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“She charges up to $40 for lingerie pictures and videos or for content that implies nudity; $165 for topless photos and $200 for nude images and videos.” I don

“She charges up to $40 for lingerie pictures and videos or for content that implies nudity; $165 for topless photos and $200 for nude images and videos.” I don’t get it. Who has the income to drop hundreds of dollars on pictures like this?!?! The internet is filled with tons of free images and videos. I can’t see the point. I guess the “item” being sold isn’t just the image/video but rather the “interaction” and maybe personalization.

helipad 6y ago
I suppose you don't need income so much as a credit line.
Pfhreak 6y ago
My hypotheses: Some people want to pay creators, support specific individuals, or feel like they have a connection to someone in particular. If this is what someone's discretionary budget is allocated to, more power to them.
- chillwaves 6y ago
  This is a big part of it, at least in smaller communities. People want to show their gratitude. It's more relevant to the Twitch conversations. OF is basically all paid members where twitch, the ratio is probably 20:1 or worse, free to paid. The people who are paying are doing so because they want to, not because they have to. That's one big difference between Twitch and Onlyfans.
hippodou 6y ago
I'd pay a few hundred dollars for nudes of some women I know if they're happy to sell them with informed consent. Seeing someone you know naked is a lot more interesting than seeing a random person naked.
- hackinthebochs 6y ago
  This. It's strange how many people will rationalize that all nude images are interchangeable, so no one should pay for porn. It's so obviously not true for most people.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
You're underestimating how much expendable income some people have. I probably am too, and I'm amazed at how much money goes on in e.g. Onlyfans, twitch (donations / subscriptions), youtube (ads, subs), patreon, etc.
- wirthjason 6y ago
  Obviously must be underestimating because I feel like I’m in the wrong job reading this stuff! Overall it’s a good thing that the internet can provide the “long tail” for content when it used to be dominated by a few major players, often with big barriers to entry. For example I’m happy to buy self-published tech books. Thorsten Ball’s “Writing an interpreter / compiler in Go” series comes to mind. Those books don’t see the light of day in the old model. His books are well written and original. So if you have a niche and someone produces content, esp high quality content, then by all means support it. But saying someone’s name in a live stream, sending some nude photos, etc. doesn’t seem to have much original value.
Dirlewanger 6y ago
People want pictures of those that they interact with on a regular basis/are attracted to. Otherwise sexting wouldn't be as large of a phenomenon as it is.
- brmgb 6y ago
  Sexting is a direct erotic interaction with someone. It is not actually about the pictures per se. A lot of sexting doesn't involve pictures at all.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sushshshsh 6y ago
It's not hard to come up with $200 if you are a single guy with a good job, no house no wife no kids and no ambitions
- bufferoverflow 6y ago
  I was that guy. And at no point I thought of wasting $200 on some nude pictures or videos. The internet is full of them for free.
  - sushshshsh 6y ago
    If you have a specific attachment to some celebrity in particular, there is a high chance that the internet is in fact not full of them, even for an infinite price. And, if the pictures/vids have been leaked, there are still people who will pay for personalized content, in which the celebrity personally mentions the payer's name or has a conversation with them or etc.
  - bluntfang 6y ago
    But the internet isn't full of pictures that were taking specifically for you and accompanied by personal correspondence to you. the product isn't the pictures. The product is an experience, likely to do with power and not sex. The feeling of control. The feeling that you're able to tell someone what to do. The feeling that you're participating in taboo.
    - hpkuarg 6y ago
      > like to do with power and not sex "Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power."
  - valuearb 6y ago
    What if your favorite girl to fap to would talk to you over video? There is a big difference in making personal connections and lonely masturbation.
- timwaagh 6y ago
matwood 6y ago
> I don’t get it. Who has the income to drop hundreds of dollars on pictures like this?!?! People drop hundreds and thousands of dollars on in-game coins. There is a lot more money floating around than you realize.
- syshum 6y ago
  My ethics continue to prevent me from being a rich person.... Fools are easily separated from their money, but my ethics prevent me from taking advantage of those fools
  - valuearb 6y ago
    No, not finding a role in society where you generate a lot of value in the type of transactions people are willing to pay for keeps you from being a rich person.
