8 ms·

> This is basically addicts gambling. A bit tangential, but there is some serious cognitive dissonance here on HN (and more broadly in the tech world in genera

by dvt 5y ago

> This is basically addicts gambling. A bit tangential, but there is some serious cognitive dissonance here on HN (and more broadly in the tech world in general). When Apple/Google does this -- facilitates some kind of arguably degenerate behavior -- it's "evil." But when OnlyFans does it -- sex addicts, lonely guys, social weirdos that need friends collectively spend millions of dollars on parasocial fake OnlyFans relationships -- this "empowers sex workers."

makeva 5y ago
I think you are making a connection that I can't find. Care to elaborate?
- hengri 5y ago
  Could be that HN is more inclined to use OF than play mobile games heh
jjulius 5y ago
FWIW, I've seen many discussions about how OF's biggest spenders are people like that in many OF-related threads on HN.
paulddraper 5y ago
I've seen equal criticism of both.
mattnewton 5y ago
Lots of different people on HN, I don’t know that the same people have both those beliefs, it could just be the people with the strongest beliefs express those on each topic
patmcc 5y ago
It's both, of course - the app stores empower developers, OnlyFans empowers sex workers, both take advantage of a small subset of consumers. Just like there are whales playing Genshin Impact, with a whole lot of people paying nothing/a tiny amount, there are lots of people ogling Amouranth for free on Twitch/youtube/whatever, with a tiny percentage spending way too much on OnlyFans.
fragmede 5y ago
It's almost as if one of those is a relatively small platform whos creators are almost exclusively young women, and the others are two of the largest, richest conglomerates in the world, who's creators are software development houses, (software development is a well-paying career) and that there's some sort of difference between the two groups. Hm.
- EvilEy3 5y ago
  Except two of the largest, richest conglomerates also provide value outside of the said degenerate activities.
  - stouset 5y ago
    What exactly makes consumption of porn—or, alternatively, compensating women for the production of porn—a “degenerate activity”?
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      Id's say "degenerate" is a catch-all for any activity which produces a supernormal stimulus, far in excess of what our Neolithic biology would be prepared for. Excess food, drugs, sexual novelty, and gambling all fall into this category.
      - stouset 5y ago
        You could certainly describe excess consumption of food, drugs, and/or sexual novelty as degenerate behavior. But GP appears to simply be referring to either consumption of or payment for pornography as a degenerate activity.
        thegrimmest 5y ago
        The argument is any modern pronography represents an excess in sexual novelty compared to the baseline.
rootsudo 5y ago
Agree 100% -- So, how do you control optics? Large marketing dept? Positive PR? Buy positivity? or has the world really changed?
pixelatedindex 5y ago
The difference is who this money goes to. In the gambling/iOS whales scenario many people are paying one big mega Corp. At least the social weirdos are paying the content creator directly.
tolmasky 5y ago
Although it may seem counter-intuitive, the fact that the behavior on OnlyFans is so transparently "degenerate" makes it somewhat immune to that sort of criticism. Everyone knows what people go there for. The problem with Apple is that it holds up the AppStore as a pinnacle of morality (many of their AppStore rules are specifically around creating the perception of a moral store, such as no porn), and Apple the company itself portrays itself as a moral company, but then at the end of the day they are making the majority of the AppStore's money on a vice like any other (often times on children, as many of these games are geared towards that audience). A candy store that secretly sells cigarettes will always receive more criticism than a bar.
- dvt 5y ago
  > A candy store that secretly sells cigarettes will always receive more criticism than a bar You make a great point that I didn't really think of! Apple definitely tries to massage their optics. Could also be why Apple's store is also more criticized than Google's, even though there's a lot more garbage on the Play Store.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    The HN umbrage also seems to stem from the fact that Apple uses those optics to justify their monopoly over the App Store. We need absolute control over our platform -> so that we can control the user experience -> so that we can make the iPhone ecosystem a more private, secure, safe, high quality place If it turns out the reason they need absolute control is so that Apple can milk whales in the same way Zynga did... well, IMHO people are entitled to call hypocrite angrily.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      I personally think the fact that Apple built their platform literally from the ground up is more than sufficient justification for them to maintain as much control over it as they please. Shouldn't we all just say "Hey, thanks Apple for advancing the state of the art so tremendously far" and leave it there?
vineyardmike 5y ago
