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The economics of entertainment (and that is what an only-fans account is: entertainment) don't follow this cold calculation of value. A single ticket to an NBA

The economics of entertainment (and that is what an only-fans account is: entertainment) don't follow this cold calculation of value. A single ticket to an NBA playoff game ranges from about $150 to over $5,000 (back when you could go). You can see the game for effectively free at home, with better commentary, exactly the snacks you want and all of that. A night at the symphony or opera starts--starts--at $50 a ticket, and can go to $1500 easily. After the show is over, it's over, and all you have is a memory. Good seats at a popular rock concert are easily $250. You can get the mp3 for next to nothing, and it will be a better recording too. Even just a movie these days starts at almost $20. And yet people still fork out the money. It isn't just the show itself that they are paying for, it is the entire experience. The interaction, being part of the crowd, a crowd. Many things. The value captured by an entertainment here isn't just the bits of the picture. And I say this as someone who would never, ever pay for the content I know of on only fans. But I have sunk a lot of money into the other things on the above list.

dvt 6y ago
> and that is what an only-fans account is: entertainment While trivially true, this is extremely reductive. People don't attend basketball games, operas, or go eat at Michelin star restaurants because they're lonely. People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are.
- compiler-guy 6y ago
  People wear Golden State Warriors gear and party at Oracle after the game because they want to be a part of the crowd. That is exactly a search for connection. The Warriors don't care about you (at least not more than anyone else).
- sbarre 6y ago
  > People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are [lonely]. Speaking of being reductive... Consider the possibility that people also do it because they enjoy the interaction they get out of it, however shallow and/or fleeting. The same way some people pay top dollar for a "meet and greet" with rock stars or athletes before a show or game, where you get to shake hands, take selfies and trade platitudes with famous people and then they never see you or think of you again. People donate to streams to hear the streamer thank them or call them out by name or interact with them, in some manner, for some amount of time. I'm not saying loneliness is not a factor, but it's definitely not the only factor. Like everything else to do with human interactions, it's complicated.
  - dvt 6y ago
    > The same way some people pay top dollar for a "meet and greet" with rock stars or athletes before a show or game, where you get to shake hands, take selfies and trade platitudes with famous people and then they never see you or think of you again. Famous people aren't exempt from fostering parasocial relationships (see Taylor Swift's iPhone app), and Eminem famously wrote/performed "Stan" about a hypothetical overzealous fan that was in a parasocial relationship with him. I don't think I'm being reductive when I say that I think most Onlyfans subscribers -- especially those that give significant percentages of their income to models for a modicum of attention -- are "stans."
    - chii 6y ago
      > are "stans" the new name for this is SIMPs
  - slg 6y ago
    >People donate to streams to hear the streamer thank them or call them out by name or interact with them, in some manner, for some amount of time. Let's get one more accusation of reductiveness in here. You are still viewing it through a lens of parasocial behavior. The token thanks isn't the only motivating factor. People don't donate to NPR just to get tote bags. They donate because they recognize the content has both value and costs. Those donations are part of recognizing that value and supporting future content creation. The same applies to streaming. Some donations are a means of thanking the streamer and providing them with both a means and a motivation to continue making content. The interactive nature of the content on a site like Twitch doesn't necessarily make it any different than non-interactive content you might find on a site like Patreon.
    - dvt 6y ago
      > People don't donate to NPR just to get tote bags. [...] The interactive nature of the content on a site like Twitch doesn't necessarily make it any different than non-interactive content you might find on a site like Patreon. Comparing someone like Pokimane or Amouranth to NPR is laughably disingenuous. There are amazing content creators out there (ranging from math, to dance, to music, to films, to politics) that don't exploit parasocial relationships with their audience. Onlyfans is, arguably, positioned to specifically exploit parasocial relationships.
