashboard &
| on my blog. I get way fewer porn spam bots following me
| now. And people generally seem to be happy with the website
| & are continuing to use it to talk about the stuff they
| like.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Do you think the value judgment of tumblr should be based
| on revenue or user count?
| hinkley wrote:
| Why not fork instead of pivot?
|
| Why do we have to do this other thing too, instead of having a
| subsidiary that does that other thing?
|
| Is it because we've vastly overestimated the power of the
| network effect?
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(page generated 2021-06-21 23:02 UTC)