[HN Gopher] OnlyFans: Who is Leonid Radvinsky, the elusive owner...
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OnlyFans: Who is Leonid Radvinsky, the elusive owner of a porn
empire?
Author : rntn
Score : 54 points
Date : 2023-08-27 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Cloudef wrote:
| I find it quite sad we have managed to capitalize on parasocial
| relationships (not onlyfans only)
| amelius wrote:
| Modern age pimp.
| akomtu wrote:
| I guess "pimphouse" was among the options to name the company.
| [deleted]
| vosper wrote:
| > Porn empire
|
| > pornography mogul
|
| > linked to the pornography industry
|
| And then, oh, turns out OnlyFans isn't all about porn.
|
| > Under Mr Radvinsky's ownership, OnlyFans has flourished. It is
| no longer solely associated with pornography and some of its
| biggest creators only post safe-for-work content.
|
| With articles likely this (a lot of mentions of porn, a lot of
| questions followed by "we don't know") even from the BBC, no
| wonder the guy values his privacy.
| [deleted]
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| > And then, oh, turns out OnlyFans isn't all about porn.
|
| Don't kid yourself. It's the thinnest possible deniability,
| like selling coca cola in sex shop and telling it's not all
| about porn.
| neodymiumphish wrote:
| Admittedly, I'm being a bit pedantic, but that's not quite
| right. OnlyFans does content-oriented subscription. Porn
| producers flocked to it because it didn't care whether you
| wanted to generate porn or other content, but that doesn't
| make it the equivalent of a "sex shop." It's more like a pawn
| shop that only ever sees people pawning their jewelry. Just
| because 99% of the stuff they have for sale doesn't make it a
| jewelry shop.
|
| Otherwise I totally agree, OF is synonymous with porn, full
| stop. It's a wonder they haven't been hit with the same
| restriction from credit card companies as sites like PornHub.
| SilasX wrote:
| Haha yeah this was the jaw dropping part back when OF
| (temporarily) suspended porn and claimed they would change
| course and make OF more about getting private sessions with
| Gordon Ramsay types.
|
| Like, no, dude. For better or worse, OF has been permanently
| cemented in the public mind as being about cam girls and
| porn. No way are mainstream celebrities putting their brand
| within a hundred miles of that.
|
| This article is just a submarine trying to create the
| impression that his desired branding has already been
| accomplished.
| [deleted]
| Retric wrote:
| You can easily get kicked off many sites without showing
| anything more extreme than gets put up in fine art galleries.
| Calling it all porn is often missing the intent.
|
| That said, porn tends to out compete other options on a
| platform. So if you allow porn you're going to get a lot of
| porn and porn like content.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| that's always the language used when there's reporting about
| sex work. Onlyfans is essentially Patreon for sex workers and
| it's hilarious how reporting almost always frames that as an
| accusation.
|
| For creators in that industry the internet really has enabled
| independence for the first time, the actual sex industry moguls
| live in the offline world.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| An only-fans style system where the content is locked offers
| more privacy to the artists than a public porn website. There
| is nothing morally wrong with the world's oldest profession and
| its various tentacles, provided everyone is of sound mind and
| consenting. I don't pretend we can stop sex work if we can't
| even prevent narcotics from being sold inside supermax prisons.
| The demand is too high.
| userbinator wrote:
| "and its various _tentacles_ " --- in some cases, literally.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The man that can see all the content in there for free.
| [deleted]
| akomtu wrote:
| Speaking of the _content_ , it's nearly completely hollow. If
| we were to apply a 2D DFT to all the images, then find a "porn"
| basis in which the images are represented in the most compact
| form, we'd find out that an average image has only a few bits
| of novel information.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Maybe he can train a generative AI model on all the highest
| rated porn, creating some ultimate form of content that
| people will be willing to trade for their entire income.
| mcphage wrote:
| Is this the guy Patrick Stewart was writing his screenplay
| about?!
| tshirttime wrote:
| That scene (Extras S1E6) is top 20 comedic scenes of all
| time.
| metadat wrote:
| Agreed, great scene. Though why is it women I've showed it
| too aren't typically tickled by it? o_O
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=Fg_cwI1Xj4M
| serf wrote:
| along with a thousand forgotten 'testing' accounts , and
| however many blackhats have figured things out -- sure.
| INTPenis wrote:
| I've hosted similar sites, on a much smaller scale, it gets
| boring real quick. It's just a job.
| cookie_monsta wrote:
| Agreed. As a college student I sold hot dogs, one of the
| "perks" being as many dogs as you can eat, free. Being a poor
| student, you can imagine what my diet was.
|
| I've probably eaten two in the 25 years since then.
