[HN Gopher] The burgeoning business of OnlyFans consulting
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The burgeoning business of OnlyFans consulting
Author : pavanyara
Score : 68 points
Date : 2021-11-11 16:01 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehustle.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehustle.co)
| doodlebugging wrote:
| ...OT and not substantive comment deleted.
| vmception wrote:
| I didn't react to this post but I can tell that its mostly just
| that it isn't substantive, so double check the HN guidelines.
| Its not the story or potential reality - which _also_ doesn 't
| help here - its that your post doesn't add anything, which is a
| community enforced requirement here that enough people pay
| attention to that they don't feel the need to respond. Like,
| maybe if this was an Ask HN thread about being a startup
| payment processor for OnlyFans while simultaneously
| moonlighting on the platform, then your short story would help
| add to the discussion. So even though the divineness of the
| topic did prompt the selective enforcement, it is really just
| that young adult fiction isn't the kind of comment useful in
| the general threads.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Thanks for the clear explanation. I appreciate it.
| teslabox wrote:
| While the rise of OnlyFans is potentially more lucrative for the
| people who in years past might have gotten a one-time payment
| from Playboy/Playgirl, for _society_ OnlyFans is a symptom of
| late-stage degenerate capitalism.
|
| During the last financial crisis I ran across _Money and the
| Crisis of Civilization_ [0], a piece about the monetization of
| services which have traditionally been performed for free: child
| care, meal preparation, etc.
|
| While I'm not opposed to women making more than a one-time fee
| for showing their nipples to the world, I don't think it's
| sustainable. The vast majority of OnlyFans' payments go to a very
| small percentage of the "content creators". And how many of those
| who actually pull in 6 figures will be able to bank it for after
| they inevitably lose their looks?
|
| Could meaningful work be subsidized so women who don't actually
| want to show their nipples to the world can get by without
| feeling pressured into trying to make a quick buck?
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29190513 (just submitted
| pls upvote thx. :)
|
| Some quotes:
|
| > In ancient times entertainment was also a free, participatory
| function. Everyone played an instrument, sang, participated in
| drama. Even 75 years ago in America, every small town had its own
| marching band and baseball team. Now we pay for those services.
| The economy has grown. Hooray.
|
| > Essentially, for the economy to continue growing and for the
| (interest-based) money system to remain viable, more and more of
| nature and human relationship must be monetized. For example,
| thirty years ago most meals were prepared at home; today some
| two-thirds are prepared outside, in restaurants or supermarket
| delis. A once unpaid function, cooking, has become a "service".
| And we are the richer for it. Right? > > Another major engine of
| economic growth over the last three decades, child care, has also
| made us richer. We are now relieved of the burden of caring for
| our own children. We pay experts instead, who can do it much more
| efficiently.
| paulpauper wrote:
| _While the rise of OnlyFans is potentially more lucrative for
| the people who in years past might have gotten a one-time
| payment from Playboy /Playgirl, for society OnlyFans is a
| symptom of late-stage degenerate capitalism._
|
| Capitalism has always had some 'degeneracy'. Prostitution,
| alcohol, cigarettes, gambling and other vices long predate the
| modern era.
|
| _While I 'm not opposed to women making more than a one-time
| fee for showing their nipples to the world, I don't think it's
| sustainable. The vast majority of OnlyFans' payments go to a
| very small percentage of the "content creators". And how many
| of those who actually pull in 6 figures will be able to bank it
| for after they inevitably lose their looks?_
|
| I dunno, how is it any worse than working in your 20s at crappy
| jobs, versus making considerably more money at only fans. If it
| were such a lousy deal for content creators, wouldn't they
| choose other work instead?
|
| _Could meaningful work be subsidized so women who don 't
| actually want to show their nipples to the world can get by
| without feeling pressured into trying to make a quick buck?_
|
| There are tons of possible career paths.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| > I dunno, how is it any worse than working in your 20s at
| crappy jobs, versus making considerably more money at only
| fans. If it were such a lousy deal for content creators,
| wouldn't they choose other work instead?
|
| I would take issue with the word "instead" here. I suspect
| that the vast majority of OF creators have ordinary, wage-
| labor type jobs in addition to their online work.
|
| IMO, a better question to ask is "what percentage of OF
| creators make more than the median retail sales worker?"
