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I honestly did not know they did anything besides porn. They have a really bad marketing department as I bet most people only know of them via porn (or I run in

I honestly did not know they did anything besides porn. They have a really bad marketing department as I bet most people only know of them via porn (or I run in a slightly more degenerate circle).

redisman 5y ago
Not at all. If someone told anyone I know they have a onlyfans, I can’t think of anyone who would assume anything other than porn
- slg 5y ago
  It is the same problem that Voat had. If you are are a platform that prioritizes minimal moderation in a market dominated by someone who doesn't, the primary reason to use your platform is because that content isn't allowed on the market leader. Voat only became "Reddit for white supremacists" because Reddit was pushing many of those users off their platform. Only Fans only became "Patreon for sex work" because Patreon didn't want those users on their platform. Anyone who wasn't one of those groups was better off just sticking with Reddit and Patreon and that only became truer as the reputation became more and more ingrained with the platform's brand.
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    It is the same problem that Voat had. If you are are a platform that prioritizes minimal moderation in a market dominated by someone who doesn't, the primary reason to use your platform is because that content isn't allowed on the market leader. This seems like an opportunity, not a problem. Since most platforms simply don't get traction at all, you have something. It's opportunity that involves problems (or "challenges") but you've gotten somewhere on the market chessboard. And most "growth hacks" present challenges. That said, it's hard to believe that onlyfans wasn't aware they were effective a porn site. Maybe Voat was more naive since white supremacy doesn't monetize the way porn does but I'd be skeptical there too. The Internet has a zillion places for any population to go so there isn't a single "off-brand" that a undesirable population X is fated to go to.
    - codetrotter 5y ago
      > Maybe Voat was more naive since white supremacy doesn't monetize the way porn does but I'd be skeptical there too. Have a look at the front page of Voat. I’m not even gonna check it myself because I’ve seen enough. I guarantee you that 50% or more of everything on the front page of Voat at any moment will be very obviously white supremacist type content. They know. And by letting those people dominate their platform for so long, they are effectively saying that white supremacists are welcome on their site, and that they are ok with giving a platform to people who are looking to spread hate against others based on ethnicity and nationality.
      - wutbrodo 5y ago
        > Have a look at the front page of Voat. I’m not even gonna check it myself because I’ve seen enough. Voat shut down last year (I actually wasn't aware until reading this thread and trying to check the frontpage)
        codetrotter 5y ago
        Ah, so it has. Great!
        22c 5y ago
        A site which calls itself Voat and uses Voat branding is back under the domain voat.xyz and it has a higher percentage of extremist content than the old Voat (if you can believe that). It doesn't appear to be ran on the same codebase or the same database as the "old" Voat, but it can essentially be considered "back".
        belorn 5y ago
        I have tried to verify every single time in the past when people on HN have pointed at a reddit alternative or subreddit with claims of extremist content, and every single time I have found nothing. When I point this out I have gotten replies (and downvotes) that the content is actually there but hidden in dead comments, which then archive.org do not display. It always leaves me without any way to verify the claim. This time the site above did actually have some content that match the description. Looking at the top 10 on the front page, 8 is anti-vaccination discussions and 2 is anti-jew. That is significant more than any of the other sites I have looked at, and for once I can verify what the person claim to be true. (As usual people demonstrate how appreciated independent verification is).
- King-Aaron 5y ago
  Well I have a page on facebook called Only. Fans. And it's only fans
  - webinvest 5y ago