| kristjank wrote:
| I always find it fascinating how some sites or companies with
| huge global impacts get away with secretive directors from some
| Elbonia-adjacent country. But considering how frequent human
| trafficking is in pornography, I'd probably keep my life as
| secret as possible as well.
| vGPU wrote:
| Ukraine has actually long been a center of human trafficking
| and the more _unsavory_ types of pornography. For a while I
| believe they were actually one of the biggest producers and
| exporters of CSAM. For example: the arrest of Maksym
| Shynkarenko was described as the "most successful child
| pornography investigation in U.S. history" by the government.
| And before the war really kicked off they were really starting
| to gain a reputation for sex tourism.
|
| As of the latest 2023 report from the US Gov, "The Government
| of Ukraine does not fully meet the minimum standards for the
| elimination of trafficking".
|
| This is particularly concerning:
|
| "Authorities prosecuted and convicted fewer traffickers, and
| most convicted traffickers avoided imprisonment... for the
| sixth consecutive year the government did not secure any
| convictions of complicit officials."
|
| Six years. They've let corrupt officials traffic humans with
| impunity for _six years_.
|
| https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-trafficking-in-persons-re...
| khuey wrote:
| > As of the latest 2023 report from the US Gov, "The
| Government of Ukraine does not fully meet the minimum
| standards for the elimination of trafficking".
|
| Notably that puts them in the same category as Ireland,
| Japan, Norway, and Greece on this report. The list of "tier
| 1" countries is pretty short, much of the world is in "tier
| 2" with Ukraine.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Your comment comes across as xenophobic.
| pc86 wrote:
| How so?
| version_five wrote:
| I'd say more ignorant. Isn't he from Ukraine? Is that a
| country that's not commonly known?
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| > Elbonia-adjacent country
|
| This guy has been living in US pretty much entire life.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| It's a Dilbert reference, I presume intentional
| hbcondo714 wrote:
| https://dilbert.fandom.com/wiki/Elbonia
| swozey wrote:
| I found this interesting, considering he's born in Odesa
|
| > Born in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Mr Radvinsky's
| company donated to the relief effort in Ukraine using
| cryptocurrency, and the real-terms value of the donation in 2022
| came to more than $1.3m, according to CoinDesk.
|
| > The London-registered firm said in August 2023 that pre-tax
| profits for the period reached $525m, up from $432m the previous
| year.
|
| $100mm/yr increase and he's put $1.3mm into UA. I hope he's
| contributing privately...
|
| Also that is a wild amount of revenue when content is created for
| you and you're just hosting it. I've worked at porn companies (on
| the tech end, voyeur/webcam companies, practically a self-made
| video CDN) before and even at our tiny level comparatively they
| made a small fortune on the labor of the acts but nothing even
| remotely close to that. Tens of millions maybe. I worked for one
| that sold for $300mm after 12 years of growth and they're doing
| beyond that yearly.
|
| UX wise I think OF is pretty terrible. It feels like I'm using
| 2012 tumblr and I'm not sure I've ever seen it add any new
| interesting features as long as I've known about it. I always
| expect them to do some really cool social stuff, kind of replace
| twitter/x for acts. You still go to a models page and get blank
| images with no potential preview to know what you're getting
| unless they allow free subscriptions. It's always a gamble. Just
| feels performatively sketch.
|
| The most fascinating thing to me about OF is how it's practically
| normalized having one.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The most fascinating thing to me about OF is how it's
| practically normalized having one.
|
| Onlyfans rose to fame during covid - a lot of people stuck at
| home with ample time to make or view porn. They were for a time
| pretty much the only opportunity that allowed the creators to
| make money (Reddit and Twitter didn't) other than Pornhub,
| which on top of that was dealing with the GirlsDoPorn fallout
| and ManyVids which while solid hasn't ever been good at
| marketing... and content creators loved that OF was the first
| site that more or less lured the viewers into subscription,
| resulting in a fixed revenue stream - _loads_ of people forgot
| that they 've subscribed to a couple OF people and no one
| really bothers with ten bucks on the monthly CC bill.
|
| On top of _that_ came a few celebrities /starlets and media
| pieces, the rest was watching a meme unfold in real life.
| thih9 wrote:
| > The most fascinating thing to me about OF is how it's
| practically normalized having one.
|
| I don't know any personal acquaintance or any celebrity that
| has one. Perhaps I do but I'm not aware; my point is, it's not
| that normalized, at least in my circle.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| It's the butt of many jokes and a sign of desperation amongst
| my various circles. I don't think the service is empowering
| or pushing the industry forward, just another SaaS "pimp"
| creating more avenues of exploitation.
|
| Legalize the wide umbrella of sex-related work and stop the
| exploitation.