| Currently, that number is $27k according to BLS here:
| https://www.bls.gov/ooh/sales/retail-sales-workers.htm
| mikestew wrote:
| _versus making considerably more money at only fans_
|
| There's an large amount of assumption in that statement,
| while parent asked, "how many are _really_ making any decent
| money? " I mean, you even quoted it, but then just kept on
| going as if the question were never asked. I have no idea if
| OnlyFans pays about the same as retail work for the majority,
| or if OnlyFans content creators need to go buy rakes to
| collect their money, and I have no idea how to even find out.
| But if you have insight the rest of us don't, I'm ready to
| read it, because IMO it's kind of the basis of the point
| parent was making.
|
| _If it were such a lousy deal for content creators, wouldn
| 't they choose other work instead?_
|
| The same could have been said about coal miners 100 years
| ago...or maybe even today. I don't want to whip out the
| privilege card, but to assume "just go find another job!",
| well...
| _nothing wrote:
| > If it were such a lousy deal for content creators, wouldn't
| they choose other work instead?
|
| I don't disagree with you overall, but by the sheer number of
| people I know who hate their jobs yet feel like they can't
| leave, I can tell you it often doesn't work this way. Not
| saying you're doing this, but people have used "well if it's
| such a bad job then they should just find a different one" to
| justify everything from bad warehouse work conditions to
| underpaid fast food positions to sweat shops elsewhere. I
| think it's been well demonstrated that it is not always so
| simple for people to leave lousy jobs.
| stopagephobia wrote:
| Disproportionate $ go to the top because everybody want the
| hottest girl. Digital media mean that everybody can get her
| stuff the same, basically as many as will pay. It aint like a
| strip club where maybe the hottest girl is already giving
| somebody else a lapdance so you take the next one down.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| People have always paid for their food to be prepared outside
| their homes even in ancient Rome with food stalls.
|
| People paid for the colliseum, and well known fighters reaped
| rewards for their wins.
|
| Yes, I am sure OnlyFans attracts many people who think it's
| easy money only to realize that just like Youtube or Twitch
| it's a difficult fulltime job that requires very heavy
| interpersonal skills. That doesn't seem like a failing of
| capitalism.
|
| > Could meaningful work be subsidized so women who don't
| actually want to show their nipples to the world can get by
| without feeling pressured into trying to make a quick buck?
|
| If it isn't making money, it probably isn't meaningful, with
| the exclusion of volunteer work. Capitalist societies use money
| as our value indicator for services as tempered by demand.
|
| What meaningful work do you think should be subsidized?
| jjoonathan wrote:
| The economic notion of "value" is weighted by wealth. Feeding
| a poor starving kid has no "value" -- because the kid has no
| money to pay you with. Merging up all the banks to win
| bailouts has extraordinary "value," because it helps people
| with lots of money obtain even more money.
|
| Associating the wealth-weighted "value" that economies
| optimize with the non-wealth-weighted concept of value that
| we all treasure is the largest PR coup of the last few
| centuries.
|
| Markets and economies do a lot of good for the world, but
| whoo boy is there a big difference between what they pretend
| to optimize and what they actually optimize.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| There's a reason we don't practice pure capitalism. The
| starving kid can't pay you but the Fed absolutely will, and
| the cost of food is amazingly low current inflation meat
| prices aside.
|
| You can make grandiose statements about value but at some
| point you need to offer a concrete example. What is
| currently not valued that should be?
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Labor. Having capital is overvalued, doing work is
| undervalued. Doing shit work is especially undervalued.
| Systematically and intentionally.
|
| Take note that I am using the colloquial definition of
| value, here -- not the economic definition. Equating the
| two is not innocent, it is equivalent to the assumption
| "capitalism is good," which rather ends the conversation.
|
| The failure of American capitalism to live up to even the
| weakest of its promises -- "a rising tide floats all
| boats" -- for 80% of Americans over the last 40 years is
| nothing if it is not grandiose. Still, the "grandiose
| statements" of mine were meant to exercise the limits of
| the weight function. The actual realization of this
| prioritization is a million and one instances of "I
| thought markets are supposed to improve and optimize over
| the long term, why did this thing get worse?" Followed by
| "Did it get worse? Think about it again from the
| perspective of a market that values rich peoples'
| investment accounts over anything you care about, and ask
| yourself if made things worse for _them_ or if it is
| functioning exactly as intended. "
|
| Spoiler alert: it's functioning exactly as intended.
| junon wrote:
| > late-stage degenerate capitalism
|
| You're not going to win a lot of hearts with that sentiment.
| [deleted]
| drBonkers wrote:
| I think many pro-capitalists agree that our current iteration
| of capitalism is unsustainable and degenerate.
