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The Shady History of OnlyFans’ Billionaire Owner

43 points by prostoalex 5y ago

vmception 5y ago
I don't find his affiliate marketing play shady. He made websites advertising shared passwords to paid porn sites that just got people to the porn sites lol. To me thats no different than those discount sharing websites simply pivoting to affiliate marketing websites. Simply saying “but the porn version is shady” isnt strong enough of an argument to me. And the image and likeness lawsuits are not unique to his properties.
- tracedddd 5y ago
  I thought the shady part was that it was advertised as child pornography, not the affiliate marketing aspect.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Something to keep perverts busy instead of letting them find what they were already looking for
- meowface 5y ago
  >I don't find his affiliate marketing play shady. >Forbes uncovered 11 such sites, all created in the late 1990s and early 2000s by Radvinsky and his Glenview, Illinois-based business, Cybertania. They included Password Universe, which, in 2000, published a link directing web users to a site claiming to offer pedophiles more than 10,000 “illegal pre-teen passwords.” In 1999, a site called Working Passes had a link for “the hottest underaged hardcore” containing 16-year-olds. Also in 2000, another site, Ultra Passwords, promised a link containing “the best illegal teen passwords” and “the hottest bestiality site on the web.”
  - vmception 5y ago
    He nailed the SEO game while ya’ll were buying books If he wasn't offering that in actuality then its not shady
    - amazingman 5y ago
      > He nailed the SEO game while ya’ll were buying books[.] If he wasn't offering that in actuality then its not shady You should double check your ethics algorithms. It is absolutely “shady” to advertise child rape for profit, regardless of whether or not you intend to ultimately make good on that advertisement.
      - vmception 5y ago
        Something to keep perverts busy instead of letting them find what they were already looking for If the affiliate sites were actually intentionally providing that kind of media I would call it very shady to take affiliate dollars from them
        amazingman 5y ago
        If they were intentionally providing that media they would be criminals, not “shady”.
        vmception 5y ago
        accepting affiliate money from criminals is shady the criminals are criminals this wasn’t a debate it would be debatable whether that would make the affiliate payment transactions criminal, but that ship has sailed as its too late, which only makes it shady, if that media was being intentionally provided if not, then not shady easy calculus for me
        amazingman 5y ago
        It’s fine for you to have a custom internal definition of a word, but it’s counterproductive for you to use it to offer veiled praise for patent misconduct. Edgy semantics for the sake of edginess is neither clarifying nor educational.
eric4smith 5y ago
I think we should look at what could happen to creators content in the future. Everything you put online eventually gets exposed (pun intended). For all the hundreds of thousands of amateur creators that started in the last year…. You’re about to get a rude awakening. Add a sketchy owner to the mix…..
- vmception 5y ago
  Or enough of them do such that nobody cares #beyourauthenticself
  - eric4smith 5y ago
    I don't think anyone really cares. Do you? I don't. If I'm hiring I don't care if someone put nudes online. Most employers probably don't either -- except for early age schools and probably religious institutions. But paradoxically, the content creators themselves are the ones who care later on. Witness the deluge of old pron stars who wish their content was not there. The thing about humans is that we constantly reinvent ourselves. And as a result, we always want to erase a thing or two in our past that we regret doing or are embarrassed about.
    - vmception 5y ago
      It's the same distribution as, say, tattoo'd people that care about their old tattoos later on. Some do, some don't. Its not always.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I'm not sure anyone's "authentic self" is taking nudes for cash. It seems more like a job that people take because it pays well. Or it pays anything, because some of those people make very little money. I also don't think that the actual incidence of people doing it matters as much as you think for social acceptance.
    - vmception 5y ago
vmception 5y ago
What I like about this is that his net worth is estimated due to his holdings of Felix media that he purchased. This is obviously someone that wouldn’t put all his eggs in one basket so nobody really knows anything.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Forbes rarely knows anything about net worth not in the public record or self-reported. It's how some people lie to get into the top 400 and others work hard to avoid it.
vmception 5y ago
protip: although the article says money is made off of subscriptions, content creators often have free subscriptions and instead make money from one-off content and also charging for direct messages. freemium model is very successful because people are deterred by not knowing what they’ll get If they are curious about erotic content and it’s not then you bounce a potentially paying recurring customer, for example