| voisin wrote:
| I am confused by your argument.
|
| Is OF exploitation in your view? If so, how?
|
| If sex-related work was legalized (as OF is), would you
| think OF would no longer be the butt of jokes or do you
| think performers on OF would then turn to newly legalized
| sex acts?
| bjourne wrote:
| Wasn't the big problem for many porn sites to get paid? The
| main payment service providers didn't want to deal with them
| (for many reasons including chargebacks) so they had to use
| shady providers that charged 15-20% of revenue.
| swozey wrote:
| Everyone wound up having to use CCbill so CCbill ran an iron
| fist and you couldn't argue with them at all. The guy who
| paid me was an absolute POS with drug/alch, anger and other
| issues. He's been arrested many times. So yeah, you were
| lucky to be paid reliably. He'd come in and fire half/all of
| the staff (acts and tech people) and offer us thousands of
| dollars to show up the next day. I was young and abuse-
| vulnerable at that time. It was the most money I'd made ever
| at that point. Same with a lot of the acts. A lot of us just
| dealt with it.
| joker_minmax wrote:
| It is not normalized to the extent you think it is, because
| like most trends it is overblown by social media, gaining more
| of a focus there and less in real life. However, this has still
| distorted reality enough that now young men ask young women if
| they have onlyfans, as if that is a casual or normal thing to
| ask someone.
| swozey wrote:
| I live in the middle of the biggest bar/club neighborhood in
| a major (usa) city. I meet men and women with OFs at least
| weekly. It's nothing at all like it was back in the
| 2005-2010s when I worked in the porn industry. Even men and
| women who work at (strip) clubs are way, way more common
| nowadays. I have a lot of service industry friends and about
| 1/4 of them have worked at local clubs if not danced at them.
|
| Like, who even are you to say this to me? Lol I worked IN the
| industry. Are you also in the industry? Are you a dad with 3
| kids or something? I have NO idea what your frame of
| reference is here but it is the absolute opposite of mine.
|
| > It is not normalized to the extent you think it is
| moneywoes wrote:
| I reckon the network effects are just too strong
| voisin wrote:
| OF network effects don't seem that strong to me. I am not a
| user but I see a lot of TikTokers directing people to OF and
| assuming this is how they derive their viewership, those
| performers could just direct the potential client to a
| different platform. Unless I am mistaken, OF doesn't have
| discovery features or other features that would be the source
| of stickiness to the platform. Isn't it essentially just a
| webhost with payment system?
| swozey wrote:
| I don't really know much about it but OF has this right
| side "menu" of suggested people to watch. But I've never
| figured out how they related to anyone else I've watched.
| Most of the organic network-growing that I see on OF is one
| model/act will tag their friend/business partner in a post.
| It's kind of amazing to me how little effort they've put in
| to building that part of the site up because that would
| drum up so much more sticky (viewing not fluids) activity
| and keep people on the site longer.
| swozey wrote:
| Yep, and coincidentally related to your username, economy
| struggles. The main one I worked at was a mansion by
| University of Tampa that someone bought and we put cameras
| around it and women/men "worked" in it. They got free room
| and board and college tuition at UT paid for. This was 20
| years ago.
|
| But none of these acts ever thought/expected to become
| millionaires like what happens on OF. It's wild. It was
| mostly apposite to dancing and a lot of them were dancers
| when not in school.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| of course no cocaine, that would be awful for actual
| college students right?
| swozey wrote:
| I was a 18-19yo innocent bambi sysadmin, i kno nothin! It
| actually wasn't as wild as anyone ever expects when I
| bring this up though
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Not many on OF actually become millionaires either. The
| chance of that is just as rare as in regular life.
| Chiba-City wrote:
| [dead]
| ModernMech wrote:
| Crazy that they once tried to ban porn on the platform.
| FfejL wrote:
| OnlyFans is at his core a tech company, with (I'd guess) a stack
| that looks a lot like any other high volume social media
| platform. They likely have a decent size engineering group.
|
| Yet all of what I would think of as the expected recruitment
| links (e.g. https://careers.onlyfans.com/) go nowhere. Quick
| searches on LinkedIn, Indeed and CrunchBoard come up empty.
|
| Obviously, this is due to their content. But I wonder, how does a
| company like this recruit good (or at least decent) talent?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > wow does a company like this recruit good (or at least
| decent) talent?
|
| Not everyone finds it objectionable, many people don't share
| prudish views that seem to dominate Chirtian America.
| FfejL wrote:
| I don't doubt that. But how do they find candidates? And how
| do interested engineers find positions?