    Well King Aaron, have you considered owning a castle, starting a sex cult, declaring a new country on a private island or all three?
    - King-Aaron 5y ago
      The trifecta, obviously!
    - egberts1 5y ago
      Is King Aaron really that Jeffery Epstein? Is he alive?
  - chihuahua 5y ago
    Unfortunately, your page is very difficult to find on FB via search. So, is it electric fans, handheld fans, or both?
    - King-Aaron 5y ago
      https://www.facebook.com/onlyfansss https://www.facebook.com/onlyfansss Unfortunately when I first set it up, I wasn't concerned about visibility haha. But while it's all fans, most of the content is heavily electric fan related
      - disqard 5y ago
        This is gold! Well done :) It reminds me of a "Ken M" post, but like a joke that just keeps working, even if you tell variants of it over and over.
      - mngnt 5y ago
        Liked. Cannot wait for fan photos, videos and other fan related content on my wall. It will be MUCH better than what usually lands there. I really miss the "old days" when the internet was full of single purpose, dumb-if-you-think-too-much-about-it, hilarious sites (crappy taxidermy, ThatWillBuffOut.com, graphjam, etc.) and this is as close as we can get these days. Only. Fans.
- truth_ 5y ago
  Patreon was able to change that though. Yes,there was a time when Patreon meant porn. But now a lot of mainstream artists, YouTubers, etc. using Patreon.
  - MrRadar 5y ago
    When was that? I've been supporting people on Patreon since 2014 and it's basically been the same mix of independent comic artists and Youtubers the entire time. I know there was a ruckus when they kicked porn off the site, but I never knew they were on there in the first place.
xdrosenheim 5y ago
Is it really their own fault for not doing marketing? They were open to have porn on the platform, and then it just swarmed to them. People did the marketing for them.
nkrisc 5y ago
Is it not a porn site? I thought it was a porn site.
- dmix 5y ago
  They’ve been pushing hard for celebrities for a while. But TBH I’m not sure what more you get here in some picture-based fan club than you’ll find on Instagram. Anything newsworthy will likely get reposted online somewhere within the hour anyway. Otherwise it's just a PG13 version of itself with similar sexual undertones.
- c3534l 5y ago
  When I first heard about it, people were comparing it to Patreon. Then it became porn because of some weird loophole in how credit card companies work. Credit cards and pornography is its whole massive side discussion.
  - 8draco8 5y ago
    I feel like this is what Twitch is also fighting against. Twitch started slowly becoming erotic streaming platform.
    - marvin 5y ago
      But Twitch is already established as a billion-dollar company (acquired, no less) providing SFW streaming services. I could understand staying out of the porn market in their case. But OnlyFans is _only_ associated with erotic content. It's corporate suicide and it makes zero sense that they aren't fighting it. It's a valuable market, it's ethically sound and they are making the world a better place by having a safe place for adult performers to sell their services.
  - nkrisc 5y ago
    I really thought it was meant to be Patreon for Porn. I've never heard about it an any context other than porn. Until now, if you'd asked me, I'd have confidently stated it was conceived as a porn site. This is truly news to me that it wasn't meant to be a porn site.
ryantgtg 5y ago
It’s a recent push toward more mainstream performers. For example, there are pro surfers who are popular youtube vloggers (e.g. Nathan Florence) who recently started onlyfans channels. Nathan’s is a fitness training channel. It threw a lot of people off guard. And I strongly suspect that onlyfans paid him to start this channel. https://onlyfans.com/nathanflorence https://onlyfans.com/nathanflorence https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/17/onlyfans-pivot-porn-backing-become-mainstream-platform/ https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/17/onlyfans-pivot-porn-backi...
- bamboozled 5y ago
  This is pretty stupid though, to throw away the business you have for the business you might have, there is heaps of porn on Twitter, looking at it is optional. Why can't it just co-exist with other "acceptable" content ? I would imagine it's very trivial to have a "Show me explicit content" setting. Edit: Side note, I don’t know why porn is so shameful, especially concerning adults posting high quality content, it’s their art.
