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I found this interesting, considering he's born in Odesa > Born in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Mr Radvinsky's company donated to the relief effort in Ukr

by swozey 3y ago

I found this interesting, considering he's born in Odesa > Born in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Mr Radvinsky's company donated to the relief effort in Ukraine using cryptocurrency, and the real-terms value of the donation in 2022 came to more than $1.3m, according to CoinDesk. > The London-registered firm said in August 2023 that pre-tax profits for the period reached $525m, up from $432m the previous year. $100mm/yr increase and he's put $1.3mm into UA. I hope he's contributing privately... Also that is a wild amount of revenue when content is created for you and you're just hosting it. I've worked at porn companies (on the tech end, voyeur/webcam companies, practically a self-made video CDN) before and even at our tiny level comparatively they made a small fortune on the labor of the acts but nothing even remotely close to that. Tens of millions maybe. I worked for one that sold for $300mm after 12 years of growth and they're doing beyond that yearly. UX wise I think OF is pretty terrible. It feels like I'm using 2012 tumblr and I'm not sure I've ever seen it add any new interesting features as long as I've known about it. I always expect them to do some really cool social stuff, kind of replace twitter/x for acts. You still go to a models page and get blank images with no potential preview to know what you're getting unless they allow free subscriptions. It's always a gamble. Just feels performatively sketch. The most fascinating thing to me about OF is how it's practically normalized having one.