| akomtu wrote:
| What is "it" exactly? Luring users into the pit of addiction,
| destroying whatever little will they still have?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| directly asking a woman who worked as a "star" in anal
| porn, at a nightclub where she would visit off-hours, she
| said quote "dont watch it -- I take pain pills because it
| is very uncomfortable" .. later she had serious problems
| with heroin. That is "in real life" not a video.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I dont think "Chirtian" is a word.
|
| Sex work often involves a lot of drug addicts and negative
| outcomes for all involved. Those who advocate for it are
| often not telling their whole story.
| mrighele wrote:
| [...] often involves a lot of drug addicts and negative
| outcomes for all involved.
|
| Sounds more like politics to me :-).
| wkat4242 wrote:
| The negative outcomes are mainly due to societal
| stigmatization. Which explains the 'not telling the whole
| story' pretty well too. It's not exactly great dinner
| conversation.
|
| Drug addiction is not really something that's compatible
| with adult performing. I'm sure it would correlate with
| some type of sex work (the cheapest 'street corner trick-
| turning' comes to mind) but those are not the type of
| people you'll find on OnlyFans.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if you find more drug addicts in a
| high-speed trading floor than the average OnlyFans
| performer population.
|
| Ps I'm not advocating it as a career option but I know some
| people are drawn to it and genuinely like it. Reddit is/was
| full of people doing it for free and I don't think it's a
| bad idea to try to make a job out of it for those people.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > The negative outcomes are mainly due to societal
| stigmatization
|
| disagree - ordinary citizens often do not get to see the
| inpatient room at rehab clinics, emergency rooms and
| court hearings. The fun ends pretty quickly for a lot of
| people. not making this up "real"
| zkid18 wrote:
| Hey, know a couple folks working in adult companies including
| the big one like Pornhub,Xhamsters, xxx.com. They mostly
| employed through a proxy IT shop that from the first glance has
| nothing to do with adult technology. Also AFAIK you're not
| allowed to state in your CV the name of the product you have
| been working on.
| theideaofcoffee wrote:
| I'd be interested to learn more about that, how does that
| work? Are they subcontractors? Hired directly through that
| shop? Is that shop owned by outside people or does the
| tendrils of whoever owns those sites extend there? Such a
| fascinating, underground world that doesn't see much light.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> They mostly employed through a proxy IT shop that from the
| first glance has nothing to do with adult technology._
|
| aka Geekmind
| morkalork wrote:
| Mindgeek
| dubcanada wrote:
| Why can't we just leave people who want to be left alone...
| alone?
|
| Clearly he wants to remain anonymous so let's write a detailed
| article on everything we know about him.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The thing is, sex work and porn is already filled with
| exploitation and grift. Taking a 20% cut for a bit of hosting
| and payment processing work is pretty greedy. Not as greedy as
| your everyday street pimp, but still: it's almost always men
| who profit off of sex work without doing much in return.
| phatfish wrote:
| I bet OnlyFans pays more taxes than other companies 10x it's
| size, to remove a possible avenue of attack in the media.
| It's probably a net benefit to society based on that alone.
| djoletina wrote:
| Rofl what a bad take. "For a bit of hosting and payment
| processing". Isn't that 99% of the internet?
|
| And the last sentence is so edgy... Doing what in return,
| Onlyfans literally gave more money to people in porn than
| ever in history, isn't that enough?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Onlyfans literally gave more money to people in porn than
| ever in history
|
| The _viewers_ gave the money to the content creators. And
| just because OF 's cut is smaller than in "regular" porn,
| it's still a rip-off IMO.
| orwin wrote:
| Isn't 20% is lower than Apple Store's cut? Imo it seems
| than compared to industry standard it's more than fair.
| Youtube and Twitch's cuts are higher.
| googlryas wrote:
| Well then the content creators can just set up their own
| site, register a domain, set up a video stream service,
| payment processor, etc. After all, it's not much.
| quicklime wrote:
| > Taking a 20% cut for a bit of hosting and payment
| processing work is pretty greedy
|
| What would be a reasonable cut? Looking at other content
| platforms, this doesn't really seem out of line:
| https://www.theverge.com/21445923/platform-fees-apps-
| games-b...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Apple can take 20% because they enjoy a monopoly on their
| platform, which is why everyone _but_ Apple wants to get
| rid of that and force Apple to compete.
|
| Onlyfans isn't much better, their market share is insane.
| Yes, there are other platforms like Fansly and Manyvids,
| but they are _small_ in comparison.
| Phil_Latio wrote:
| You are discriminating based on sex, that's all.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| The high dividend is interesting. Maybe being a porn company it
| is harder for to flip it to a FAANG or IPO so you might as well
| just get the cash out. When the next brrr happens he could borrow
| a few billion and pay that out as a dividend then sell the
| company on.
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