    - Swenrekcah 6y ago
      That's basically what they said. There are tons of things people are willing to pay for that would also be unethical to facilitate.
      - valuearb 6y ago
        There are many, many more that are ethical.
      - chii 6y ago
        > There are tons of things people are willing to pay for that would also be unethical to facilitate such as? If you exclude illegal acts, i cannot think of what unethical, but high demand goods/services there are that are currently under-served. Gambling, prostitution and other such vices? All highly competitive.
        Swenrekcah 6y ago
        There are many. A lot of Pyramid/MLM schemes are legal but basically all unethical. The hologram bracelet and other similar 'products' are unethical. As for this article and OnlyFans. I don't see a problem with selling nudes (although some people might), but what I gives me pause is the analysis that the 'fans' think they're buying intimacy and friendship. If that is the case, this is highly unethical unless you actually provide some sort of a real human relationship (which of course would not scale very well).
svachalek 6y ago
You probably make all your own money, pay all your bills and save for retirement. But you’d probably be surprised how many people aren’t doing at least one of these three, and how easy spending is for them.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Very true. My wife remarked once how sad she feels for some friends that we know that are poor. I added things up, if you subtract my retirement savings, and both our house payments (their house is significant smaller/cheaper than ours) we both have about the same amount of spending cash each month to work with. Of course my plan is to someday retire and live like a king, their plans is to live off of social security...
bena 6y ago
I get not getting it. But whenever I find myself in that position, I walk over to my closet full of Lego sets. That's pointless as well. But, you know, I have a $700 Star Destroyer.
- booi 6y ago
  ... ok i'll bite. can i buy a picture of it?!
  - bena 6y ago
    I was just basically saying that I don't have to "get" why someone would want to spend money for nude pictures of people. I'm sure lots of people wouldn't get buying Lego sets either. But I do it because I like it. Also, I'll get a picture up soon. Additional: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TEJNuOwgxsgTRi_j4AQoxUah6gZj4qc4?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TEJNuOwgxsgTRi_j4AQo... Here are pictures of the closet with non-Lego stuff cut out. Lego1 contains sets I've built but are currently disassembled, with the exception of the Voltron which is at my office. I have the boxes for far fewer sets than are currently contained within those boxes. I typically keep the boxes only for certain sets. Lego2 has pictures of the UCS Falcon and the UCS Star Destroyer. The Falcon was built and displayed, but is currently disassembled. The Star Destroyer has not been opened yet. The container underneath has the instructions and some sets in box I haven't built yet. Lego3 is mostly unbuilt/unopened sets. You can also see my containers of loose bricks. Much older sets from throughout life. Lego4 is the stuff on top of that. The NES set is currently built and on display. Each picture represents probably anywhere from $1000 to $3000 worth of sets.
    - booi 6y ago
      No star destroyer? I want a refund plz
      - bena 6y ago
        It's in Lego2. The three visible boxes are The Droid Developer Kit, The Imperial Star Destroyer, The Millennium Falcon.
reyqn 6y ago
That's the real issue. The target isn't people who can afford it, it's any horny guy, whether they are rich or poor. Rich people won't actually be affected by it, but it keeps some poor people in misery. Also I would guess poor people are more likely to lack intimate affection, so they are probably the most common profile. They don't have the income, but they spend the money anyway.
tashoecraft 6y ago
I think most of these things rely on whales. I know mobile games and twitch streamers receive a massive amount of money from less then 1% of their audience dropping obscene amounts of money. I imagine it's the same here.
entropie 6y ago
I suggest to go a few hours to twitch and check out how people throw money at the screen for really no value, and in this case there is actual value (you have topless pics others dont have).
- wirthjason 6y ago
  The lack of value is the hardest thing to grasp. I wonder how the creators feel. Obviously they like the pay day but do they every feel like taking in a lot of money for little value. (Although I’m sure they rationalize the value in their head.)
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    You're thinking of pictures as commodities when these models are providing personal services.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The lack of value is the hardest thing to grasp. Value is subjective. Just because you don't think it has a lot of value doesn't mean the people paying for it don't. Plenty of people probably think plenty of the things you pay for don't have as much value as you place on them. In a market economy, it's naturally the people that (ceteris paribus) value a thing the most that end up buying it.