| SamPatt wrote:
| Many - possibly even most - sex workers do it because they like
| it.
|
| Have you actually talked to sex workers?
|
| It's super common to lament what sex work says about society
| bla bla bla but never even listen to the women themselves.
|
| Maybe many women love showing off their bodies and making
| friends and money and maybe many men like seeing naked women
| and talking to them and maybe there's absolutely nothing wrong
| with any of this.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Our modern economy is so complex that "meaningful" is
| (meaningfully, lol) impossible to precisely define.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| > Even 75 years ago in America, every small town had its own
| marching band and baseball team.
|
| They still do, it's through the high school. Very, very few
| people have ever paid for a marching band's services.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > the monetization of services which have traditionally been
| performed for free: child care, meal preparation, etc.
|
| The idea of paying for meal preparation outside the house goes
| back at least 5000 years. Bars, restaurants and food vendors
| have been around at least as long as written history.
| tuatoru wrote:
| As have town ovens (prepare your loaves, and pay for them to
| be baked) and probably laundry services too, for those who
| could afford more than one set of clothes. Childcare was
| mostly done by slaves, which is a capitalised form of the
| same thing.
|
| It's really a question of degree.
| tuatoru wrote:
| > late-stage degenerate capitalism.
|
| What specifically is your objection?
|
| Strip clubs and peep shows have been around for a long time,
| including during protocapitalism, degenerate or not. This is
| not a new incursion of the economy into social life. It's just
| much safer for the workers, and on average much more poorly
| paid because of the scale-free medium.
|
| Is your objection to the inevitable result of scale-free
| networks, the winner-take-all nature of internet-mediated
| commerce? I can agree with that. A society in which 0.01%
| become very rich while everyone else starves is not a healthy
| society.
|
| No-one seems very keen on balkanising the internet, though, and
| no-one's been able to crack the coordination problems involved
| in other possible solutions.
| short12 wrote:
| Show boobs
|
| That will be one thousand dollars please
| vmception wrote:
| > To date, she estimates she's dispensed advice to 26k adult
| content creators -- college students, single moms, retail
| workers, and white-collar professionals.
|
| > There's a misperception that online sex work is easy money. But
| in the _vastly populated_ digital tundra, getting visibility is
| no simple task.
|
| People want to argue with me when I mention that over the last
| year I've been able to correctly assume people (women, because
| thats who I talk to) have a subscription service, and they've
| found it refreshing when I asked. An erotic subscription service
| about their body. I've never gotten it wrong.
|
| They're just not telling you about it.
|
| Many men make it their entire identity to make sure _everyone
| knows_ they wouldn 't pay* for anything related to visually
| sexually stimulating entertainment, but the analytics data shows
| a very broad distribution of society of every background does
| subscribe and/or pay later in the funnel. It's not even gendered
| as many performers are consumers too as they do market research
| on competitors, cross promote, and also reshare earnings -
| tipping others because they had a good day. (And many non-
| performer consumers are women as well, organically funneled or
| just friends). I think the platform earnings from performers
| resharing is not well discussed as people quizzically wonder
| about why OnlyFans grows so much.
|
| Its extremely strange to me that people are willing to normalize
| the supply side, but pretend the demand side is some marginalized
| man far away instead of a fairly consistent distribution of
| _everyone around them_. I 'm fine with helping normalizing the
| demand side instead of "Nordic model-lite".
|
| *Also, many subscriptions are actually free. It's a funnel. See,
| the consulting article above.
|
| I don't say "hey! you look like you have an OnlyFans" I say "I
| wanna subscribe, I like supporting local businesses", I've
| literally gotten anything from private snapchats, patreons,
| patreons for non-sexual hobbies, Onlyfans, etc, all in person so
| no bots. Good rapport too! And you don't have to actually pay
| anything, but now you know the link or the top of the funnel to
| browse, or consider it.
|
| My new go-to supporting a direction of empowerment that
| conveniently matches my carnality is "support local". It was
| really frustrating when I was in a tech hub and many of the
| people only supported an exclusionary form of empowerment that
| didn't include performers or sex workers (or gogo dancers, or
| atmosphere models or anything that any one female developer
| somewhere on Twitter once said 'no' to). Not only did I dislike
| that the performers were never asked and just assumed to be
| irrelevant, privileging one kind of professional's goals over the
| other without even a discussion of greater inclusion, it was also
| just _simply boring_ for me. How many times do I have to hear the
| groupthink that all performers are coerced people with no
| interest /capability in choosing that for themselves when I know
| that a couple of the empowered people in the office are also
| erotic performers or some subset of sex work. People are glad
| they can confide in me instead of simply resorting to a geofence.