  - nintendo1889 5y ago
    Plus it's behind a login.
  - kondro 5y ago
    Economically, some people get ashamed, embarrassed or outright offended that paying for sexually explicit material somehow makes that person property that owe them anything they like in return, so chargebacks in this sector are extremely high. But more likely, it's OnlyFans' lax moderation[1] along with their recent attempt to raise capital have caused greater scrutiny by governments of illegal activity taking place on their platform. [1] Quick summary by The Verge of a longer BBC article: https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22632797/onlyfans-prohibit-sexually-explicit-content-porn-creators https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22632797/onlyfans-prohibi...
    - account42 5y ago
      > Economically, some people get ashamed, embarrassed or outright offended that paying for sexually explicit material somehow makes that person property that owe them anything they like in return That's quite the assumption. > so chargebacks in this sector are extremely high. Or, 1. Many of these transactions will be impulse decisions that are made during periods of reduced cognitive function so will have higher rates of regret than other content. 2. People might not want to admit that they made the purchase when their partner/guardians find out about the charge.
wellthisishn 5y ago
Actually I'd have to say a good marketing department. I think it was part of a long-term plan to be relevant to broad audiences, and come out through the woodwork already strong.
conductr 5y ago
My understanding of it was purely regarding porn. Or, as an open platform focusing on paid user generated content which naturally was a cesspool for porn. Interesting enough, after a debate about would you date a girl who had an OF account, I went decided to visit browse site last week and couldn't find anything other than highly sexually provocative but legit sounding channels. Mostly of the fitness type because yoga pants and other form fitting attire. But, I actually found no porn. I suppose you have to know what to search for, or who you want to follow. I never saw any content because I didn't pay for any.
- Uberphallus 5y ago
  My understanding is that you get the porn after subscribing to a certain creator, but I haven't really even been to the site, so my view might be completely off.
- ziml77 5y ago
  They're probably not promoting the pornographic content because they don't want that to be their brand. The way to end up on the porn is to be following someone on another platform who is either already posting dirty content on that platform and now wants to monetize it or by following someone who is popular for some other reason but then realizes they can get a lot more money out of their fanbase by selling nudes.
wrycoder 5y ago
Bait and switch. Even if they lose the bulk of their customers, they will still have a bigger network than if they had started with the same platform, but without the porn.
- ggggtez 5y ago
  That hasn't really worked in practice. I think of Tumblr which basically stopped all growth and innovation the moment they banned porn. The company is probably assuming they can pivot, and maybe they can, but I doubt it
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  Sure, but its a much smaller network than they had when they applied for financing at their desired valuation. Why would I give them a valuation of a billion dollars if they suddenly lose some large (by some estimates 60+ %) portion of their income. I think this begins their slow demise.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
irrational 5y ago
I’m surprised too. It’s like using pornhub to post SFW tech tip videos.
- skhr0680 5y ago
  Pornhub was actually decent for sports back in the day because they didn't do content ID
- hellotomyrars 5y ago
  There actually was quite a bit of SFW content on their before the big purge. Quite a few people choosing to use it as a weird alternative to YouTube for their non-porn gaming stuff and also using it reupload/mirror content from YouTube. It was always weird but also kind of fascinating to dive in to.
ashtonkem 5y ago
There’s non-porn content on PornHub too, but much like OnlyFans that’s a neat trivia fact and statistically meaningless to their bottom line.