> sex addicts, lonely guys, social weirdos that need friends collectively spend millions of dollars on parasocial fake OnlyFans relationships Wow this an extremely hostile take on OF. What a vapid, overly opinionated and negative view of sexuality. Do you really think that P0rn is used for lonely social weirdos that need friends? Is that a genuine take on the purpose?
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
  Yes. Mostly yes.
- dvt 5y ago
  > Wow this an extremely hostile take on OF. There's dozens of studies on parasocial relationships and how unhealthy they can be[1]; dozens of studies on how heavy porn consumption lowers libido and is overall not great for you[2]; and dozens of surveys on how my generation (millenials) and younger (zoomers) are more lonely, having less sex, having less friends, and less happy than previous generations. [1] https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3131&context=gradschool_theses https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/#:~:text=A%202015%20study%20on%20high,less%20than%20once%20a%20week https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/#:~:tex...).
  - stouset 5y ago
    > and dozens of surveys on how my generation (millenials) and younger (zoomers) are more lonely, having less sex, having less friends, and less happy than previous generations There is no causation link here. There are plenty of other massive social upheavals going on that are likely tied into this. The pandemic. Political acrimony. Impending impact of climate change. Helicopter parenting. Economic difficulties and uncertainty for younger generations. Facebook and other social media. Celebrity obsession. Abuse of addictive patterns in gaming apps. We’ve created a world where people’s real life prospects are dwindling and yet there’s cheap, easy, and unlimited access to virtual dopamine generators. While porn is certainly a contributor, I don’t see any evidence that it’s an outsized one or that it deserves to be singled out from the myriad ways we’ve ruined things for future generations. Also and more directly to the point, GP was addressing GGP categorizing porn consumers as “sex addicts, lonely guys, social weirdos”. The vast majority of the western world—including women—consume some amount of pornography. They just do it overwhelmingly in private, which is why such a stigma exists. Paying for it is not necessarily indicative of it being a problem for these people, in the same way that paying for music or other media isn’t. It’s just a changing of the norm to one that is frankly an extreme improvement for the women who do this as a profession.
deelowe 5y ago
OF isn't manipulating their customer base. It's pretty clear what you're getting into when you go to their site.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Right but they depend on their degenerate “whales” just like anyone. There’s a big difference between going to the strip club a couple times a year with your buddies and being the guy who shows up at 11am on Tuesday with his paycheck but the strip club is happy to take all of the addict’s money.
  - deelowe 5y ago
    I guess I need more data before fully forming an opinion then. I don't care about whales who intentionally seek out certain things to blow all their money. My concern is folks getting tricked into those situations via manipulative techniques.
    - spoonjim 5y ago
      What's a manipulative technique? Is getting a guy more and more sexually aroused to separate him from his money a manipulative technique?
      - deelowe 5y ago
        I don't know precisely, but maybe we can start with building entire research teams who specialize in brain chemistry to have them create complicated engagement strategies which are inserted into "free" apps targeted at kids.
  - misnome 5y ago
    I mean, this applies to literally anything people do for leisure
  - watwut 5y ago
    I never seen degenerate to be used for mobile gaming whales. Why so much hate toward customers of OF? But like, going to strip bar with guy friends is no better in anything.
spoonjim 5y ago
I think you might be under the influence of a biased set of observations. Most average Americans do not hold women who show their boobs on the Internet in high regard, and use words significantly more coarse than “sex workers” to describe them. But it’s just a subset of course of the bigger problem of the “Twitter take” often being light years away from the “average take.”
- gowld 5y ago
  Most average Americans are hypocritical mysogynists who enjoy porn but disrespect the creators.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Agree.
johnnyanmac 5y ago
TBF, I've heard opinions all over the spectrum for OF. Many supportive, many not so much. Sex work is pretty much as controversial as usual. Also, the idea of OF isn't that one dude spends thouands to a million dollar coporation, it's that thousands, maybe millions, spend like $10 to see curated boobs, which mostly goes to a single creator (at most. a dozen people managing their social media). I'm not a vehemently against mobile games as many parts of the internet, but it is a different dynamic altogether.
watwut 5y ago
> sex addicts, lonely guys, social weirdos AFAIK, all kind of guys use and pay for porn. Not just social weirdos.
SCdF 5y ago
Supporting people using OF is about supporting a safe place for sex workers, your tangent seems as you say, tangential. Para-social relationships are potentially troubling, but have nothing specifically to do with OF: they exist on YT, Twitch, insta etc.