| It just took me a while to recalibrate the wording for a more
| impervious and durable consensus, and 2020, erotic content
| creators are my favorite part of the pandemic.
| slibhb wrote:
| Creepiest thing I've read on this website by a good margin.
|
| "Sex work" is an interesting subject because it divides
| leftists into those who view it as a further intrusion of
| markets into peoples' lives (bad) and those find it
| "empowering" (good).
|
| I have a basically Freudian (conservative) view that repression
| is necessary for civilization. We're testing that right now. I
| don't think free-market love will go any better than free love
| did. We'll see.
| vmception wrote:
| I'm glad at how so many people - the performers, the women -
| are willing to ignore all of this and provide personalized
| erotic entertainment as the progressives liberalize the
| supply side and aim to make that safe.
|
| The only thing happening here is that I'm pointing out that
| the discussion of the demand side is comparatively immature.
| The performers all know the analytics showing such a wide
| population of consumers. The consumers are mostly silo'd and
| don't know the breadth of it. Everyone just nods and agrees
| with the people saying exclusionary prohibitory things so as
| not to be targeted and vilified as "the creepiest thing". But
| I think I'm in a good position to help normalize this already
| existing reality, as I have practically zero consequences
| aside from a post potentially losing consensus and visibility
| in tech circles.
|
| "Use your platform! Silence is violence!" As the leftists
| say.
|
| To your point, we share the observation that some people
| exclude forms of female empowerment that overlap with the
| patriarchy. But its just a venn diagram. From my perspective,
| the empowerment goal has always been "choice", which some
| people distort to "not _that_ choice! " because they meant
| the choice of exploitative labor for a FAANG.
|
| The population is actually broad enough to flip on this very
| fast. They just don't know yet!
| 1-more wrote:
| > Many men make it their entire identity to make sure everyone
| knows they wouldn't pay* for anything related to visually
| sexually stimulating entertainment
|
| They're telling you they're probably fine with stealing it.
| Wack.
| vmception wrote:
| A lot of times I reply with economic theory, deadpan
|
| "Supporting local businesses helps money circulate in the
| local economy" and don't really acknowledge the copyright
| infringement, misogyny, exclusionary ideas of empowerment,
| moral policing, or the specific actions the performer,
| content creator or sex worker does. Can pivot to vilifying
| Amazon for more fun.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| That's how I would interpret that statement.
|
| Why pay when it's free?
|
| That it's not supposed to be free rarely crosses the minds of
| those types of "consumers".
| GDC7 wrote:
| > Many men make it their entire identity to make sure everyone
| knows they wouldn't pay* for anything related to visually
| sexually stimulating entertainment, but the analytics data
| shows a very broad distribution of society of every background
| does subscribe and/or pay later in the funnel
|
| Is it though? Sex work radically transposes the moment when the
| man manages to get a yes. It moves from being when you said a
| particular thing or made a move to kiss her to when you
| actually earned the money to pay for sex work.
|
| The moment you receive the paycheck or make the monthly budget
| of expenses is the moment where you de-facto managed to get
| your "Yes" for a sexual encounter, with 100% certanety.
|
| (That is unless you are very rude or particularly ugly or
| dirty)
|
| Many men (including me) can't get enthusiastic (both body-wise
| and mentally-wise) about the aforementioned scenario.
|
| It's like being an NFL owner and paying to win the SuperBowl,
| you get the ring and lift the Lombardi trophy...but the 100%
| chances granted by your payment goes to void any enthusiasm and
| genuine joy.
|
| There must be a chance of failure or being potentially turned
| down (at least in my opinion). Working the odds is good ,
| making sure that they are in your favor is great, but they
| should never be 100% like in sex work because then what's the
| point?
| vmception wrote:
| Honestly I don't know what you are saying here. What scenario
| are you talking about specifically? A man manages to get a
| win? What does that even mean, are you talking about the
| probability of convincing a women to have sex with a man?
|
| This conversation and article is about online porn and erotic
| streamers.
| GDC7 wrote:
| > A man manages to get a win?
|
| Typo, I meant a "yes".
|
| > What does that even mean, are you talking about the
| probability of convincing a women to have sex with a man?
|
| I mean a sexual encounter of any kind, real or virtual,
| real-time or delayed.
|
| Enthusiasm for a "yes" comes from the possibility of it
| being a "no".