- echelon 6y ago
  I donate to musicians and artists on Patreon and programmers on Github and Ko-fi because I like what they're doing and I want them to keep doing it and getting better. Especially to those just starting in their careers. It's validation that I felt I never had and that I wished for. I hope that I'm paying it forward. It feels more tangible than donating to a giant, faceless charity. And it feels good. I might be getting music or ML models or whatever out of it, but at the core, it feels like I've made a positive contribution. It's personal, and I can imagine its direct impact in the recipient's life. In the case of art and music, there's also the touch of living vicariously through other creatives that are building a different skill set than I chose. I picked programming, and though it's too late to go back with all that I've got going on in my life, it's fun to imagine what could have been if I'd practiced sketching every day. I don't know about Twitch and OnlyFans users, but I can totally imagine donating for motivations other than loneliness. Maybe it's validation. Maybe showing off. Or maybe they're simply saying "I like what you do, please keep it up." And maybe the donors are getting a fun in-game commentary or something else as an added bonus. Don't decry it. I think these evolutions in patronage are interesting and exciting.
  - xiaolingxiao 6y ago
    Unrelated but Patreon just raised 100million at 1.2B pre-money. So you're not the only one
- baddox 6y ago
  I don't know, I bet plenty of people are feeling lonely when they go out for some entertainment and that entertainment makes them feel less lonely. I don't see why that's such a bad thing. I recently supported the new Patreon page created by a podcast host who I have been listening to for over 10 years. He sent all his supporters a short personalized video, and watching that video gave me the feeling of an authentic personal connection. Of course there's no deception going on here, I do believe that he genuinely appreciates my (very small financial) support, but there's no expectation that we're now "actually friends" in the traditional sense (he has hundreds of supporters). But still, it's a nice feeling of personal connection, and it doesn't feel like an indictment of major social problems plaguing society (other than perhaps the obvious lockdown-associated reduction in human contact). Of course, in my example there's nothing remotely flirtatious or sexual going on, which as I understand it is common on OnlyFans. Maybe that detail makes it completely unlike my example, but it really doesn't feel that different to me.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >People don't attend basketball games, operas, or go eat at Michelin star restaurants because they're lonely. I think it's reductive to consider that people are only on OnlyFans because they're lonely. People frequented strip clubs forever but I don't think everyone at a Vegas strip club is there because they are lonely.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    Maybe not everyone, but the “going to a strip club out of loneliness” thing is an age-old meme, whereas I’m unaware of any such memes about going to an NBA game out of loneliness.
    - pyuser583 6y ago
      The idea of someone going to an NBA game by themselves conjures a sad and lonely image. Strip clubs are social - you go to them with your friends. The performers are paid, of course, just like all professional entertainers. Cam sites are different. Can you imagine going to a cam site for a bachelor party? It’s not as far out as it sounds. I spent my bachelor party playing video games and watching Netflix. There’s certainly some group socializing in adult media, but it’s vastly overshadowed by paradoxical group performers.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    > People frequented strip clubs forever but I don't think everyone at a Vegas strip club is there because they are lonely. Strip clubs are notorious for monetizing parasocial behavior, being places where men literally throw money to buy some attention and are scolded if they ever think of approaching the same person in other contexts that don't involve monetization of that interaction.
- wnevets 6y ago
  > People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are. or they view it as another form of entertainment and want to support it.
- TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
