10 ms·

OnlyFans' porn juggernaut fueled by a deception

59 points by achow 2y ago

janandonly 2y ago
Why do people keep believing that politicians and strippers really love them and care about their emotions? > One of them is a 31-year-old semiconductor assembly technician who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. He said he spent nearly $20,000 on OnlyFans over four years before learning he’d been fooled by chatters. “I was lonely,” he said. “That’s really pathetic that someone is trying to take advantage of you.” I guess lonely, horny and hungry people make for the easiest clients . What a sick world we live in.
- ralph84 2y ago
  $5k/year is cheaper than an IRL relationship.
  - cyberpunk 2y ago
    20k is a lot of money to spend on pornography though. I wonder at what point does one ask themselves if they have a problem or not?
    - lostemptations5 2y ago
      Or not alot of options...
      - wiseowise 2y ago
        With 20k in 4 years you should be able to switch handful of hobbies that will potentially allow you to attract a real woman. 20k on porn means you need to see a shrink asap.
    - tiku 2y ago
      He didn't think of porn at the time I bet.
      - raincole 2y ago
        I mean if he met the girl(s?) on another platform, like Tinder, it's more explainable. But OnlyFans...?
      - corgihamlet 2y ago
        He was chatting on OnlyFans with a model, he wasn't chatting on a dating platform. Regardless if he was chatting wit the actual model or some guy pretending to be her, they still would have told him ANYTHING he wanted to hear as long as he was there to pay. I've had some first-hand experience with people like him and trust me - there is usually a very good reason why people like him need to pay to get attention from "women". You can blame the porn/sex industry as much as you like but there is a type of man that will never be satisfied by a normal relationship.
        ryandrake 2y ago
        > You can blame the porn/sex industry as much as you like but there is a type of man that will never be satisfied by a normal relationship. There are also men who, due to the brutal realities of dating and the "relationship market," will likely never have access to a normal relationship. I'm not sure we can 100% blame the user here, either.
  - dave4420 2y ago
    That depends heavily on the IRL relationship.
  - badgersnake 2y ago
    Because cost per year is totally how normal people value their relationship.
    - lazide 2y ago
      If cost per year exceeds available cashflow? Everyone starts to think about the relationship that way at that time. If you’ve been around long enough, unless you’re really lucky, you’ve had that experience before.
      - djtango 2y ago
        My wife and I recently did a model for how we expect our expenditure to increase once we have kids. We obviously will love our children but we find it irresponsible to not have done the exercise of how much our kids will cost per year (and what that means for our own personal savings etc).
        lazide 2y ago
        If only it was just that type of situation. There are the ‘I must be a stay at home mom/dad because I can’t handle the stress’ type situations. There are the ‘I need to buy x we can’t afford to be happy’ type situations. There are the ‘we have kids now and he/she can’t leave, so I can do whatever I want’ type situations. I had someone actively sabotage my job (in a very difficult to detect way) because they were worried I’d leave them if I was too ‘independent’, or got promoted. And I’ve seen many other people have spouses do that to them too. Everything from dramatically increasing stress levels at home, to sabotaging sleep, or creating health issues until the spouse stopped ‘getting away’. All the way up to creating false accusations and trying to destroy them unless they got ‘under control’.
        djtango 2y ago
        Wow that's horrifying - sorry to hear that you were in that situation and thank you for being willing to open up about this. It doesn't have to be just partners - a friend recently told me about her husband's younger sister who would regularly spend beyond her means then rely on her brother / parents to bail her out of her debts. That's also one of those impossible relationships where you feel obligated to help but the relationship has a real cost.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    If the other party don't have a job maybe.
  - leidenfrost 2y ago
    Expenses in an IRL relationship are a side effect of the relationship, not a direct price. And it depends on the person. While most people expect financial stability from their partner, some don't mind having simpler settings in dates. While it may be more expensive anyways, the payoff is a real person inerested in you, your life, and wanting to be with you. To an extent, it's like comparing living a happy life and doing drugs, because after all both of them end up translating as "dopamine in the brain".
  - theshrike79 2y ago
    5k a year buys some really expensive sugar daddy / GFE professionals...
