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when talking about onlyfans, many people will have a meaningful smile on their faces: oh, an adult website that can compete with pornhub, the top website in the industry.

recently, onlyfans announced its revenue last year, shocking the silicon valley circle that has been dominated by ai - the total revenue was 6.6 billion us dollars, 5.3 billion went to creators, and the remaining 1.3 billion went to the platform. after deducting all costs, the net profit reached 480 million.

x netizens made a shocking joke

different industries have different worlds. although they cannot be directly compared, the gap is very obvious: openai's annual revenue in 2023 is 1.6 billion us dollars, and the total salary of the nba in the 2023-2024 season is 4.9 billion us dollars.

onlyfans's success does not rely on advertising sponsors, but rather on payments from a large number of users.

it is said that the first productivity of the internet is pornography, but this statement has a bit of a "freeloader" connotation. people like to watch, but they are not necessarily willing to spend money. why are so many users willing to pay for onlyfans?

onlyfans is the real fan economy

onlyfans is composed of "only" and "fans". as the name suggests, you can understand it as fan economy: providing a platform for fans to pay for creators' content.

its homepage is harmless and as bland as zuckerberg's facebook.

however, when i clicked into the account i was interested in, i found that everything here was clearly priced, including pictures, videos, live broadcasts, private messages... if i didn't spend any money, there would be a gray paywall in front of me.

there are two main payment methods: subscription, which charges a monthly fee to view regular posts, and pay-per-view, which unlocks additional content.

even if the content is free, you still need to bind your credit card and subscribe to the creator to watch it. after all, next time, you may pay smoothly. if you have already spent money but think the creator is very satisfactory, you can also give a tip.

of course, onlyfans also has the content available on p station. fans can also spend an additional price and, through private messages, align their needs like party a and party b, and have creators customize exclusive videos. the experience is more personalized than the aesthetically fatigued p station.

in 2021, onlyfans once wanted to ban pornographic content due to external pressure, following the old path of tumblr, but it soon changed its mind due to strong opposition from users and creators. since then, as long as the creators can prove that they are adults and have not violated the law, there are no taboos.

onlyfans creator bryce adams surpasses 1 million subscribers

in addition to pornographic content, you can also see non-18+ content such as fitness, cooking, music, and even talk to celebrities.

there is one advantage of celebrities joining onlyfans: they have their own aura and traffic, and do not have to use large-scale content as a gimmick.

jack laugher, bronze medalist in synchronized diving at the paris olympics, relies on his sideline business on onlyfans to support his diving career - his athlete salary is only £28,000 a year, even though he won a championship at the rio olympics.

jack laugher subscriptions are $10 per month

usually, jack laugher posts content in swimming trunks, briefs, and boxer briefs, but not completely nude. swimming trunks are equivalent to professional attire, so he and his family feel very comfortable, "there is nothing you can't show your grandma."

cardi b, a well-known american rapper, also shares the behind-the-scenes of her music and her personal life on onlyfans, treating it like instagram, only connecting with fans and emphasizing that she will not show her breasts. just like this, she earned $45 million, ranking second among celebrities in 2023.

in addition to seeking sensory stimulation and celebrity interactions, under what circumstances will users pay for others? the answer is to be sincere and exchange sincerity for sincerity.

onlyfans doesn’t just sell photos and videos, it’s also selling connections between people, which is most evident in the private messages of one-on-one chats.

for fans, especially some young and middle-aged men, chatting is a spiritual comfort and emotional connection that cannot be compared with physical contact and can be regarded as an alternative form of psychological counseling.

business insider interviewed 10 onlyfans creators, and 9 of them said that the relationship they established with their fans was not just sexual, but more like friends or partners. they would usually chat about hobbies, psychological problems, interpersonal relationships, and family pressures.

onlyfans creators also play cosplay

although onlyfans is headquartered in the uk, data shows that two-thirds of its revenue comes from the united states, 16% from british and european users, and the remaining 17% from "rest of the world".

the paper "sexual attitudes and characteristics of onlyfans users" provides a more specific user portrait: onlyfans users are mainly married white men with an average age of 29 and an average annual income of $42,000.