  Some people might not be lonely. They might just be horny, and have a fetish to see specific individuals, whose erotic content might not be available elsewhere. Your model when thinking about this is to assume everyone thinks nude people are fungible, but people used to buy specific gossip magazines at the grocery store to see SPECIFIC celebrities caught in the nude. So this is not something new.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  > People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are [lonely]. Or because they like the entertainment? Some guy on twitch donated over $20k, over half of it for college students to do push-ups in exchange for free food (about the other half was tips to the workers of the streaming food truck [0]). A happily married couple both watch a food streamer [1], they donated hundreds of dollar, probably over 1k. Hell, I donated around $300 between the two mentioned streams, I’m happily married as well. When people donate to FOSS authors, it’s because they want to support their work, but when they donate to streamers it’s because they are lonely? Now certainly. There are those, and probably a lot more on streams featuring scantily clad women. But reducing it to that level is just wrong. [0]: https://www.twitch.tv/grubtruckers https://www.twitch.tv/grubtruckers [1]: https://www.twitch.tv/kattskitchen https://www.twitch.tv/kattskitchen
  - UweSchmidt 6y ago
    Underlying this discussion seems to be the free market/free will idea that refuses to judge decisions in a free market, because how could it? If someone spends money, they must get this objective, intangible benefit from it and who are we to judge. "You are not my mom". Yet there is an objective difference in everything we do. You've listed a few nuances yourself; somethings are better than others. The underlying psychological circumstances are also true: There is a better, healthier way to live, feel and interact and there are many pathological, harmful ways too. I would approach it like this and ask: "Would you rather play a game with a group of awesome friends (as hard as it may seem to find such a group, and even if that requires some effort and personality development to make such friends), or watch that streamer?" "Would you rather have a real relationship with another person (as discouraged by the idea you might be right now) than hang out in that chatroom and pay money to a stranger?"
    - Semaphor 6y ago
      But who is saying it has to be either or? When I have a roleplaying session (roll20 tabletop), I don’t watch streams. Some people like to watch TV by themselves sometimes. It’s simply not that different from any other type of entertainment.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > People don't attend basketball games, operas, or go eat at Michelin star restaurants because they're lonely. If you don't think a big part of the appeal of sports fandom is artificial group connection of much the same type as the kinds of artificial individual connection some people seek through the entertainment you are denigrating, I think you are quite mistaken. But, again just as for sports, just being entertained is a big part of this, too.
- watwut 6y ago
  I did watched tv and movies because I was lonely, because those contained people speaking and interacting. I never used OnlyFans, but from my point of view, if those using it are mostly lonely guys, then it does not sound that bad. Had they had girlfriends who would objected, I can see relationship issue there. But other then that, lonely guy using strip porn made by someone who did porn voluntary does not strikes me as massive problem.
antisthenes 6y ago
> It isn't just the show itself that they are paying for, it is the entire experience. The interaction, being part of the crowd, a crowd. Many things. Yes, except with social relationships, exactly the opposite things are of value. You want to be as exclusive as possible with the other person, so that you both have as much of other's attention as possible. Otherwise, what's the point? The value of being one a part of a crowd at a sporting event versus being part of a crowd on a platform like onlyfans, where the entertainment is social interaction are completely different and the analogy doesn't really hold (for well adjusted people, of course) That's what makes this phenomenon so striking.
- compiler-guy 6y ago
  I'm not saying that the reasons people go to NBA games and the reasons they go to onlyfans are the same, just that the money comes from the same budget--discretionary income for wants.
- bawolff 6y ago
  > Yes, except with social relationships, exactly the opposite things are of value. You want to be as exclusive as possible with the other person, so that you both have as much of other's attention as possible. Otherwise, what's the point? Wait what? That's definitely not true for non romantic relationships. Even in the context of a traditional monogomous romantic relationships that sounds incredibly unhealthy. Anyways i disagree generally. People don't spend $$$ on backstage concert tickets because they want to blend into the crowd. I have no idea what goes on at onlyfans, but i doubt people use it as a literal replacement for in person interaction in the same way i doubt strip clubs, brothel's, etc are used by their patrons solely to replace "normal" socisl interaction. I feel like this metaphor fails at all points.