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Dividing it it is not that much money. Less than 100 a week or 420 a month. Those numbers don't actually seem that high, if you want more than one experience every couple months.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  Admittedly off-topic: There's this massive disparity in the signals I'm getting about inflation and cost of living. On one hand there are people spending $20k (over four years, which softens my point a bit), and extending that, there are enough people spending enough money to keep OnlyFans ... performers (is that the right word?) able to hire "chatters" and their various production teams, and this covers all the various 'socials' where cough influencers can make their livings via donations from their subscribers (I want to use a perjorative term). On the other hand, cost of living pressures are forcing people to choose between paying for food and heating their homes (so my local media headlines tell me). Is this "just" the increasing wealth inequality in the world? Inflation being "sticky" feels like it's being driven by most people not really, actually needing to tighten their belts in the face of inflation. The number of new cars on the road, the number of people out shopping retail doesn't seem to be shrinking. Having said that, unemployment numbers have been surprisingly good up until the last print. P.S. I know someone who pays for regular "youtube coaching" sessions. Maybe I'm just old and don't get it, but... :rollseyes: sigh.
  - anonymoushn 2y ago
    > performers (is that the right word?) able to hire "chatters" and their various production teams It's a business expense. They hire them because they bring in more money than they cost.
  - stonogo 2y ago
    Yeah, the guy working in the fab is probably making more money than the people who can't pay their heating bills. It is in fact increasing wealth inequality. New car sales peaked in 2015 or so and have been dropping since then. The average age of cars on the road is at an all-time high. Unemployment doesn't reflect underemployment or people who have just given up on finding work. The federal minumum wage hasn't shifted at all since 2009.
- leidenfrost 2y ago
  I think the problem is both loneliness and a completely warped sense of attraction. In part, I don't blame these men for falling for that scam. The idea of "engaging into a relationship with people I find pretty" is an almost ubiquitous human trait. I think that the problem for them, is that they're exposed for so long at OF models that real women, with varying body types, simply fall of the insanely high standard set by the models. And I'm sure that the brain, at its most primal self, can't distinguish between a PNG and "a super attractive woman that lives in my tribe near my hut". That, and a really lonely life that sets the standards for a relationship really low.
wiseowise 2y ago
> “I fell for her,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.” Help Patrick spot a contradiction!
- lyu07282 2y ago
  We still protect stupid people from harm all the time, lots of fraud is based on stupidity of their victims. The sophistication of the deception doesn't really matter, does it?
- thinkingemote 2y ago
  Intelligence may help a little bit to avoid addiction and falling into bad behaviours but it's no guarantee. And once captured, its even less help. These platforms are designed for maximum effectiveness to empty our wallets, our brains and our souls. I wish this man all the best for recognising the bad. May we all change.
- 4gotunameagain 2y ago
  You see, in the case the genders were flipped, we would now be talking about victim blaming. Because he clearly is a victim.
  - slowmovintarget 2y ago
    And she still would have been gullible to put herself in that position. In the GFE-MMO, the only way you win is not to play.
- weinzierl 2y ago
  A couple of years ago the New Yorker (I believe) had a story about an accomplished university professor that fell for a romance scam that financially ruined him. There might be just a couple of different forms of intelligence but there are plenty ways to be stupid and one does not preclude the other. EDIT: I tried to find the article, but apparently so many accomplished university professors fall for romance scams that it is hopeless. EDIT: Found it. Wasn't in The New Yorker, but The New York Times Magazine https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the-bikini-model-and-the-suitcase-full-of-trouble.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-th...
cornholio 2y ago
> “If you’re telling customers that you’re giving them one thing, but instead giving them something else, then that seems like a paradigm case of a deceptive business practice,” said Brian Berkey, associate professor of legal studies and business ethics I'm not convinced the link is so direct and easy to prove. If an eBay seller sends you a rock instead of a gold ring you don't really have a claim against eBay. OnlyFans does not employ these chatters nor is explicitly aware of their existence. They are a very thin intermediary that offers communication, moderation, safety and payment services, but do not produce the content, nor do they employ the obviously freelance performers. It's very likely they have lines in their performer TOS that forbid models from such misrepresentation, while securing a chat session to ensure a certain person is the one typing is a very hard problem to solve and by no means an industry standard approach.