|
| At least that's how my brain works, and there are some
| literature pertaining as to how we perceive positive
| outcomes as the opposite of the negative outcome we lived
| in fear of.
|
| That's the reason why NFL owners don't pay to outright win
| the SuperBowl and even regular people try to make 2
| balanced teams when playing flag football or 5-a-side
| soccer.
|
| Or maybe I am just overthinking it, but I don't mean sex
| work should be illegal , matter of fact it should be
| legal...I was just pointing out that paying for sex work
| moves the joy of receiving a "yes" all the way back to when
| you receive a paycheck or make a monthly budget and that is
| not the same thing, so that's maybe why many men don't
| engage in it.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > maybe I am just overthinking it
|
| Making relationships directly transactional is corrosive
| - that's the problem with OF.
|
| Making relationships transitory is also corrosive -
| that's the problem with Tinder.
|
| OF and Tinder are in the process of destroying the West
| by destroying women psychologically. Already 25% of women
| are on head meds, and that's rapidly climbing.
|
| You can watch the Fresh and Fit YT channel, which has
| conversations with mainly OF women, to see the effect.
| vmception wrote:
| In my brain it is a form of entertainment that has
| nothing to do with elevating a scenario built around
| scarcity or effort or policing sexuality.
|
| For me, the enthusiasm of a "yes" is the response of them
| having a streaming service. I don't really think further
| than that or extrapolate what specific actions are going
| to happen there. I do _hope_ to see them naked whether
| they sent me something on their streamer-persona 's
| snapchat or if I switched to a courtship game or if I
| ever approached them at all! But if that's not possible
| then that's fine, and also normal, not really sure why/if
| that needed to be said. How people look is a factor in
| whether an interaction is attempted, not really news.
|
| I think it is unnecessary to segregate this, and that's
| my view of almost all sex work. Earn.com which was
| acquired, was all about paying to reach VC's inboxes and
| it worked and many VCs participated in it. In your
| analogy, it would mean less to reach them due to paying
| for the campaign to get their attention. Its just not a
| standard that was really brought up. Do I really need to
| point out the one-to-one relation between how erotic
| performer's services work on streaming sites?
| version_five wrote:
| > joy of receiving a "yes" all the way back to when you
| receive a paycheck or make a monthly budget
|
| I think I get it, that there's "thrill of the chase"
| element that you don't get with paid encounters. There is
| definitely a difference, but there is still some element
| of searching for and finding something you're interested
| in.
|
| And that aside, do you not like going to a restaurant
| because you knew you could as soon as you earned the
| money to buy the meal? Maybe it's not the same as eating
| a fish you caught yourself, but it's still enjoyable isnt
| it?
| GDC7 wrote:
| > And that aside, do you not like going to a restaurant
| because you knew you could as soon as you earned the
| money to buy the meal? Maybe it's not the same as eating
| a fish you caught yourself, but it's still enjoyable isnt
| it?
|
| The difference is that I don't want to have a sexual
| intercourse with the resturant's chef :)
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| As with any new subject/market there will be those that dig/pan
| for gold and those that sell the shovels.
|
| When app-based dating took off, there were people who reviewed
| your profile and customized it for you (including crafting
| messages to prospective partners). Someone on reddit (can't find
| this right now) started a whole business on this when she was so
| desperate for money she took to reviewing profiles for $5
| ivraatiems wrote:
| This article reads like PR for its subject, to be honest, and
| I've never heard of the site that it's from. Is The Hustle at all
| reliable?
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| The Hustle is a pretty common site shared on HN. I would say
| its mostly focused on 5 minute reads that give a slightly-
| deeper-than-google overview of a topical subject.
|
| They have had some good pieces in the past but are definitely
| in the quick morning read category.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| My immediate take was "you know the gold rush is over when
| shovel consultants start pushing ads your way."
|
| "The Hustle" sounds like a shovel consultant.
| harrisonjackson wrote:
| They were recently (last year?) acquired by HubSpot. I'm not
| that familiar with their recent content but I am a fan of their
| team and the HustleCon youtube vids.
|
| Their founder has a podcast that is good fuel for anyone that
| likes to chat about startups, business, VCs, crypto, etc. The
| cohost had a startup that was acquired by Twitch. They're
| pretty entertaining together and the content is consistently
| good.
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-first-million/id146...
| ufmace wrote:
| It kind of is PR, but you can still take some useful
| information from it. It does seem pretty plausible that a "gold
| rush" on Onlyfans-type content is in full swing, and if you
| want to make more than pocket change and are not already
| famous, you're going to need some marketing hustle.
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