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    >That's definitely not true for non romantic relationships. It is. If you go into a chatroom with 10 active people its easier to form bonds with any particular person in the group than if you have 400 people. A relationship on HN or Facebook is extremely shallow because it is not exclusive. If you were to restrict yourself to bookmarking to 1-5 users and only responding to their comments then you would easily form a relationship with those people. Lots of people put their email address in their profiles so they can have exclusive communication between two parties. Maybe the social media example is too tech focused. A relationship between parent and child is also exclusive but the exclusivity shrinks as the family size grows. There are extreme families that have 10 children and as a result each child spends very little time with their parents. Instead, the older brothers and sisters take care of a lot of parenting. Children form stronger bonds with their siblings than with their parents. >Even in the context of a traditional monogamous romantic relationships that sounds incredibly unhealthy. That sounds to me more like your own preference is to be on a polygamous relationship with several people. There is nothing wrong with that but calling other people's relationships "incredibly unhealthy" is quite rude. It's easier to have a deep relationship with one wife than a series of potential girlfriends who you meet for one date and then never again. Of course you might find the right one and then never marry but from an exclusivity standpoint it is equivalent to a marriage. Maybe you are reading too much into "have as much of other's attention as possible". Exclusivity is not about how much time you spend with a person. It's about how much you are restricting yourself to a small selection of people. Exclusivity increases the maximum possible time that can be spent on a relationship but it doesn't mean that you actually spend every waking hour with your partner or friend.
jariel 6y ago
"A single ticket to an NBA playoff game ranges from about $150 to over $5,000 (back when you could go). You can see the game for effectively free at home," Being front row to an NBA game or Symphony are is totally incomparable to 'watching at home'. 'To each is own' but one is a commodity, one is not, which guarantees the pricing structure even if we valued them the same. So these examples won't help us understand I think why people pay sex workers to pay attention to them.
phaus 6y ago
>Good seats at a popular rock concert are easily $250. You can get the mp3 for next to nothing, and it will be a better recording too. Most musicians sound like shittier versions of themselves live. Some of them have great sound engineering teams and enough vocal talent (Most often its the singer that struggles live) to actually sound as good as they do in a studio. When you have the perfect situation, the overall effect sounds better to me. Only been to a couple Tool concerts. Neither were 250 but tickets can get pretty expensive after something sells out. Another part of it is the experience but for me its mostly the way it sounds when they get it right.
- antihero 6y ago
  > Most musicians sound like shittier versions of themselves live Probably genre dependent but I would have to disagree. Live recordings are more raw and less produced - with a band that has their shit together live it's magical because there's an authenticity to the sound and level of immersion that is impossible to get from a recording at home.
  - phaus 6y ago
    If you take another look at the last half of my comment its essentially what you said, when they have their shit together its better live. I don't think most musicians fall into that category. At least most rock/metal/bluegrass performers. Honestly its usually the lead singer that struggles with live performances. Anything completely instrumental like Jazz/Classical has a better chance of being a great performance as long as the sound guys did a good job.
prvc 6y ago
A better analogy than opera would be the trade in things like illegal drugs, opiate painkillers, or tobacco, etc. Which depend intrinsically on exploiting particular human frailties and vulnerabilities, and which have harmful effects.
tpetry 6y ago
All your examples consist of spending next to nothing for a digital experience compared to a lot of money for a physical experience. But onlyfans is a digital experience. So the correct analogy would be looking at porn/onlyfans and going to a brothel
bobwernstein 6y ago
all of your examples are places you go to. things are happening in front of you. Onlyfans? not so much. You pay for digital entertainment that is the same as any free digital entertainment. It's sad for both parties to be honest.