how should i put it, it’s not surprising actually, just like the male image in domestic dramas who smokes a cigarette in the car before going upstairs after get off work.

once you are psychologically relaxed, you will be willing to pay. fortune magazine reported that chatting with fans, building relationships, and then selling "exclusive" content account for more than 50% of the income of many onlyfans creators.

fans pay creators for their work, and creators make money directly from fans. it is simple, direct and straightforward. this is the creator economy of onlyfans.

because onlyfans does not rely on advertising or creator incentives, it does not care about traffic sources, hot topics, user stay time, and personalized recommendation algorithms that other social media care about.

however, without platform support, it will be difficult for creators to increase their fans, so they will advertise on social media such as reddit, instagram, and tiktok to attract more users to onlyfans.

the attitude of these platforms is that they do not object. they usually prohibit pornography and do not constitute direct competition with onlyfans. as long as the content posted by creators on their platforms does not cross the line, there is no big problem. it would be even better if they can occasionally produce a hit.

a mature system, a victory for the few

as the saying goes, you can make a fortune in silence. when a way of making money is made public, the barriers to entry may be very high. relying on onlyfans to buy a house and a car and reach the pinnacle of life is only a myth for a few people.

onlyfans currently has more than 300 million users and over four million creator accounts. in 2023, the number of employees was only 42, and the efficiency ratio was extremely high. one employee was worth thousands of troops, allowing the two founders to receive dividends galore.

but when the total revenue of $6.6 billion is spread among creators, it doesn't seem so good - the average annual income of onlyfans creators in 2023 will be about $1,800.

it's like the joke that "jack ma and i have an average income that's pretty high", and most ordinary people are the ones who say "sorry, i'm lagging behind".

rapper bhad bhabie recently revealed that she earned $57 million from onlyfans from 2021 to 2024

in 2020, independent researcher tom hollands scraped onlyfans payment data and found that the top 1% of creators made 33% of the money, with most creators making less than $145 per month.

if you can earn $49,000 a year, then congratulations, you are already in the top 1%.

onlyfans has a 2:8 split, with 20% for the platform and 80% for the creator. this sounds generous, but the creators may not get everything.

successful onlyfans creators either start their own companies or work with agencies. similar to domestic mcns, these agencies will also take a share, usually more than 30%.

managing a creator account requires a one-stop service. an agency interviewed by nytimes helps more than 30 women manage onlyfans, including but not limited to attracting traffic to other social media, writing private messages, creating daily content, and finally selling pornographic videos.

operators need to have a keen eye to find the fat sheep who quickly spend more than $200, and then be more caring to get more wool. operators also need to tell sweet lies to some innocent fans that the video was recorded for them alone, even though the same video may be sold to dozens of people.

a famous meme: the stock market is not as profitable as onlyfans

these agencies are not only eating from the bowl, but also keeping their eyes on the pot. they are also looking for new targets and inviting women to "join the sea" on instagram, with the rhetoric of making money together.

the joke "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog" never gets old.

at the bottom of this production chain are often outsourced chat agents, also known as "chatters." there is no shortage of cheap english-speaking labor around the world. most of them are low-wage workers from the philippines, nigeria, india, etc. they work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, and earn $3 an hour, which is not as good as making hamburgers at mcdonald's.

money is hard to earn, shit is hard to eat, this job is hard to do, the mental pressure is very high, you have to listen to hundreds of people complaining and talking nonsense, and at the same time bear the sales kpi. in simple terms, it is like customer service. coincidentally, the philippines is also one of the world's call centers.

ai chat products can chat in different styles

as ai develops, chatbots have become a way to liberate human labor. these chatbots can even be trained based on past chat records and tailored to the style of each influencer.

however, onlyfans prohibits ai from replying to chats. there are policies from above and countermeasures from below. ai writes messages and humans click the send button. overall, it is more efficient than before. one person can be responsible for hundreds of chat partners. but it is hard to say whether it is easier or more painful.

onlyfans has auditing, but it can't control these ais. in this era where deepfakes are already difficult to identify with the naked eye, although an internal ai team has been established, onlyfans is still dominated by manual audits, but the main focus of the inspection is to see if there is any underage content.