moneywoes 3y ago
I reckon the network effects are just too strong
- swozey 3y ago
  Yep, and coincidentally related to your username, economy struggles. The main one I worked at was a mansion by University of Tampa that someone bought and we put cameras around it and women/men "worked" in it. They got free room and board and college tuition at UT paid for. This was 20 years ago. But none of these acts ever thought/expected to become millionaires like what happens on OF. It's wild. It was mostly apposite to dancing and a lot of them were dancers when not in school.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Not many on OF actually become millionaires either. The chance of that is just as rare as in regular life.
    - swozey 3y ago
      No kidding.
- voisin 3y ago
  OF network effects don’t seem that strong to me. I am not a user but I see a lot of TikTokers directing people to OF and assuming this is how they derive their viewership, those performers could just direct the potential client to a different platform. Unless I am mistaken, OF doesn’t have discovery features or other features that would be the source of stickiness to the platform. Isn’t it essentially just a webhost with payment system?
  - swozey 3y ago
    I don't really know much about it but OF has this right side "menu" of suggested people to watch. But I've never figured out how they related to anyone else I've watched. Most of the organic network-growing that I see on OF is one model/act will tag their friend/business partner in a post. It's kind of amazing to me how little effort they've put in to building that part of the site up because that would drum up so much more sticky (viewing not fluids) activity and keep people on the site longer.
mschuster91 3y ago
> The most fascinating thing to me about OF is how it's practically normalized having one. Onlyfans rose to fame during covid - a lot of people stuck at home with ample time to make or view porn. They were for a time pretty much the only opportunity that allowed the creators to make money (Reddit and Twitter didn't) other than Pornhub, which on top of that was dealing with the GirlsDoPorn fallout and ManyVids which while solid hasn't ever been good at marketing... and content creators loved that OF was the first site that more or less lured the viewers into subscription, resulting in a fixed revenue stream - loads of people forgot that they've subscribed to a couple OF people and no one really bothers with ten bucks on the monthly CC bill. On top of that came a few celebrities/starlets and media pieces, the rest was watching a meme unfold in real life.
thih9 3y ago
> The most fascinating thing to me about OF is how it's practically normalized having one. I don’t know any personal acquaintance or any celebrity that has one. Perhaps I do but I’m not aware; my point is, it’s not that normalized, at least in my circle.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  It's the butt of many jokes and a sign of desperation amongst my various circles. I don't think the service is empowering or pushing the industry forward, just another SaaS "pimp" creating more avenues of exploitation. Legalize the wide umbrella of sex-related work and stop the exploitation.
  - voisin 3y ago
    I am confused by your argument. Is OF exploitation in your view? If so, how? If sex-related work was legalized (as OF is), would you think OF would no longer be the butt of jokes or do you think performers on OF would then turn to newly legalized sex acts?
    - candiddevmike 3y ago
      The platforms get to charge insane amounts of money and control the audience. Creators have no chance of building a legitimate brand, their only hope is to play the algorithm game and pump out content that the platform controls. IMO, legalizing it would let creators own their brand, get rid of exploitative race-to-the-bottom content, and give buyers/sellers confidence/acceptance to pursue their needs in a regulated and safe way.
      - Lerc 3y ago
        I'm not so sure. Youtube is more mainstream but creators are still subject to arbitrary rules, summary judgements, and are forced to play the algorithm game if they want to derive income from the platform. I agree that the stigmatization of sex work is a major driver of exploitation, but big tech is getting pretty good at the exploitation game itself.
bjourne 3y ago
Wasn't the big problem for many porn sites to get paid? The main payment service providers didn't want to deal with them (for many reasons including chargebacks) so they had to use shady providers that charged 15-20% of revenue.
- swozey 3y ago
  Everyone wound up having to use CCbill so CCbill ran an iron fist and you couldn't argue with them at all. The guy who paid me was an absolute POS with drug/alch, anger and other issues. He's been arrested many times. So yeah, you were lucky to be paid reliably. He'd come in and fire half/all of the staff (acts and tech people) and offer us thousands of dollars to show up the next day. I was young and abuse-vulnerable at that time. It was the most money I'd made ever at that point. Same with a lot of the acts. A lot of us just dealt with it.
joker_minmax 3y ago
It is not normalized to the extent you think it is, because like most trends it is overblown by social media, gaining more of a focus there and less in real life. However, this has still distorted reality enough that now young men ask young women if they have onlyfans, as if that is a casual or normal thing to ask someone.
- swozey 3y ago
  > It is not normalized to the extent you think it is I live in the middle of the biggest bar/club neighborhood in a major (usa) city. I meet men and women with OFs at least weekly. It's nothing at all like it was back in the 2005-2010s when I worked in the porn industry. People don't hide it at all. I have Tinder dates that admit to being on OF openly. Even men and women who work at (strip) clubs are way, way more common nowadays. I have a lot of service industry friends and about 1/4 of them have worked at local clubs if not danced at them. Like, who even are you to say this to me? Lol I worked IN the industry. Are you also in the industry? Are you a dad with 3 kids or something? I have NO idea what your frame of reference is here but it is the absolute opposite of mine. Nothing wrong with that but unless you're more familiar with the industry than I am I'm failing to see why you even commented. But hell, maybe you're Ron Jeremy.
  - boeingUH60 3y ago
    Anecdote is not statistics. If you work in the porn industry, it’s more likely that you’re meeting people who share similar tastes…not a representative view of the general public.
    - swozey 3y ago
      I said 2005-2010. No shit. I literally said "worked IN," I don't work in the industry anymore but I still associate with service industry (bars/clubs) people. Far beyond what the usual hackernews person would. Hackernews peeps coming in with their hot-takes completely irrelevant to the conversation because they can't follow threads. So embarassing. No shit some javascript dad with 3 kids probably won't be meeting people with OFs. That's the entire point of my question. But they also shouldn't be commenting on a porn industry thread like they know anything. And sure as HELL shouldn't be telling someone FROM the industry about the industry. Show your creds, homie, explain why I should just listen to you. Herpaderp "anecdata isnt statistics" thanks Gallileo. You know you're on HN and not instagram right? Like, I know math, and programming?
tiahura 3y ago
Wouldn’t you assume a high level of psychopathy is required to be a successful pornography producer?
- Nevermark 3y ago
  If you’re going to throw out an open leading question like that, maybe you could give a good reason why you are asking it? Lots of ethical sex positive people would be happy to be owners of a fabulously profitable site for ethical sex positive creation and views. And most people are practical enough to know that the ethical side will take a lot of work to maintain those boundaries. Ethics require work anywhere people socialize. I don’t see how psychopathy is somehow a necessity for a porn related business.
  - alienicecream 3y ago
    It's possible to be sex positive without being positive on prostitution or porn.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      prostitution, maybe. But porn? This just sounds like "Sex is good, but don't show it to anyone but people you care about". "Porn" as itself is such a general term that it can really mean anything involving exposed genitals. Either way, I feel "sex positive" means being able to respect differences. So it feels weird to call oneself that but also feel that consenting adults cannot exchange money to have sex, even if you never personally want to deal with that.
      - alienicecream 3y ago
        > This just sounds like "Sex is good, but don't show it to anyone but people you care about". Yeah, that's "just" the way it's been for most societies in history. > Either way, I feel "sex positive" means being able to respect differences. "sex positive" actually means "pro-prostitution, pro-porn, anti-tradition and anti traditional morality", couched in terms that try to cast a better light on it and to cast people who object to it as joyless prudes. It's a political term.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>You still go to a models page and get blank images with no potential preview to know what you're getting unless they allow free subscriptions. It's always a gamble. Just feels performatively sketch. Yeah, that's why I prefer Fansly if I can help it, unless the model has other social media with proper "previews" of their work. Fansly can still do that, but AFAIK it's not the default behavior. Or at least, the canonical method is so ubiquitous that it feels like the default. But I guess I'm not too surprised. The genius thing models do that no other website gets away with is having 2-3 tiers of funding. So it's normal to not only pay for a subscription to see anything, you constantly pay to see even more individual content. It's not uncommon for a model to charge $13/month for a sub and then charge $10 for what could be a single picture (one that may not necessarily be different from what you could find on Instagram, mind you). And that's not even talking about how you can post "fundraisers" or other misc. kinds of money raising on those sites. And I guess the demand there was enough to succeed. Takes the best of both worlds of premium sites and webcam tipping and requires less effort than either of them for a single model to be successful. I wonder if that's a reflection of how frustrated the current youth are in their (lack of?) sexual escapades? pumping out a sub and per post money's to see what could be as tame as an instagram feed, but at least they message you "directly".