dvt 6y ago

> and that is what an only-fans account is: entertainment While trivially true, this is extremely reductive. People don't attend basketball games, operas, or go eat at Michelin star restaurants because they're lonely. People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are.

compiler-guy 6y ago
People wear Golden State Warriors gear and party at Oracle after the game because they want to be a part of the crowd. That is exactly a search for connection. The Warriors don't care about you (at least not more than anyone else).
sbarre 6y ago
> People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are [lonely]. Speaking of being reductive... Consider the possibility that people also do it because they enjoy the interaction they get out of it, however shallow and/or fleeting. The same way some people pay top dollar for a "meet and greet" with rock stars or athletes before a show or game, where you get to shake hands, take selfies and trade platitudes with famous people and then they never see you or think of you again. People donate to streams to hear the streamer thank them or call them out by name or interact with them, in some manner, for some amount of time. I'm not saying loneliness is not a factor, but it's definitely not the only factor. Like everything else to do with human interactions, it's complicated.
- dvt 6y ago
  > The same way some people pay top dollar for a "meet and greet" with rock stars or athletes before a show or game, where you get to shake hands, take selfies and trade platitudes with famous people and then they never see you or think of you again. Famous people aren't exempt from fostering parasocial relationships (see Taylor Swift's iPhone app), and Eminem famously wrote/performed "Stan" about a hypothetical overzealous fan that was in a parasocial relationship with him. I don't think I'm being reductive when I say that I think most Onlyfans subscribers -- especially those that give significant percentages of their income to models for a modicum of attention -- are "stans."
  - chii 6y ago
    > are "stans" the new name for this is SIMPs
- slg 6y ago
  >People donate to streams to hear the streamer thank them or call them out by name or interact with them, in some manner, for some amount of time. Let's get one more accusation of reductiveness in here. You are still viewing it through a lens of parasocial behavior. The token thanks isn't the only motivating factor. People don't donate to NPR just to get tote bags. They donate because they recognize the content has both value and costs. Those donations are part of recognizing that value and supporting future content creation. The same applies to streaming. Some donations are a means of thanking the streamer and providing them with both a means and a motivation to continue making content. The interactive nature of the content on a site like Twitch doesn't necessarily make it any different than non-interactive content you might find on a site like Patreon.
  - dvt 6y ago
    > People don't donate to NPR just to get tote bags. [...] The interactive nature of the content on a site like Twitch doesn't necessarily make it any different than non-interactive content you might find on a site like Patreon. Comparing someone like Pokimane or Amouranth to NPR is laughably disingenuous. There are amazing content creators out there (ranging from math, to dance, to music, to films, to politics) that don't exploit parasocial relationships with their audience. Onlyfans is, arguably, positioned to specifically exploit parasocial relationships.
echelon 6y ago
I donate to musicians and artists on Patreon and programmers on Github and Ko-fi because I like what they're doing and I want them to keep doing it and getting better. Especially to those just starting in their careers. It's validation that I felt I never had and that I wished for. I hope that I'm paying it forward. It feels more tangible than donating to a giant, faceless charity. And it feels good. I might be getting music or ML models or whatever out of it, but at the core, it feels like I've made a positive contribution. It's personal, and I can imagine its direct impact in the recipient's life. In the case of art and music, there's also the touch of living vicariously through other creatives that are building a different skill set than I chose. I picked programming, and though it's too late to go back with all that I've got going on in my life, it's fun to imagine what could have been if I'd practiced sketching every day. I don't know about Twitch and OnlyFans users, but I can totally imagine donating for motivations other than loneliness. Maybe it's validation. Maybe showing off. Or maybe they're simply saying "I like what you do, please keep it up." And maybe the donors are getting a fun in-game commentary or something else as an added bonus. Don't decry it. I think these evolutions in patronage are interesting and exciting.
- xiaolingxiao 6y ago
  Unrelated but Patreon just raised 100million at 1.2B pre-money. So you're not the only one
baddox 6y ago
I don't know, I bet plenty of people are feeling lonely when they go out for some entertainment and that entertainment makes them feel less lonely. I don't see why that's such a bad thing. I recently supported the new Patreon page created by a podcast host who I have been listening to for over 10 years. He sent all his supporters a short personalized video, and watching that video gave me the feeling of an authentic personal connection. Of course there's no deception going on here, I do believe that he genuinely appreciates my (very small financial) support, but there's no expectation that we're now "actually friends" in the traditional sense (he has hundreds of supporters). But still, it's a nice feeling of personal connection, and it doesn't feel like an indictment of major social problems plaguing society (other than perhaps the obvious lockdown-associated reduction in human contact). Of course, in my example there's nothing remotely flirtatious or sexual going on, which as I understand it is common on OnlyFans. Maybe that detail makes it completely unlike my example, but it really doesn't feel that different to me.