as a system, onlyfans is undoubtedly mature. it grasps human needs and requires users to pay to access content from the very beginning, forming a healthy and stable payment ecosystem.

musk's x is also trying paid subscriptions and has relaxed restrictions on adult content, but onlyfans ceo keily blair is not optimistic about the "onlyfansization" of other platforms.

keily blair (right)

her reason is simple: paying or not paying is a kind of inertia. users of other social media are already used to content being free. if these platforms also want to try the subscription model, they need to make users feel that the content is exclusive and they can get more value.

onlyfans has paved the way for "you have to spend money to do everything", and every link knows how to gain more profits faster and more systematically, but the people who get most of the benefits are not necessarily the creators themselves.

ai version of onlyfans is coming. what can't be replaced by machines?

in the face of onlyfans's outstanding performance, some people are pessimistic, believing that onlyfans has reached the top and will go downhill and be subverted bit by bit by ai. there is some truth in this.

onlyfans currently has a negative attitude towards ai, believing that the risks and rewards are disproportionate, the chats are not as in-depth as humans, and the ownership of copyrights is unclear. creators can use ai to improve their content, but accounts generated entirely by ai are not allowed.

onlyfans has very strict qualifications for creators. everyone must submit about 10 pieces of personal identification, as well as social media information, and take a selfie video holding their id to prove that they are an adult.

onlyfans is making a calendar with fans instead of sexy cover girls

this was originally intended to prevent illegal activities, but it also had the effect of keeping ai out of the system.

however, the outside world is already full of ai.

chatbots do not affect onlyfans' main business yet, because chat is a value-added feature and a hook, and users will eventually purchase pictures and videos of real people. however, internet celebrities who are covered in ai from head to toe may have an impact on onlyfans itself.

the data from onlyfans in recent years reflects a very interesting phenomenon: the proportion of subscriptions in total revenue has decreased, while the proportion of pay-per-view has increased, even accounting for nearly 60% in 2023, and this is not a small amount, amounting to dozens of dollars or more at a time.

this is not difficult to understand. i subscribe to memberships of iqiyi, tencent, and youku, which is equivalent to choosing all the content on the website, but i may only want to watch one drama. pay-per-view can better meet the needs of thousands of people.

but when it comes to customization, isn't ai more capable of catering to your needs? they can speak various languages, are online 24 hours a day, generate whatever you want, and gradually make it look real.

the authenticity of ai models is improving day by day. “i have a bold idea” seems to be able to come true with ai.

ai female generated using flux

when it comes to soul resonance, ai virtual companions have become a very popular track. character ai, talkie, and hoshino allow you to use ai to recreate real people, or set up original characters. the appearance, personality, voice, and storyline can all be customized. personalized experience has been pushed to a new level.

unlike onlyfans' tough attitude, its competitor fanvue is more tolerant and is very optimistic about ai-generated creators, provided that they do not conceal the use of ai.

among them, pellegrini is one of fanvue’s most popular ai influencers, with an income of $23,000 in january 2024 and 257,000 instagram followers. this business capability is also top-notch on onlyfans.

one football player even wrote to her, asking for her contact information: "how could such a beautiful woman not have a boyfriend?"

if you open your mind, there is also a team operating behind ai, and it seems not much different from some real-life internet celebrities - chatting with paying fans, providing exclusive content, and what users ask for are the same fantasy appearance and false relationships.

however, in the past, creators provided the materials, but now ai can generate them tirelessly.

we do not doubt the weakness of human nature, nor do we ignore the value of desire and emotion, but how to realize it and what to pay for is an open question. no one can be sure that they are the most standard answer.

but onlyfans is more powerful than ai companies, and it seems to be resisting the reality that everything is gradually becoming ai-based. human creation is still worth paying for and can afford a higher psychological price, no matter in which industry.

onlyfans can serve as a special sample. in the next few years, let us continue to observe whether the emergence of more ai alternatives will reduce the original payment demand or make humans cherish the labor content of manual work more, even if it is just packaged.

this ancient industry of mankind is also a mirror of advanced technology.