by dvt 5y ago

makeva 5y ago

I think you are making a connection that I can't find. Care to elaborate?

hengri 5y ago
Could be that HN is more inclined to use OF than play mobile games heh

jjulius 5y ago

FWIW, I've seen many discussions about how OF's biggest spenders are people like that in many OF-related threads on HN.

paulddraper 5y ago

I've seen equal criticism of both.

mattnewton 5y ago

Lots of different people on HN, I don’t know that the same people have both those beliefs, it could just be the people with the strongest beliefs express those on each topic

patmcc 5y ago

It's both, of course - the app stores empower developers, OnlyFans empowers sex workers, both take advantage of a small subset of consumers. Just like there are whales playing Genshin Impact, with a whole lot of people paying nothing/a tiny amount, there are lots of people ogling Amouranth for free on Twitch/youtube/whatever, with a tiny percentage spending way too much on OnlyFans.

fragmede 5y ago

It's almost as if one of those is a relatively small platform whos creators are almost exclusively young women, and the others are two of the largest, richest conglomerates in the world, who's creators are software development houses, (software development is a well-paying career) and that there's some sort of difference between the two groups. Hm.

EvilEy3 5y ago
Except two of the largest, richest conglomerates also provide value outside of the said degenerate activities.
- stouset 5y ago
  What exactly makes consumption of porn—or, alternatively, compensating women for the production of porn—a “degenerate activity”?
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    Id's say "degenerate" is a catch-all for any activity which produces a supernormal stimulus, far in excess of what our Neolithic biology would be prepared for. Excess food, drugs, sexual novelty, and gambling all fall into this category.
    - stouset 5y ago
      You could certainly describe excess consumption of food, drugs, and/or sexual novelty as degenerate behavior. But GP appears to simply be referring to either consumption of or payment for pornography as a degenerate activity.
      - thegrimmest 5y ago
        The argument is any modern pronography represents an excess in sexual novelty compared to the baseline.

rootsudo 5y ago

Agree 100% -- So, how do you control optics? Large marketing dept? Positive PR? Buy positivity? or has the world really changed?

pixelatedindex 5y ago

The difference is who this money goes to. In the gambling/iOS whales scenario many people are paying one big mega Corp. At least the social weirdos are paying the content creator directly.

tolmasky 5y ago

Although it may seem counter-intuitive, the fact that the behavior on OnlyFans is so transparently "degenerate" makes it somewhat immune to that sort of criticism. Everyone knows what people go there for. The problem with Apple is that it holds up the AppStore as a pinnacle of morality (many of their AppStore rules are specifically around creating the perception of a moral store, such as no porn), and Apple the company itself portrays itself as a moral company, but then at the end of the day they are making the majority of the AppStore's money on a vice like any other (often times on children, as many of these games are geared towards that audience). A candy store that secretly sells cigarettes will always receive more criticism than a bar.

dvt 5y ago
> A candy store that secretly sells cigarettes will always receive more criticism than a bar You make a great point that I didn't really think of! Apple definitely tries to massage their optics. Could also be why Apple's store is also more criticized than Google's, even though there's a lot more garbage on the Play Store.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  The HN umbrage also seems to stem from the fact that Apple uses those optics to justify their monopoly over the App Store. We need absolute control over our platform -> so that we can control the user experience -> so that we can make the iPhone ecosystem a more private, secure, safe, high quality place If it turns out the reason they need absolute control is so that Apple can milk whales in the same way Zynga did... well, IMHO people are entitled to call hypocrite angrily.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    I personally think the fact that Apple built their platform literally from the ground up is more than sufficient justification for them to maintain as much control over it as they please. Shouldn't we all just say "Hey, thanks Apple for advancing the state of the art so tremendously far" and leave it there?

vineyardmike 5y ago

> sex addicts, lonely guys, social weirdos that need friends collectively spend millions of dollars on parasocial fake OnlyFans relationships Wow this an extremely hostile take on OF. What a vapid, overly opinionated and negative view of sexuality. Do you really think that P0rn is used for lonely social weirdos that need friends? Is that a genuine take on the purpose?