- wzdd 2y ago
  The article covers this extensively. For example: """OnlyFans’ terms of service say that only individuals can be creators, but they can choose a third party to operate their account and remain “legally responsible” for its content and use. Two legal experts said that disclaimer might protect the company from liability. Six others disagreed. “They still have to have some sort of due diligence to stop people getting defrauded,” said Katherine Hart, spokesperson for the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, a UK nonprofit consumer protection group."""
jlarocco 2y ago
I'm surprised they're not using ChatGPT by now.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- xxs 2y ago
  it's addressed in the article: "He said human chatters still outperform AI when catering to subscribers with erotic niches – such as submission and domination.". The last chapter is dedicated to 'chatbots'
figassis 2y ago
Ashley Maddison had the same issue. It seems if you hide one side of the interaction from the other, and one side benefits from scale, fraud is guaranteed to happen. Even robots do it, see the movie Her.
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  You're not wrong, but I always get a chuckle at someone citing fiction as evidence.
  - figassis 2y ago
    It's not evidence, it's a point, that as a society we predicted this.
chokma 2y ago
> Then Kunz started noticing strange things. She seemed to forget subjects they’d already discussed – a recipe for overnight oats, a picture of her own cats. He started asking questions. I know a developer who wrote the software for an SMS call center about 2 decades ago - it would keep a log of all texts sent, so any agent could pretend to be any of the completely fake profiles of women looking for a relationship. At 1-2€ per SMS, this was a quite profitable business for the call center, the dev and the telcos, who took about 50% and had no interest in shutting this down.
- corgihamlet 2y ago
  Sounds like a nice application for an LLM, lol.
  - knallfrosch 2y ago
    Indeed. I'd be surprised if GPT-4 doesn't already beat cheap contractors. It would even be a bonus if they confessed their love! [1] [1] New York Times: A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled – https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-m...
    - patates 2y ago
      > I'd be surprised if GPT-4 doesn't already beat cheap contractors How? It'll deny any conversation even with the smallest hint of adult content.
      - knallfrosch 2y ago
        You are right. Sorry for the confusion, I used "GPT4" as a shorthand for "current top of the line model." Also it's mentioned at the end of the article (where the background is dark): AI bots talk dirty so OnlyFans stars don’t have to
      - theshrike79 2y ago
mikhael28 2y ago
It’s insane behavior like this that is why we didn’t discover electricity for five thousand years of civilization. Scammers ruthlessly exploiting people, and people uncritically accepting the exploitation. Then, one day, the truth is revealed, but it’s too late.
- yawpitch 2y ago
  Ok, I’ll bite: which scammers ruthlessly exploiting uncritically accepting people kept us from discovering electricity for 5 millennia?
  - n4r9 2y ago
    Not OP. I interpreted his point not to literally refer to scammers. It refers to people who would rather invest their smarts and energy into stealing from others rather than exploring new frontiers and sharing their knowledge.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  You mean there was no electricity for 5k years, because all the Benjamin Franklins of their time were simping for prostitutes?
- plsbenice34 2y ago
  But discovering electricity has merely made those problems expand to a greater scale and depth
lifestyleguru 2y ago
Funny that the victim is German... as an EU national living for almost decade in Berlin, I heard multiple times "I already have friends, why should I even talk to you?!". It's that thin border between being honest and a cruel asshole, which you just crossed. The male desperation is so draining and hopeless that one former Bulgarian female colleague simply started charging for "coaching sessions" through video calls, easy money.
- fxtentacle 2y ago
  Yeah, the stereotypes are true about most Germans. "Some people think that the Germans are all straightforward and undiplomatic. The perceived inability of the Germans to engage in small talk and their unromantic nature are discussed by foreigners." and "Germans are perceived to be stiff and humourless." from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Germans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Germans But it's also reinforcement bias on your part. The 10% of Germans that speak perfect English, have explored foreign cultures and are great conversationalists, those you probably won't remember as typical Germans.
Jiahang 2y ago
So I like to communicate with others face to face
roenxi 2y ago
This is an interesting one because it overlaps a lot with gambling - how exactly do we approach a situation where someone's instincts have tipped them over the edge and they simply aren't behaving particularly rationally? It seems pretty obvious that these men are acting on a bunch of mating instincts designed to trigger courtship rituals. The situation is so far away from them ending up with a mate though that the whole thing is a bit sick - but given that they were always going to end up with nothing, does it matter if they got nothing in a different way than they expected? They're basically paying for a fantasy, getting a fantasy, then some people are getting unhappy when they discover that the fantasy was all in their imagination. The obvious answer to me is to note that the situation is very sad and then leave it alone. If someone is going to dump money into the internet then that is on them. If there is technically fraud happening and someone wants to push that angle then let the courts sort that out.