    - wirthjason 6y ago
      To say that value is subjective does not mean that we cannot rank things. Clearly some things are more valuable than others. To give a computer science analogy it’s like say that just because numbers are infinite you cannot count them.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > To say that value is subjective does not mean that we cannot rank things. Unless you mean “...according to one set of preferences”, it means exactly that.. > Clearly some things are more valuable than others. No, you are again trying to make your own preferences and objective yardstick of value. Something's are more valuable to to some people, and these things are also less valuable to other people. While there are lots of reasons to argue it's not an ideal aggregate (e.g., and this is far from the only factor, because people don't enter transactions in the same starting position, so preexisting wealth weights things) markets are one of the mechanisms of aggregating preference to arrive at “value”. > To give a computer science analogy it’s like say that just because numbers are infinite you cannot count them. No, saying that subjective value can't have objective ranking is more like saying that because there isn't a bijection between reals and naturals, the reals aren't countable.
simonsarris 6y ago
Perhaps you underestimate just how much people like to be fans: Some people spend thousands of dollars on a baseball if it's signed by a particular person. And $200 is cheap compared to a print of Elvis that's been signed by him. It's not even a nude print and you're not even giving him the money! Broadly speaking I have found many people aching for the smallest shred of sentimentality. This is what she's selling. The only amazing thing is just how little people will buy.
- Hitton 6y ago
  But the Elvis was the one and only "King of Rock and Roll", and these are sex workers (for the lack of better word) who don't have anything that isn't already provided by thousands of other sex workers (or rather millions).
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Millions of people can sing “I want to be a hound dog”
- bnycum 6y ago
  Both the baseball and Elvis print have some monetary value to them though. I don't buy much in terms of collectors items, but when I do it's always under the thought that I will always be able to get my money out of it if I wanted.
  - landryraccoon 6y ago
    I don’t believe that the value of memorabilia is ultimately driven by some sort of pyramid scheme, as would be implied if the only value to a collector is what they could sell it for. I would argue that the value is ultimately driven by people who want to own an item at a given price. People who are Elvis fans may want to buy an item and hold it forever, because of the nostalgia value for them.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
xboxnolifes 6y ago
I bet nearly everyone in the thread has $200 to speed. Whether they choose to spend it on this is completely tangential.
- bob33212 6y ago
  Someone in this thread probably has a $500-$1000. Someone could look at that and say what the hell? A $200 chair is just fine.
  - rootsudo 6y ago
    A $200 chair is cheap, and capital equipment. It is a tool, it provides continuous value, has a warranty and solves a problem. $200 for the same picture and a "thank you, u so cute xoxo" is not the same as the chair. It does solve a few problems though, that, in some people, put first over having a chair.
    - lancesells 6y ago
      Humanity in general need these things: food, shelter & love / societal interactions. So much money is spent on things outside these necessities that I would argue for a particular person it's much more valuable than a chair. Buying "love" even temporarily might be better for the psyche than buying that new flatscreen that is just slightly improved than the old flatscreen.
    - timwaagh 6y ago
      You could get a good chair for way way less though. Matter of fact I'm sitting on a $30 couch right now. Which is probably what that chair of yours is worth after you buy it. What made you spend the other $170? Perhaps it gave you a good feeling? Maybe the picture did the same...
pixxel 6y ago
I’ve always wondered why people pay for porn in general. I guess I should thank them.
hackinthebochs 6y ago
People don't pay for porn, they pay for specific porn. "Specific" porn can come in many varieties: the person, the act, the body type, personal touch, etc.
jrnichols 6y ago
> I don’t get it. Who has the income to drop hundreds of dollars on pictures like this?!?! I know several people that now have that to spend because they aren't taking public transit anymore and another gave up a $300/mo parking place in New York. Now he's spending a bunch of the money he should be saving on OnlyFans, "Premium snapchats" and Fortnite.
shard972 6y ago
Young lonely men who nobody cares about unless they open up their wallets.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