nemothekid 6y ago
>People don't attend basketball games, operas, or go eat at Michelin star restaurants because they're lonely. I think it's reductive to consider that people are only on OnlyFans because they're lonely. People frequented strip clubs forever but I don't think everyone at a Vegas strip club is there because they are lonely.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  Maybe not everyone, but the “going to a strip club out of loneliness” thing is an age-old meme, whereas I’m unaware of any such memes about going to an NBA game out of loneliness.
  - pyuser583 6y ago
    The idea of someone going to an NBA game by themselves conjures a sad and lonely image. Strip clubs are social - you go to them with your friends. The performers are paid, of course, just like all professional entertainers. Cam sites are different. Can you imagine going to a cam site for a bachelor party? It’s not as far out as it sounds. I spent my bachelor party playing video games and watching Netflix. There’s certainly some group socializing in adult media, but it’s vastly overshadowed by paradoxical group performers.
- rumanator 6y ago
  > People frequented strip clubs forever but I don't think everyone at a Vegas strip club is there because they are lonely. Strip clubs are notorious for monetizing parasocial behavior, being places where men literally throw money to buy some attention and are scolded if they ever think of approaching the same person in other contexts that don't involve monetization of that interaction.
wnevets 6y ago
> People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are. or they view it as another form of entertainment and want to support it.
TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
Some people might not be lonely. They might just be horny, and have a fetish to see specific individuals, whose erotic content might not be available elsewhere. Your model when thinking about this is to assume everyone thinks nude people are fungible, but people used to buy specific gossip magazines at the grocery store to see SPECIFIC celebrities caught in the nude. So this is not something new.
Semaphor 6y ago
> People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are [lonely]. Or because they like the entertainment? Some guy on twitch donated over $20k, over half of it for college students to do push-ups in exchange for free food (about the other half was tips to the workers of the streaming food truck [0]). A happily married couple both watch a food streamer [1], they donated hundreds of dollar, probably over 1k. Hell, I donated around $300 between the two mentioned streams, I’m happily married as well. When people donate to FOSS authors, it’s because they want to support their work, but when they donate to streamers it’s because they are lonely? Now certainly. There are those, and probably a lot more on streams featuring scantily clad women. But reducing it to that level is just wrong. [0]: https://www.twitch.tv/grubtruckers https://www.twitch.tv/grubtruckers [1]: https://www.twitch.tv/kattskitchen https://www.twitch.tv/kattskitchen
- UweSchmidt 6y ago
  Underlying this discussion seems to be the free market/free will idea that refuses to judge decisions in a free market, because how could it? If someone spends money, they must get this objective, intangible benefit from it and who are we to judge. "You are not my mom". Yet there is an objective difference in everything we do. You've listed a few nuances yourself; somethings are better than others. The underlying psychological circumstances are also true: There is a better, healthier way to live, feel and interact and there are many pathological, harmful ways too. I would approach it like this and ask: "Would you rather play a game with a group of awesome friends (as hard as it may seem to find such a group, and even if that requires some effort and personality development to make such friends), or watch that streamer?" "Would you rather have a real relationship with another person (as discouraged by the idea you might be right now) than hang out in that chatroom and pay money to a stranger?"
  - Semaphor 6y ago
    But who is saying it has to be either or? When I have a roleplaying session (roll20 tabletop), I don’t watch streams. Some people like to watch TV by themselves sometimes. It’s simply not that different from any other type of entertainment.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> People don't attend basketball games, operas, or go eat at Michelin star restaurants because they're lonely. If you don't think a big part of the appeal of sports fandom is artificial group connection of much the same type as the kinds of artificial individual connection some people seek through the entertainment you are denigrating, I think you are quite mistaken. But, again just as for sports, just being entertained is a big part of this, too.
watwut 6y ago
I did watched tv and movies because I was lonely, because those contained people speaking and interacting. I never used OnlyFans, but from my point of view, if those using it are mostly lonely guys, then it does not sound that bad. Had they had girlfriends who would objected, I can see relationship issue there. But other then that, lonely guy using strip porn made by someone who did porn voluntary does not strikes me as massive problem.