- xxs 2y ago
  >because it overlaps a lot with gambling Gambling in the UK is quite heavily regulated, though. That includes deposit limits, forced loss limits, max bets, min period between bets - stuff like that.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    As far as I know, gambling is quite heavily regulated everywhere. This isn't gambling though, for obvious reasons. Nothing is being gambled.
    - xxs 2y ago
      >As far as I know, gambling is quite heavily regulated everywhere. Sort of. There is a massive difference even within the EU (GB is not EU, of course). Most of Asia is quite lax for instance. So is South America (and South Africa). US is on per state basis, generally more lax than Europe. However, in most jurisdictions KYC is mandatory along with identity+age verification, with anti money laundering applied.
- narrator 2y ago
feverzsj 2y ago
It feels like Internet is a relatively new thing for these people.
4gotunameagain 2y ago
You cannot convince me that the proliferation of sex work is a net positive for humanity. Perpetuating the idea that all that women have to do is "be sexy", the downright exploitation of lonely guys, probably isolating them even more and turning them into bigger outcasts (née creeps), fuelling the short term reward frenzy in both sides, and let's not even open the can of worms that is the drugs that are behind everything.
throwaway290 2y ago
How is OF business model viable? It's basically all LLM and deepfakes.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Why would it not be? You need what two people? Model and someone to take photos and maybe touch up them a bit. Then you have a scalable enough platform to sell these to multiple people. The platform is one where real waste could happen... But as whole, it is not so much time to put in in single session and uploading result.
- theshrike79 2y ago
  Dunno which bits you're looking at, there are definitely actual people in there. The LLM/AI-gen ones are on Instagram, selling subscriptions.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    I never actually looked at it tbh but just think, if 1-2 people can maintain hundreds of generative profiles real people kind of can't compete:)
yawpitch 2y ago
> he was chatting with Nikki about everything from their sexual fantasies to their shared love of cats Dear gods, sometimes the jokes just write themselves.
dartharva 2y ago
Companies like OnlyFans that exploit people's loneliness and vulnerability should not exist. There needs to be a ban on these virtual narcotics just as there is on real ones. This company gives nothing back to society except misery and addiction.
- eviks 2y ago
  But there isn't a ban on all real narcotics, alcohol is freely available in many places, so why ban this virtual narcotic vs any other (gaming, social media, fantasy forums?)
  - corgihamlet 2y ago
    At least porn addiction does not cause physical health issues except for gooning-induced calluses. ;)
    - dartharva 2y ago
      Extremely deluded and tone-deaf take.
  - dartharva 2y ago
    Alcohol was a tool for social gatherings long before its narcotic tendencies came to be established. For better or worse it has been a part of generations of human societal growth. Unlike alcohol, other narcotics like gaming, social media, fantasy forums, cocaine, methamphetamines etc don't bring people together, instead push them away and latch on as parasites making it their hosts only goal to obtain more of themselves.
    - eviks 2y ago
      You've never heard of LARPing? Or live events organized via social media (using it as ... a tool)? Or people, you know, socializing via social media??? Or recreational non-alco-drug use in such social gatherings as nightclubs? Also, other drugs have "been a part of generations", e.g., "Coca leaves have been used by Andean civilizations since ancient times"
wqtz 2y ago
I used to run a social media management firm where we catered to real estate agents. For 12 dollar an hour, me and my partner would manage personal facebook and instagram accounts of realtors and small business owners but mostly realtors. We would pretend to be them, interact with people, add new friends and maintain a CRM of influential facebook acquitances they had. We had better virtual relationship with complete strangers then our realtors had in real life. To us it was the same. We pretended to be charasmatic and took risks in social communications that we wouldn't in real life. People trusted the person they thought they were talking to and recommended them as a realtor to their friends. We journaled their birthdays, anniversary and any significant thing in the CRM. It was a win, win and win. But at the end of the day real estate market crashed and we had an incredibly hard time to convince new clients that these business model actually works.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  what CRM did you use?