helipad 6y ago

I suppose you don't need income so much as a credit line.

Pfhreak 6y ago

My hypotheses: Some people want to pay creators, support specific individuals, or feel like they have a connection to someone in particular. If this is what someone's discretionary budget is allocated to, more power to them.

chillwaves 6y ago
This is a big part of it, at least in smaller communities. People want to show their gratitude. It's more relevant to the Twitch conversations. OF is basically all paid members where twitch, the ratio is probably 20:1 or worse, free to paid. The people who are paying are doing so because they want to, not because they have to. That's one big difference between Twitch and Onlyfans.

hippodou 6y ago

I'd pay a few hundred dollars for nudes of some women I know if they're happy to sell them with informed consent. Seeing someone you know naked is a lot more interesting than seeing a random person naked.

hackinthebochs 6y ago
This. It's strange how many people will rationalize that all nude images are interchangeable, so no one should pay for porn. It's so obviously not true for most people.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

You're underestimating how much expendable income some people have. I probably am too, and I'm amazed at how much money goes on in e.g. Onlyfans, twitch (donations / subscriptions), youtube (ads, subs), patreon, etc.

wirthjason 6y ago
Obviously must be underestimating because I feel like I’m in the wrong job reading this stuff! Overall it’s a good thing that the internet can provide the “long tail” for content when it used to be dominated by a few major players, often with big barriers to entry. For example I’m happy to buy self-published tech books. Thorsten Ball’s “Writing an interpreter / compiler in Go” series comes to mind. Those books don’t see the light of day in the old model. His books are well written and original. So if you have a niche and someone produces content, esp high quality content, then by all means support it. But saying someone’s name in a live stream, sending some nude photos, etc. doesn’t seem to have much original value.

Dirlewanger 6y ago

People want pictures of those that they interact with on a regular basis/are attracted to. Otherwise sexting wouldn't be as large of a phenomenon as it is.

brmgb 6y ago
Sexting is a direct erotic interaction with someone. It is not actually about the pictures per se. A lot of sexting doesn't involve pictures at all.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sushshshsh 6y ago

It's not hard to come up with $200 if you are a single guy with a good job, no house no wife no kids and no ambitions

bufferoverflow 6y ago
I was that guy. And at no point I thought of wasting $200 on some nude pictures or videos. The internet is full of them for free.
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  If you have a specific attachment to some celebrity in particular, there is a high chance that the internet is in fact not full of them, even for an infinite price. And, if the pictures/vids have been leaked, there are still people who will pay for personalized content, in which the celebrity personally mentions the payer's name or has a conversation with them or etc.
- bluntfang 6y ago
  But the internet isn't full of pictures that were taking specifically for you and accompanied by personal correspondence to you. the product isn't the pictures. The product is an experience, likely to do with power and not sex. The feeling of control. The feeling that you're able to tell someone what to do. The feeling that you're participating in taboo.
  - hpkuarg 6y ago
    > like to do with power and not sex "Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power."
- valuearb 6y ago
  What if your favorite girl to fap to would talk to you over video? There is a big difference in making personal connections and lonely masturbation.
timwaagh 6y ago

matwood 6y ago

> I don’t get it. Who has the income to drop hundreds of dollars on pictures like this?!?! People drop hundreds and thousands of dollars on in-game coins. There is a lot more money floating around than you realize.