43 points by prostoalex 5y ago

I don't find his affiliate marketing play shady. He made websites advertising shared passwords to paid porn sites that just got people to the porn sites lol. To me thats no different than those discount sharing websites simply pivoting to affiliate marketing websites. Simply saying “but the porn version is shady” isnt strong enough of an argument to me. And the image and likeness lawsuits are not unique to his properties.

tracedddd 5y ago
I thought the shady part was that it was advertised as child pornography, not the affiliate marketing aspect.
- vmception 5y ago
  Something to keep perverts busy instead of letting them find what they were already looking for
meowface 5y ago
>I don't find his affiliate marketing play shady. >Forbes uncovered 11 such sites, all created in the late 1990s and early 2000s by Radvinsky and his Glenview, Illinois-based business, Cybertania. They included Password Universe, which, in 2000, published a link directing web users to a site claiming to offer pedophiles more than 10,000 “illegal pre-teen passwords.” In 1999, a site called Working Passes had a link for “the hottest underaged hardcore” containing 16-year-olds. Also in 2000, another site, Ultra Passwords, promised a link containing “the best illegal teen passwords” and “the hottest bestiality site on the web.”
- vmception 5y ago
  He nailed the SEO game while ya’ll were buying books If he wasn't offering that in actuality then its not shady
  - amazingman 5y ago
    > He nailed the SEO game while ya’ll were buying books[.] If he wasn't offering that in actuality then its not shady You should double check your ethics algorithms. It is absolutely “shady” to advertise child rape for profit, regardless of whether or not you intend to ultimately make good on that advertisement.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Something to keep perverts busy instead of letting them find what they were already looking for If the affiliate sites were actually intentionally providing that kind of media I would call it very shady to take affiliate dollars from them
      - amazingman 5y ago
        If they were intentionally providing that media they would be criminals, not “shady”.
        vmception 5y ago
        accepting affiliate money from criminals is shady the criminals are criminals this wasn’t a debate it would be debatable whether that would make the affiliate payment transactions criminal, but that ship has sailed as its too late, which only makes it shady, if that media was being intentionally provided if not, then not shady easy calculus for me
        amazingman 5y ago
        It’s fine for you to have a custom internal definition of a word, but it’s counterproductive for you to use it to offer veiled praise for patent misconduct. Edgy semantics for the sake of edginess is neither clarifying nor educational.

eric4smith 5y ago

I think we should look at what could happen to creators content in the future. Everything you put online eventually gets exposed (pun intended). For all the hundreds of thousands of amateur creators that started in the last year…. You’re about to get a rude awakening. Add a sketchy owner to the mix…..

vmception 5y ago
Or enough of them do such that nobody cares #beyourauthenticself
- eric4smith 5y ago
  I don't think anyone really cares. Do you? I don't. If I'm hiring I don't care if someone put nudes online. Most employers probably don't either -- except for early age schools and probably religious institutions. But paradoxically, the content creators themselves are the ones who care later on. Witness the deluge of old pron stars who wish their content was not there. The thing about humans is that we constantly reinvent ourselves. And as a result, we always want to erase a thing or two in our past that we regret doing or are embarrassed about.
  - vmception 5y ago
    It's the same distribution as, say, tattoo'd people that care about their old tattoos later on. Some do, some don't. Its not always.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I'm not sure anyone's "authentic self" is taking nudes for cash. It seems more like a job that people take because it pays well. Or it pays anything, because some of those people make very little money. I also don't think that the actual incidence of people doing it matters as much as you think for social acceptance.
  - vmception 5y ago

vmception 5y ago

What I like about this is that his net worth is estimated due to his holdings of Felix media that he purchased. This is obviously someone that wouldn’t put all his eggs in one basket so nobody really knows anything.

HWR_14 5y ago
Forbes rarely knows anything about net worth not in the public record or self-reported. It's how some people lie to get into the top 400 and others work hard to avoid it.

vmception 5y ago

protip: although the article says money is made off of subscriptions, content creators often have free subscriptions and instead make money from one-off content and also charging for direct messages. freemium model is very successful because people are deterred by not knowing what they’ll get If they are curious about erotic content and it’s not then you bounce a potentially paying recurring customer, for example