  - wqtz 2y ago
    We used a real estate agency focused CRM but it is just too niche and might expose my client. On the more popular end, I used hubspot, and a little bit salesforce. The main thing was any CRM that provided reminders. So, I often used Google Sheets and airtable and calendar events. Tried to convince the clients to use Monica or Nat for personal crm but they prefered Google Sheets.
pram 2y ago
“We had a really close relationship,” he told Reuters. “I trusted her.” He even tattooed her birthdate over his heart – “at least what I believe is her birthdate.” I’m having a hard time forming an opinion on this. Yeah I guess he kinda got scammed, and it’s definitely exploiting lonely people, but also… trying to establish a relationship with a porn star? Getting a tattoo of her birthday? Guy has an insanely serious lack of self control. Like a degenerate gambler.
- knallfrosch 2y ago
  > Like a gambler. Exactly. Most countries try to protect their citizens from stuff like the most harmful of drugs, gambling and fraud. Should be easy to find out what's right. OnlyFans gets multiple billions of revenue, which only represent 20%. So customers on OF, a single platform, easily spend tens of billions.
- alx_the_new_guy 2y ago
  >exploiting lonely people >lack of self control Not quite "been there, done that", but anecdotally being lonely/alone accelerates and reinforces any "mental illness"-ish behavior. "Eating your own dogfood" type of thing, but in a bad way - it's a positive feedback loop, probably with combination of feeling guilt, inferior, being ashamed, not wanting to admit you messed up, and so on. What I'm saying is - could be you, or me, or anyone else really. If the psyop is good enough and there isn't an external support structure to provide a "reality check", it's actually fairly easy to fall into this rabbit hole.
- Xen9 2y ago
  Economically it'd still be fraud, however not very usual one because the men who buy that will keep buying regardless of what is done. Don't regulate: get Fraud industry + OnlyFans Regulate: only get OnlyFans.
_xnmw 2y ago
This problem is as old as time itself and a part of human nature that monotheistic wisdom (or even Buddhism) has always cautioned against. People attributing love, protection, adoration, etc. to fake images construed in their imagination is also known as "idolatry", or "polytheism".
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
eviks 2y ago
> Kunz slowly realized he was chatting to more than one person. “I fell for her,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.” He was beguiled, he said, by an illusion of intimacy created by a “fraudulent” system. But you're since you expected there to be a anything but an illusion of intimacy. The extra people/AI bots involved don't change the fundamentals, but just a fantasy cherry on top of an illusory cake
knallfrosch 2y ago
What a great piece of reporting. Impressive to find so many people willing to talk: Porn stars, agencies, chatters, victims – and all acknowledge the fraud. The victims even open their chats, knowing how shameful this can be. And then Kunz, who had already investigated by himself and even became a chatter. What an incredible story really. It's great even though I know all of the "revelation" about porn stars not actually chatting with the customers.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
sfink 2y ago
This makes me wonder: how much demand would there be for the exact same service that wasn't deceptive? As in, a porn site that freely acknowledged that the women you're talking to are not individually reading and replying to each of your messages. It may sound dumb, but think of it as engaging with a TV show or movie character. There may be different people behind it, but they're all playing the same character. And that character is hot, often naked, and attracted to you. You could even restrict the scale a little, by promising and contractually requiring the "model" to read all of your (mostly inane) chat messages, and perhaps personally reply to some minimal number. Or maybe that's a higher cost tier. Of course people wouldn't spend as much as they do on OF. But would it have enough value to people? It's more than what I assume regular porn sites provide. More interestingly: is it ethical? Obviously, it's moreso than OF. But taking advantage of people's base impulses always feels creepy to me. I even have misgivings about coffee shops, not to mention liquor stores. Feeding addiction is not kind, even when the consumer is wholly willing.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  I am pretty sure entirely virtual AI girlfriend/boyfriend would do well enough. One could ask would adding interactivity makes things worse compared to more static media? Like books, music or movies? Many which sell similar fantasies.
- noobermin 2y ago
  There was a This American Life article about something like this, a ghost writer who wrote for fans of a supermodel who then became friends with the model's fans, who knew what he (the ghost writer) was doing. Unfortunately, I can't find the article now.

59 points by achow 2y ago

Why do people keep believing that politicians and strippers really love them and care about their emotions? > One of them is a 31-year-old semiconductor assembly technician who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. He said he spent nearly $20,000 on OnlyFans over four years before learning he’d been fooled by chatters. “I was lonely,” he said. “That’s really pathetic that someone is trying to take advantage of you.” I guess lonely, horny and hungry people make for the easiest clients . What a sick world we live in.