syshum 6y ago
My ethics continue to prevent me from being a rich person.... Fools are easily separated from their money, but my ethics prevent me from taking advantage of those fools
- valuearb 6y ago
  No, not finding a role in society where you generate a lot of value in the type of transactions people are willing to pay for keeps you from being a rich person.
  - Swenrekcah 6y ago
    That's basically what they said. There are tons of things people are willing to pay for that would also be unethical to facilitate.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      There are many, many more that are ethical.
    - chii 6y ago
      > There are tons of things people are willing to pay for that would also be unethical to facilitate such as? If you exclude illegal acts, i cannot think of what unethical, but high demand goods/services there are that are currently under-served. Gambling, prostitution and other such vices? All highly competitive.
      - Swenrekcah 6y ago
        There are many. A lot of Pyramid/MLM schemes are legal but basically all unethical. The hologram bracelet and other similar 'products' are unethical. As for this article and OnlyFans. I don't see a problem with selling nudes (although some people might), but what I gives me pause is the analysis that the 'fans' think they're buying intimacy and friendship. If that is the case, this is highly unethical unless you actually provide some sort of a real human relationship (which of course would not scale very well).

svachalek 6y ago

You probably make all your own money, pay all your bills and save for retirement. But you’d probably be surprised how many people aren’t doing at least one of these three, and how easy spending is for them.

bluGill 6y ago
Very true. My wife remarked once how sad she feels for some friends that we know that are poor. I added things up, if you subtract my retirement savings, and both our house payments (their house is significant smaller/cheaper than ours) we both have about the same amount of spending cash each month to work with. Of course my plan is to someday retire and live like a king, their plans is to live off of social security...

bena 6y ago

I get not getting it. But whenever I find myself in that position, I walk over to my closet full of Lego sets. That's pointless as well. But, you know, I have a $700 Star Destroyer.

booi 6y ago
... ok i'll bite. can i buy a picture of it?!
- bena 6y ago
  I was just basically saying that I don't have to "get" why someone would want to spend money for nude pictures of people. I'm sure lots of people wouldn't get buying Lego sets either. But I do it because I like it. Also, I'll get a picture up soon. Additional: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TEJNuOwgxsgTRi_j4AQoxUah6gZj4qc4?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TEJNuOwgxsgTRi_j4AQo... Here are pictures of the closet with non-Lego stuff cut out. Lego1 contains sets I've built but are currently disassembled, with the exception of the Voltron which is at my office. I have the boxes for far fewer sets than are currently contained within those boxes. I typically keep the boxes only for certain sets. Lego2 has pictures of the UCS Falcon and the UCS Star Destroyer. The Falcon was built and displayed, but is currently disassembled. The Star Destroyer has not been opened yet. The container underneath has the instructions and some sets in box I haven't built yet. Lego3 is mostly unbuilt/unopened sets. You can also see my containers of loose bricks. Much older sets from throughout life. Lego4 is the stuff on top of that. The NES set is currently built and on display. Each picture represents probably anywhere from $1000 to $3000 worth of sets.
  - booi 6y ago
    No star destroyer? I want a refund plz
    - bena 6y ago
      It's in Lego2. The three visible boxes are The Droid Developer Kit, The Imperial Star Destroyer, The Millennium Falcon.

reyqn 6y ago

That's the real issue. The target isn't people who can afford it, it's any horny guy, whether they are rich or poor. Rich people won't actually be affected by it, but it keeps some poor people in misery. Also I would guess poor people are more likely to lack intimate affection, so they are probably the most common profile. They don't have the income, but they spend the money anyway.

tashoecraft 6y ago

I think most of these things rely on whales. I know mobile games and twitch streamers receive a massive amount of money from less then 1% of their audience dropping obscene amounts of money. I imagine it's the same here.

entropie 6y ago

I suggest to go a few hours to twitch and check out how people throw money at the screen for really no value, and in this case there is actual value (you have topless pics others dont have).