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
Yes. Mostly yes.
dvt 5y ago
> Wow this an extremely hostile take on OF. There's dozens of studies on parasocial relationships and how unhealthy they can be[1]; dozens of studies on how heavy porn consumption lowers libido and is overall not great for you[2]; and dozens of surveys on how my generation (millenials) and younger (zoomers) are more lonely, having less sex, having less friends, and less happy than previous generations. [1] https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3131&context=gradschool_theses https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/#:~:text=A%202015%20study%20on%20high,less%20than%20once%20a%20week https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/#:~:tex...).
- stouset 5y ago
  > and dozens of surveys on how my generation (millenials) and younger (zoomers) are more lonely, having less sex, having less friends, and less happy than previous generations There is no causation link here. There are plenty of other massive social upheavals going on that are likely tied into this. The pandemic. Political acrimony. Impending impact of climate change. Helicopter parenting. Economic difficulties and uncertainty for younger generations. Facebook and other social media. Celebrity obsession. Abuse of addictive patterns in gaming apps. We’ve created a world where people’s real life prospects are dwindling and yet there’s cheap, easy, and unlimited access to virtual dopamine generators. While porn is certainly a contributor, I don’t see any evidence that it’s an outsized one or that it deserves to be singled out from the myriad ways we’ve ruined things for future generations. Also and more directly to the point, GP was addressing GGP categorizing porn consumers as “sex addicts, lonely guys, social weirdos”. The vast majority of the western world—including women—consume some amount of pornography. They just do it overwhelmingly in private, which is why such a stigma exists. Paying for it is not necessarily indicative of it being a problem for these people, in the same way that paying for music or other media isn’t. It’s just a changing of the norm to one that is frankly an extreme improvement for the women who do this as a profession.

deelowe 5y ago

OF isn't manipulating their customer base. It's pretty clear what you're getting into when you go to their site.

spoonjim 5y ago
Right but they depend on their degenerate “whales” just like anyone. There’s a big difference between going to the strip club a couple times a year with your buddies and being the guy who shows up at 11am on Tuesday with his paycheck but the strip club is happy to take all of the addict’s money.
- deelowe 5y ago
  I guess I need more data before fully forming an opinion then. I don't care about whales who intentionally seek out certain things to blow all their money. My concern is folks getting tricked into those situations via manipulative techniques.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    What's a manipulative technique? Is getting a guy more and more sexually aroused to separate him from his money a manipulative technique?
    - deelowe 5y ago
      I don't know precisely, but maybe we can start with building entire research teams who specialize in brain chemistry to have them create complicated engagement strategies which are inserted into "free" apps targeted at kids.
- misnome 5y ago
  I mean, this applies to literally anything people do for leisure
- watwut 5y ago
  I never seen degenerate to be used for mobile gaming whales. Why so much hate toward customers of OF? But like, going to strip bar with guy friends is no better in anything.

spoonjim 5y ago

I think you might be under the influence of a biased set of observations. Most average Americans do not hold women who show their boobs on the Internet in high regard, and use words significantly more coarse than “sex workers” to describe them. But it’s just a subset of course of the bigger problem of the “Twitter take” often being light years away from the “average take.”

gowld 5y ago
Most average Americans are hypocritical mysogynists who enjoy porn but disrespect the creators.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Agree.

johnnyanmac 5y ago

TBF, I've heard opinions all over the spectrum for OF. Many supportive, many not so much. Sex work is pretty much as controversial as usual. Also, the idea of OF isn't that one dude spends thouands to a million dollar coporation, it's that thousands, maybe millions, spend like $10 to see curated boobs, which mostly goes to a single creator (at most. a dozen people managing their social media). I'm not a vehemently against mobile games as many parts of the internet, but it is a different dynamic altogether.

watwut 5y ago

> sex addicts, lonely guys, social weirdos AFAIK, all kind of guys use and pay for porn. Not just social weirdos.

SCdF 5y ago

Supporting people using OF is about supporting a safe place for sex workers, your tangent seems as you say, tangential. Para-social relationships are potentially troubling, but have nothing specifically to do with OF: they exist on YT, Twitch, insta etc.