antisthenes 6y ago

> It isn't just the show itself that they are paying for, it is the entire experience. The interaction, being part of the crowd, a crowd. Many things. Yes, except with social relationships, exactly the opposite things are of value. You want to be as exclusive as possible with the other person, so that you both have as much of other's attention as possible. Otherwise, what's the point? The value of being one a part of a crowd at a sporting event versus being part of a crowd on a platform like onlyfans, where the entertainment is social interaction are completely different and the analogy doesn't really hold (for well adjusted people, of course) That's what makes this phenomenon so striking.

compiler-guy 6y ago
I'm not saying that the reasons people go to NBA games and the reasons they go to onlyfans are the same, just that the money comes from the same budget--discretionary income for wants.
bawolff 6y ago
> Yes, except with social relationships, exactly the opposite things are of value. You want to be as exclusive as possible with the other person, so that you both have as much of other's attention as possible. Otherwise, what's the point? Wait what? That's definitely not true for non romantic relationships. Even in the context of a traditional monogomous romantic relationships that sounds incredibly unhealthy. Anyways i disagree generally. People don't spend $$$ on backstage concert tickets because they want to blend into the crowd. I have no idea what goes on at onlyfans, but i doubt people use it as a literal replacement for in person interaction in the same way i doubt strip clubs, brothel's, etc are used by their patrons solely to replace "normal" socisl interaction. I feel like this metaphor fails at all points.
- imtringued 6y ago
  >That's definitely not true for non romantic relationships. It is. If you go into a chatroom with 10 active people its easier to form bonds with any particular person in the group than if you have 400 people. A relationship on HN or Facebook is extremely shallow because it is not exclusive. If you were to restrict yourself to bookmarking to 1-5 users and only responding to their comments then you would easily form a relationship with those people. Lots of people put their email address in their profiles so they can have exclusive communication between two parties. Maybe the social media example is too tech focused. A relationship between parent and child is also exclusive but the exclusivity shrinks as the family size grows. There are extreme families that have 10 children and as a result each child spends very little time with their parents. Instead, the older brothers and sisters take care of a lot of parenting. Children form stronger bonds with their siblings than with their parents. >Even in the context of a traditional monogamous romantic relationships that sounds incredibly unhealthy. That sounds to me more like your own preference is to be on a polygamous relationship with several people. There is nothing wrong with that but calling other people's relationships "incredibly unhealthy" is quite rude. It's easier to have a deep relationship with one wife than a series of potential girlfriends who you meet for one date and then never again. Of course you might find the right one and then never marry but from an exclusivity standpoint it is equivalent to a marriage. Maybe you are reading too much into "have as much of other's attention as possible". Exclusivity is not about how much time you spend with a person. It's about how much you are restricting yourself to a small selection of people. Exclusivity increases the maximum possible time that can be spent on a relationship but it doesn't mean that you actually spend every waking hour with your partner or friend.

jariel 6y ago

"A single ticket to an NBA playoff game ranges from about $150 to over $5,000 (back when you could go). You can see the game for effectively free at home," Being front row to an NBA game or Symphony are is totally incomparable to 'watching at home'. 'To each is own' but one is a commodity, one is not, which guarantees the pricing structure even if we valued them the same. So these examples won't help us understand I think why people pay sex workers to pay attention to them.

phaus 6y ago

>Good seats at a popular rock concert are easily $250. You can get the mp3 for next to nothing, and it will be a better recording too. Most musicians sound like shittier versions of themselves live. Some of them have great sound engineering teams and enough vocal talent (Most often its the singer that struggles live) to actually sound as good as they do in a studio. When you have the perfect situation, the overall effect sounds better to me. Only been to a couple Tool concerts. Neither were 250 but tickets can get pretty expensive after something sells out. Another part of it is the experience but for me its mostly the way it sounds when they get it right.

antihero 6y ago
> Most musicians sound like shittier versions of themselves live Probably genre dependent but I would have to disagree. Live recordings are more raw and less produced - with a band that has their shit together live it's magical because there's an authenticity to the sound and level of immersion that is impossible to get from a recording at home.
- phaus 6y ago
  If you take another look at the last half of my comment its essentially what you said, when they have their shit together its better live. I don't think most musicians fall into that category. At least most rock/metal/bluegrass performers. Honestly its usually the lead singer that struggles with live performances. Anything completely instrumental like Jazz/Classical has a better chance of being a great performance as long as the sound guys did a good job.

prvc 6y ago

A better analogy than opera would be the trade in things like illegal drugs, opiate painkillers, or tobacco, etc. Which depend intrinsically on exploiting particular human frailties and vulnerabilities, and which have harmful effects.

tpetry 6y ago

All your examples consist of spending next to nothing for a digital experience compared to a lot of money for a physical experience. But onlyfans is a digital experience. So the correct analogy would be looking at porn/onlyfans and going to a brothel

bobwernstein 6y ago

all of your examples are places you go to. things are happening in front of you. Onlyfans? not so much. You pay for digital entertainment that is the same as any free digital entertainment. It's sad for both parties to be honest.