I honestly did not know they did anything besides porn. They have a really bad marketing department as I bet most people only know of them via porn (or I run in a slightly more degenerate circle).

redisman 5y ago

Not at all. If someone told anyone I know they have a onlyfans, I can’t think of anyone who would assume anything other than porn

slg 5y ago
It is the same problem that Voat had. If you are are a platform that prioritizes minimal moderation in a market dominated by someone who doesn't, the primary reason to use your platform is because that content isn't allowed on the market leader. Voat only became "Reddit for white supremacists" because Reddit was pushing many of those users off their platform. Only Fans only became "Patreon for sex work" because Patreon didn't want those users on their platform. Anyone who wasn't one of those groups was better off just sticking with Reddit and Patreon and that only became truer as the reputation became more and more ingrained with the platform's brand.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  It is the same problem that Voat had. If you are are a platform that prioritizes minimal moderation in a market dominated by someone who doesn't, the primary reason to use your platform is because that content isn't allowed on the market leader. This seems like an opportunity, not a problem. Since most platforms simply don't get traction at all, you have something. It's opportunity that involves problems (or "challenges") but you've gotten somewhere on the market chessboard. And most "growth hacks" present challenges. That said, it's hard to believe that onlyfans wasn't aware they were effective a porn site. Maybe Voat was more naive since white supremacy doesn't monetize the way porn does but I'd be skeptical there too. The Internet has a zillion places for any population to go so there isn't a single "off-brand" that a undesirable population X is fated to go to.
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    > Maybe Voat was more naive since white supremacy doesn't monetize the way porn does but I'd be skeptical there too. Have a look at the front page of Voat. I’m not even gonna check it myself because I’ve seen enough. I guarantee you that 50% or more of everything on the front page of Voat at any moment will be very obviously white supremacist type content. They know. And by letting those people dominate their platform for so long, they are effectively saying that white supremacists are welcome on their site, and that they are ok with giving a platform to people who are looking to spread hate against others based on ethnicity and nationality.
    - wutbrodo 5y ago
      > Have a look at the front page of Voat. I’m not even gonna check it myself because I’ve seen enough. Voat shut down last year (I actually wasn't aware until reading this thread and trying to check the frontpage)
      - codetrotter 5y ago
        Ah, so it has. Great!
      - 22c 5y ago
        A site which calls itself Voat and uses Voat branding is back under the domain voat.xyz and it has a higher percentage of extremist content than the old Voat (if you can believe that). It doesn't appear to be ran on the same codebase or the same database as the "old" Voat, but it can essentially be considered "back".
        belorn 5y ago
        I have tried to verify every single time in the past when people on HN have pointed at a reddit alternative or subreddit with claims of extremist content, and every single time I have found nothing. When I point this out I have gotten replies (and downvotes) that the content is actually there but hidden in dead comments, which then archive.org do not display. It always leaves me without any way to verify the claim. This time the site above did actually have some content that match the description. Looking at the top 10 on the front page, 8 is anti-vaccination discussions and 2 is anti-jew. That is significant more than any of the other sites I have looked at, and for once I can verify what the person claim to be true. (As usual people demonstrate how appreciated independent verification is).
King-Aaron 5y ago
Well I have a page on facebook called Only. Fans. And it's only fans
- webinvest 5y ago
  Well King Aaron, have you considered owning a castle, starting a sex cult, declaring a new country on a private island or all three?
  - King-Aaron 5y ago
    The trifecta, obviously!
  - egberts1 5y ago
    Is King Aaron really that Jeffery Epstein? Is he alive?
- chihuahua 5y ago
  Unfortunately, your page is very difficult to find on FB via search. So, is it electric fans, handheld fans, or both?
  - King-Aaron 5y ago
    https://www.facebook.com/onlyfansss https://www.facebook.com/onlyfansss Unfortunately when I first set it up, I wasn't concerned about visibility haha. But while it's all fans, most of the content is heavily electric fan related
    - disqard 5y ago
      This is gold! Well done :) It reminds me of a "Ken M" post, but like a joke that just keeps working, even if you tell variants of it over and over.
    - mngnt 5y ago
      Liked. Cannot wait for fan photos, videos and other fan related content on my wall. It will be MUCH better than what usually lands there. I really miss the "old days" when the internet was full of single purpose, dumb-if-you-think-too-much-about-it, hilarious sites (crappy taxidermy, ThatWillBuffOut.com, graphjam, etc.) and this is as close as we can get these days. Only. Fans.
truth_ 5y ago
Patreon was able to change that though. Yes,there was a time when Patreon meant porn. But now a lot of mainstream artists, YouTubers, etc. using Patreon.
- MrRadar 5y ago
  When was that? I've been supporting people on Patreon since 2014 and it's basically been the same mix of independent comic artists and Youtubers the entire time. I know there was a ruckus when they kicked porn off the site, but I never knew they were on there in the first place.

xdrosenheim 5y ago

Is it really their own fault for not doing marketing? They were open to have porn on the platform, and then it just swarmed to them. People did the marketing for them.

nkrisc 5y ago

Is it not a porn site? I thought it was a porn site.

dmix 5y ago
They’ve been pushing hard for celebrities for a while. But TBH I’m not sure what more you get here in some picture-based fan club than you’ll find on Instagram. Anything newsworthy will likely get reposted online somewhere within the hour anyway. Otherwise it's just a PG13 version of itself with similar sexual undertones.
c3534l 5y ago
When I first heard about it, people were comparing it to Patreon. Then it became porn because of some weird loophole in how credit card companies work. Credit cards and pornography is its whole massive side discussion.
- 8draco8 5y ago
  I feel like this is what Twitch is also fighting against. Twitch started slowly becoming erotic streaming platform.
  - marvin 5y ago
    But Twitch is already established as a billion-dollar company (acquired, no less) providing SFW streaming services. I could understand staying out of the porn market in their case. But OnlyFans is _only_ associated with erotic content. It's corporate suicide and it makes zero sense that they aren't fighting it. It's a valuable market, it's ethically sound and they are making the world a better place by having a safe place for adult performers to sell their services.
- nkrisc 5y ago
  I really thought it was meant to be Patreon for Porn. I've never heard about it an any context other than porn. Until now, if you'd asked me, I'd have confidently stated it was conceived as a porn site. This is truly news to me that it wasn't meant to be a porn site.

