Well, I tried to use the site, but when I offered my content, they said, “Look, we have our standards.”
21 Likes
Some junior executive heard the word pivot one too many times.
1 Like
4 Likes
From what I understand, there is a whole world of CC processing companies tuned for working with the adult industry, and that they’re not very much fun to work with for businesses or customers.
This sounds like the end of their business.
4 Likes
OH, I guess I was one of those. But to be clear, I am 100% for sex work to be legalized, both online and IRL. It would reduce soooo many problems from underage girls who are coerced into prostitution, to women abused by johns and pimps with no legal protections, to enabling safe and clean environments for transactions, to creating an actual job and the benefits that come with that (healthcare, retirement, etc), to allowing people to hire sex workers with out the fear of legal consequences, to other benefits I am sure I am forgetting about.
ETA - oh - one more thing, it would enable workers to set higher prices, especially for specialties. I recall there was a forum for sex workers in CA and it allowed a lot of networking for workers and clients and, where people who specialized would sort of agree to make a set price point and lifted each other up that way. They were also able to blacklist abusive johns. It was somewhere in the 2000s and seems like a glimpse at what legitimizing sex work could look like, but it got shut down 
4 Likes
See, you should create a content based website to earn more money. May I suggest OnlyFetts?
14 Likes
Quote a friend sent me of another article:
OnlyFans, the app most known for its adult-only content, said it will now prohibit the sexually explicit photos and videos that have made the company worth as much as $1 billion.
The company confirmed Thursday in a statement to BuzzFeed News that starting Oct. 1, it will prohibit any sexually explicit content on its app. Nudity that is not sexually explicit will remain allowed.
Emphasis mine
7 Likes
Yeah, that will work. /s
2 Likes
One of many articles on a similar theme.
The point about Uber’s fares being too low for it to make enough money is telling. Most likely, Uber is making a long-game effort to price out all its rivals. “[Uber’s] IPO documents show that it plans to keep spending heavily to win market share, even if it continues to rack up multibillion-dollar annual losses,” the Financial Times reported. “It amounts to a forceful reminder of the company’s founding mantra that ride-hailing is a business with strong network effects and a winner-takes-most, if not all, market.”
“Strong network effects” is economics-speak for the theory that the ride-hailing market is actually quirky in a way that’s similar to those other “natural monopoly” markets. And that whoever dominates that market first will most likely dominate it in perpetuity. Thus, the purpose of the money Uber gets from investors isn’t to fund new innovations. It’s to keep plugging the hole in Uber’s finances left by its low fares, so the company can keep functioning financially as it undercuts its rivals.
Investors are just betting that Uber is most likely to become king of ride-hailing first. Then it can cut driver pay and jack up ride fares, and neither its drivers nor its customers will have any competitors to flee to. And it will finally have big profits to spit out to shareholders. “Many investors and analysts expect that once [Uber and Lyft] are public, they will stop cutting prices and giving drivers bonuses so aggressively, which would help pave the way to profits,” the Times continued.
8 Likes
Yup. But here are the longer lasting ramifications:
“[SESTA/FOSTA] was passed into law in 2018, making it illegal to promote or facilitate prostitution. The new law also created an exception to CDA Section 230, removing an interactive computer service’s immunity from civil and criminal state laws regarding sex trafficking. The law’s proponents claimed that it was needed to crackdown on Backpage, which they accused of facilitating sex trafficking through its adult section.”
Another non coincidental item… jury selection just began for prosecution of six back page executives. The news will soon fire up conversations about web providers culpability and I believe only fans and apple and their investors are trying to get on the right side of the conversation before it comes up.
10 Likes
- Create adult content website
- Jettison adult content
- ???
- PROFITS!
So, scans of medical textbooks and old National Geographics ? /s
13 Likes
With Gusto!
10 Likes
They’ll know it when they see it.
6 Likes
As someone who is friends with a real-live ex-sex worker, it’s also important to point out that oftentimes sex work is not really what some workers wish to be doing. They do it because it is a trade that will always have an available customer base, and can sometimes be more profitable than other exploitative jobs such as food service. Their problems intersect with so many other working folks…often long or hard work coupled with cheap or abusive donors is a problem for many.
20 Likes
I love to blame banks as much as the next person, but my guess is that onlyfans managment is who needs the blame here,
Payment processors don’t have any problem running credit cards for plenty of porn sites. They do get grumpy about the very high rate of fraud charges they tend to result in, but porn on the internet isn’t disappearing.
Supposedly the complaint was about inadequate age verification done by onlyfans. Which I understand it might be difficult for them compared to a “regular” studio, but how much have they tried?
In a total non-coincidence at the same time they are trying to get new investors on a $1B valuation. It’s one thing for a bank to run credit cards for a legal business, but getting investors to invest in a porn site is more difficult. Adding to that, according to the ars technica article, the onlyfans pitch deck they are showing to potential investors doesn’t even mention porn or adult content. Despite all evidence to the contrary, investment bankers aren’t actually that stupid. Nobody is going to invest in a $1b porn site run by people who are pretending it isn’t a porn site.
10 Likes
…for the articles?
2 Likes
Chasing down the links to the “pitch deck”
cites axios
which cites “company financials leaked to Axios,”
6 Likes
Yeah, that is the big, big problem with online sexwork and don’t downplay it.
Sex industry is difficult enough to regulate and control by a local government that actually tries but for an online service like this? Who knows how many workers are exploited, forced, coerced, or indeed too young?
Who checks, who is warned when things are questionable, who is responsible when laws are broken and what laws apply where?
4 Likes
The announcement follows a string of steps that the company has taken over the past two years to distance itself from the sex workers who have made the platform what it is, and who rely on it for income.
That article links to this list of alternatives.
6 Likes
Good thread on this. They don’t seem to have much realistic choice. Bring back anti-trust enforcement.
6 Likes