by swozey 3y ago

moneywoes 3y ago

I reckon the network effects are just too strong

swozey 3y ago
Yep, and coincidentally related to your username, economy struggles. The main one I worked at was a mansion by University of Tampa that someone bought and we put cameras around it and women/men "worked" in it. They got free room and board and college tuition at UT paid for. This was 20 years ago. But none of these acts ever thought/expected to become millionaires like what happens on OF. It's wild. It was mostly apposite to dancing and a lot of them were dancers when not in school.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Not many on OF actually become millionaires either. The chance of that is just as rare as in regular life.
  - swozey 3y ago
    No kidding.
voisin 3y ago
OF network effects don’t seem that strong to me. I am not a user but I see a lot of TikTokers directing people to OF and assuming this is how they derive their viewership, those performers could just direct the potential client to a different platform. Unless I am mistaken, OF doesn’t have discovery features or other features that would be the source of stickiness to the platform. Isn’t it essentially just a webhost with payment system?
- swozey 3y ago
  I don't really know much about it but OF has this right side "menu" of suggested people to watch. But I've never figured out how they related to anyone else I've watched. Most of the organic network-growing that I see on OF is one model/act will tag their friend/business partner in a post. It's kind of amazing to me how little effort they've put in to building that part of the site up because that would drum up so much more sticky (viewing not fluids) activity and keep people on the site longer.

mschuster91 3y ago

> The most fascinating thing to me about OF is how it's practically normalized having one. Onlyfans rose to fame during covid - a lot of people stuck at home with ample time to make or view porn. They were for a time pretty much the only opportunity that allowed the creators to make money (Reddit and Twitter didn't) other than Pornhub, which on top of that was dealing with the GirlsDoPorn fallout and ManyVids which while solid hasn't ever been good at marketing... and content creators loved that OF was the first site that more or less lured the viewers into subscription, resulting in a fixed revenue stream - loads of people forgot that they've subscribed to a couple OF people and no one really bothers with ten bucks on the monthly CC bill. On top of that came a few celebrities/starlets and media pieces, the rest was watching a meme unfold in real life.

thih9 3y ago

> The most fascinating thing to me about OF is how it's practically normalized having one. I don’t know any personal acquaintance or any celebrity that has one. Perhaps I do but I’m not aware; my point is, it’s not that normalized, at least in my circle.

candiddevmike 3y ago
It's the butt of many jokes and a sign of desperation amongst my various circles. I don't think the service is empowering or pushing the industry forward, just another SaaS "pimp" creating more avenues of exploitation. Legalize the wide umbrella of sex-related work and stop the exploitation.
- voisin 3y ago
  I am confused by your argument. Is OF exploitation in your view? If so, how? If sex-related work was legalized (as OF is), would you think OF would no longer be the butt of jokes or do you think performers on OF would then turn to newly legalized sex acts?
  - candiddevmike 3y ago
    The platforms get to charge insane amounts of money and control the audience. Creators have no chance of building a legitimate brand, their only hope is to play the algorithm game and pump out content that the platform controls. IMO, legalizing it would let creators own their brand, get rid of exploitative race-to-the-bottom content, and give buyers/sellers confidence/acceptance to pursue their needs in a regulated and safe way.
    - Lerc 3y ago
      I'm not so sure. Youtube is more mainstream but creators are still subject to arbitrary rules, summary judgements, and are forced to play the algorithm game if they want to derive income from the platform. I agree that the stigmatization of sex work is a major driver of exploitation, but big tech is getting pretty good at the exploitation game itself.

bjourne 3y ago

Wasn't the big problem for many porn sites to get paid? The main payment service providers didn't want to deal with them (for many reasons including chargebacks) so they had to use shady providers that charged 15-20% of revenue.

swozey 3y ago
Everyone wound up having to use CCbill so CCbill ran an iron fist and you couldn't argue with them at all. The guy who paid me was an absolute POS with drug/alch, anger and other issues. He's been arrested many times. So yeah, you were lucky to be paid reliably. He'd come in and fire half/all of the staff (acts and tech people) and offer us thousands of dollars to show up the next day. I was young and abuse-vulnerable at that time. It was the most money I'd made ever at that point. Same with a lot of the acts. A lot of us just dealt with it.