ryantgtg 5y ago

It’s a recent push toward more mainstream performers. For example, there are pro surfers who are popular youtube vloggers (e.g. Nathan Florence) who recently started onlyfans channels. Nathan’s is a fitness training channel. It threw a lot of people off guard. And I strongly suspect that onlyfans paid him to start this channel. https://onlyfans.com/nathanflorence https://onlyfans.com/nathanflorence https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/17/onlyfans-pivot-porn-backing-become-mainstream-platform/ https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/17/onlyfans-pivot-porn-backi...

bamboozled 5y ago
This is pretty stupid though, to throw away the business you have for the business you might have, there is heaps of porn on Twitter, looking at it is optional. Why can't it just co-exist with other "acceptable" content ? I would imagine it's very trivial to have a "Show me explicit content" setting. Edit: Side note, I don’t know why porn is so shameful, especially concerning adults posting high quality content, it’s their art.
- nintendo1889 5y ago
  Plus it's behind a login.
- kondro 5y ago
  Economically, some people get ashamed, embarrassed or outright offended that paying for sexually explicit material somehow makes that person property that owe them anything they like in return, so chargebacks in this sector are extremely high. But more likely, it's OnlyFans' lax moderation[1] along with their recent attempt to raise capital have caused greater scrutiny by governments of illegal activity taking place on their platform. [1] Quick summary by The Verge of a longer BBC article: https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22632797/onlyfans-prohibit-sexually-explicit-content-porn-creators https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22632797/onlyfans-prohibi...
  - account42 5y ago
    > Economically, some people get ashamed, embarrassed or outright offended that paying for sexually explicit material somehow makes that person property that owe them anything they like in return That's quite the assumption. > so chargebacks in this sector are extremely high. Or, 1. Many of these transactions will be impulse decisions that are made during periods of reduced cognitive function so will have higher rates of regret than other content. 2. People might not want to admit that they made the purchase when their partner/guardians find out about the charge.

wellthisishn 5y ago

Actually I'd have to say a good marketing department. I think it was part of a long-term plan to be relevant to broad audiences, and come out through the woodwork already strong.

conductr 5y ago

My understanding of it was purely regarding porn. Or, as an open platform focusing on paid user generated content which naturally was a cesspool for porn. Interesting enough, after a debate about would you date a girl who had an OF account, I went decided to visit browse site last week and couldn't find anything other than highly sexually provocative but legit sounding channels. Mostly of the fitness type because yoga pants and other form fitting attire. But, I actually found no porn. I suppose you have to know what to search for, or who you want to follow. I never saw any content because I didn't pay for any.

Uberphallus 5y ago
My understanding is that you get the porn after subscribing to a certain creator, but I haven't really even been to the site, so my view might be completely off.
ziml77 5y ago
They're probably not promoting the pornographic content because they don't want that to be their brand. The way to end up on the porn is to be following someone on another platform who is either already posting dirty content on that platform and now wants to monetize it or by following someone who is popular for some other reason but then realizes they can get a lot more money out of their fanbase by selling nudes.

wrycoder 5y ago

Bait and switch. Even if they lose the bulk of their customers, they will still have a bigger network than if they had started with the same platform, but without the porn.

ggggtez 5y ago
That hasn't really worked in practice. I think of Tumblr which basically stopped all growth and innovation the moment they banned porn. The company is probably assuming they can pivot, and maybe they can, but I doubt it
wonderwonder 5y ago
Sure, but its a much smaller network than they had when they applied for financing at their desired valuation. Why would I give them a valuation of a billion dollars if they suddenly lose some large (by some estimates 60+ %) portion of their income. I think this begins their slow demise.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

irrational 5y ago

I’m surprised too. It’s like using pornhub to post SFW tech tip videos.

skhr0680 5y ago
Pornhub was actually decent for sports back in the day because they didn't do content ID
hellotomyrars 5y ago
There actually was quite a bit of SFW content on their before the big purge. Quite a few people choosing to use it as a weird alternative to YouTube for their non-porn gaming stuff and also using it reupload/mirror content from YouTube. It was always weird but also kind of fascinating to dive in to.

ashtonkem 5y ago

There’s non-porn content on PornHub too, but much like OnlyFans that’s a neat trivia fact and statistically meaningless to their bottom line.