wirthjason 6y ago
The lack of value is the hardest thing to grasp. I wonder how the creators feel. Obviously they like the pay day but do they every feel like taking in a lot of money for little value. (Although I’m sure they rationalize the value in their head.)
- tehjoker 6y ago
  You're thinking of pictures as commodities when these models are providing personal services.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The lack of value is the hardest thing to grasp. Value is subjective. Just because you don't think it has a lot of value doesn't mean the people paying for it don't. Plenty of people probably think plenty of the things you pay for don't have as much value as you place on them. In a market economy, it's naturally the people that (ceteris paribus) value a thing the most that end up buying it.
  - wirthjason 6y ago
    To say that value is subjective does not mean that we cannot rank things. Clearly some things are more valuable than others. To give a computer science analogy it’s like say that just because numbers are infinite you cannot count them.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > To say that value is subjective does not mean that we cannot rank things. Unless you mean “...according to one set of preferences”, it means exactly that.. > Clearly some things are more valuable than others. No, you are again trying to make your own preferences and objective yardstick of value. Something's are more valuable to to some people, and these things are also less valuable to other people. While there are lots of reasons to argue it's not an ideal aggregate (e.g., and this is far from the only factor, because people don't enter transactions in the same starting position, so preexisting wealth weights things) markets are one of the mechanisms of aggregating preference to arrive at “value”. > To give a computer science analogy it’s like say that just because numbers are infinite you cannot count them. No, saying that subjective value can't have objective ranking is more like saying that because there isn't a bijection between reals and naturals, the reals aren't countable.

simonsarris 6y ago

Perhaps you underestimate just how much people like to be fans: Some people spend thousands of dollars on a baseball if it's signed by a particular person. And $200 is cheap compared to a print of Elvis that's been signed by him. It's not even a nude print and you're not even giving him the money! Broadly speaking I have found many people aching for the smallest shred of sentimentality. This is what she's selling. The only amazing thing is just how little people will buy.

Hitton 6y ago
But the Elvis was the one and only "King of Rock and Roll", and these are sex workers (for the lack of better word) who don't have anything that isn't already provided by thousands of other sex workers (or rather millions).
- valuearb 6y ago
  Millions of people can sing “I want to be a hound dog”
bnycum 6y ago
Both the baseball and Elvis print have some monetary value to them though. I don't buy much in terms of collectors items, but when I do it's always under the thought that I will always be able to get my money out of it if I wanted.
- landryraccoon 6y ago
  I don’t believe that the value of memorabilia is ultimately driven by some sort of pyramid scheme, as would be implied if the only value to a collector is what they could sell it for. I would argue that the value is ultimately driven by people who want to own an item at a given price. People who are Elvis fans may want to buy an item and hold it forever, because of the nostalgia value for them.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago

xboxnolifes 6y ago

I bet nearly everyone in the thread has $200 to speed. Whether they choose to spend it on this is completely tangential.

bob33212 6y ago
Someone in this thread probably has a $500-$1000. Someone could look at that and say what the hell? A $200 chair is just fine.
- rootsudo 6y ago
  A $200 chair is cheap, and capital equipment. It is a tool, it provides continuous value, has a warranty and solves a problem. $200 for the same picture and a "thank you, u so cute xoxo" is not the same as the chair. It does solve a few problems though, that, in some people, put first over having a chair.
  - lancesells 6y ago
    Humanity in general need these things: food, shelter & love / societal interactions. So much money is spent on things outside these necessities that I would argue for a particular person it's much more valuable than a chair. Buying "love" even temporarily might be better for the psyche than buying that new flatscreen that is just slightly improved than the old flatscreen.
  - timwaagh 6y ago
    You could get a good chair for way way less though. Matter of fact I'm sitting on a $30 couch right now. Which is probably what that chair of yours is worth after you buy it. What made you spend the other $170? Perhaps it gave you a good feeling? Maybe the picture did the same...

pixxel 6y ago

I’ve always wondered why people pay for porn in general. I guess I should thank them.

hackinthebochs 6y ago

People don't pay for porn, they pay for specific porn. "Specific" porn can come in many varieties: the person, the act, the body type, personal touch, etc.

jrnichols 6y ago

> I don’t get it. Who has the income to drop hundreds of dollars on pictures like this?!?! I know several people that now have that to spend because they aren't taking public transit anymore and another gave up a $300/mo parking place in New York. Now he's spending a bunch of the money he should be saving on OnlyFans, "Premium snapchats" and Fortnite.

shard972 6y ago

Young lonely men who nobody cares about unless they open up their wallets.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]