joker_minmax 3y ago

It is not normalized to the extent you think it is, because like most trends it is overblown by social media, gaining more of a focus there and less in real life. However, this has still distorted reality enough that now young men ask young women if they have onlyfans, as if that is a casual or normal thing to ask someone.

swozey 3y ago
> It is not normalized to the extent you think it is I live in the middle of the biggest bar/club neighborhood in a major (usa) city. I meet men and women with OFs at least weekly. It's nothing at all like it was back in the 2005-2010s when I worked in the porn industry. People don't hide it at all. I have Tinder dates that admit to being on OF openly. Even men and women who work at (strip) clubs are way, way more common nowadays. I have a lot of service industry friends and about 1/4 of them have worked at local clubs if not danced at them. Like, who even are you to say this to me? Lol I worked IN the industry. Are you also in the industry? Are you a dad with 3 kids or something? I have NO idea what your frame of reference is here but it is the absolute opposite of mine. Nothing wrong with that but unless you're more familiar with the industry than I am I'm failing to see why you even commented. But hell, maybe you're Ron Jeremy.
- boeingUH60 3y ago
  Anecdote is not statistics. If you work in the porn industry, it’s more likely that you’re meeting people who share similar tastes…not a representative view of the general public.
  - swozey 3y ago
    I said 2005-2010. No shit. I literally said "worked IN," I don't work in the industry anymore but I still associate with service industry (bars/clubs) people. Far beyond what the usual hackernews person would. Hackernews peeps coming in with their hot-takes completely irrelevant to the conversation because they can't follow threads. So embarassing. No shit some javascript dad with 3 kids probably won't be meeting people with OFs. That's the entire point of my question. But they also shouldn't be commenting on a porn industry thread like they know anything. And sure as HELL shouldn't be telling someone FROM the industry about the industry. Show your creds, homie, explain why I should just listen to you. Herpaderp "anecdata isnt statistics" thanks Gallileo. You know you're on HN and not instagram right? Like, I know math, and programming?

tiahura 3y ago

Wouldn’t you assume a high level of psychopathy is required to be a successful pornography producer?

Nevermark 3y ago
If you’re going to throw out an open leading question like that, maybe you could give a good reason why you are asking it? Lots of ethical sex positive people would be happy to be owners of a fabulously profitable site for ethical sex positive creation and views. And most people are practical enough to know that the ethical side will take a lot of work to maintain those boundaries. Ethics require work anywhere people socialize. I don’t see how psychopathy is somehow a necessity for a porn related business.
- alienicecream 3y ago
  It's possible to be sex positive without being positive on prostitution or porn.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    prostitution, maybe. But porn? This just sounds like "Sex is good, but don't show it to anyone but people you care about". "Porn" as itself is such a general term that it can really mean anything involving exposed genitals. Either way, I feel "sex positive" means being able to respect differences. So it feels weird to call oneself that but also feel that consenting adults cannot exchange money to have sex, even if you never personally want to deal with that.
    - alienicecream 3y ago
      > This just sounds like "Sex is good, but don't show it to anyone but people you care about". Yeah, that's "just" the way it's been for most societies in history. > Either way, I feel "sex positive" means being able to respect differences. "sex positive" actually means "pro-prostitution, pro-porn, anti-tradition and anti traditional morality", couched in terms that try to cast a better light on it and to cast people who object to it as joyless prudes. It's a political term.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>You still go to a models page and get blank images with no potential preview to know what you're getting unless they allow free subscriptions. It's always a gamble. Just feels performatively sketch. Yeah, that's why I prefer Fansly if I can help it, unless the model has other social media with proper "previews" of their work. Fansly can still do that, but AFAIK it's not the default behavior. Or at least, the canonical method is so ubiquitous that it feels like the default. But I guess I'm not too surprised. The genius thing models do that no other website gets away with is having 2-3 tiers of funding. So it's normal to not only pay for a subscription to see anything, you constantly pay to see even more individual content. It's not uncommon for a model to charge $13/month for a sub and then charge $10 for what could be a single picture (one that may not necessarily be different from what you could find on Instagram, mind you). And that's not even talking about how you can post "fundraisers" or other misc. kinds of money raising on those sites. And I guess the demand there was enough to succeed. Takes the best of both worlds of premium sites and webcam tipping and requires less effort than either of them for a single model to be successful. I wonder if that's a reflection of how frustrated the current youth are in their (lack of?) sexual escapades? pumping out a sub and per post money's to see what could be as tame as an instagram feed, but at least they message you "directly".