ralph84 2y ago
$5k/year is cheaper than an IRL relationship.
- cyberpunk 2y ago
  20k is a lot of money to spend on pornography though. I wonder at what point does one ask themselves if they have a problem or not?
  - lostemptations5 2y ago
    Or not alot of options...
    - wiseowise 2y ago
      With 20k in 4 years you should be able to switch handful of hobbies that will potentially allow you to attract a real woman. 20k on porn means you need to see a shrink asap.
  - tiku 2y ago
    He didn't think of porn at the time I bet.
    - raincole 2y ago
      I mean if he met the girl(s?) on another platform, like Tinder, it's more explainable. But OnlyFans...?
    - corgihamlet 2y ago
      He was chatting on OnlyFans with a model, he wasn't chatting on a dating platform. Regardless if he was chatting wit the actual model or some guy pretending to be her, they still would have told him ANYTHING he wanted to hear as long as he was there to pay. I've had some first-hand experience with people like him and trust me - there is usually a very good reason why people like him need to pay to get attention from "women". You can blame the porn/sex industry as much as you like but there is a type of man that will never be satisfied by a normal relationship.
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        > You can blame the porn/sex industry as much as you like but there is a type of man that will never be satisfied by a normal relationship. There are also men who, due to the brutal realities of dating and the "relationship market," will likely never have access to a normal relationship. I'm not sure we can 100% blame the user here, either.
- dave4420 2y ago
  That depends heavily on the IRL relationship.
- badgersnake 2y ago
  Because cost per year is totally how normal people value their relationship.
  - lazide 2y ago
    If cost per year exceeds available cashflow? Everyone starts to think about the relationship that way at that time. If you’ve been around long enough, unless you’re really lucky, you’ve had that experience before.
    - djtango 2y ago
      My wife and I recently did a model for how we expect our expenditure to increase once we have kids. We obviously will love our children but we find it irresponsible to not have done the exercise of how much our kids will cost per year (and what that means for our own personal savings etc).
      - lazide 2y ago
        If only it was just that type of situation. There are the ‘I must be a stay at home mom/dad because I can’t handle the stress’ type situations. There are the ‘I need to buy x we can’t afford to be happy’ type situations. There are the ‘we have kids now and he/she can’t leave, so I can do whatever I want’ type situations. I had someone actively sabotage my job (in a very difficult to detect way) because they were worried I’d leave them if I was too ‘independent’, or got promoted. And I’ve seen many other people have spouses do that to them too. Everything from dramatically increasing stress levels at home, to sabotaging sleep, or creating health issues until the spouse stopped ‘getting away’. All the way up to creating false accusations and trying to destroy them unless they got ‘under control’.
        djtango 2y ago
        Wow that's horrifying - sorry to hear that you were in that situation and thank you for being willing to open up about this. It doesn't have to be just partners - a friend recently told me about her husband's younger sister who would regularly spend beyond her means then rely on her brother / parents to bail her out of her debts. That's also one of those impossible relationships where you feel obligated to help but the relationship has a real cost.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  If the other party don't have a job maybe.
- leidenfrost 2y ago
  Expenses in an IRL relationship are a side effect of the relationship, not a direct price. And it depends on the person. While most people expect financial stability from their partner, some don't mind having simpler settings in dates. While it may be more expensive anyways, the payoff is a real person inerested in you, your life, and wanting to be with you. To an extent, it's like comparing living a happy life and doing drugs, because after all both of them end up translating as "dopamine in the brain".
- theshrike79 2y ago
  5k a year buys some really expensive sugar daddy / GFE professionals...
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Dividing it it is not that much money. Less than 100 a week or 420 a month. Those numbers don't actually seem that high, if you want more than one experience every couple months.
BLKNSLVR 2y ago
Admittedly off-topic: There's this massive disparity in the signals I'm getting about inflation and cost of living. On one hand there are people spending $20k (over four years, which softens my point a bit), and extending that, there are enough people spending enough money to keep OnlyFans ... performers (is that the right word?) able to hire "chatters" and their various production teams, and this covers all the various 'socials' where cough influencers can make their livings via donations from their subscribers (I want to use a perjorative term). On the other hand, cost of living pressures are forcing people to choose between paying for food and heating their homes (so my local media headlines tell me). Is this "just" the increasing wealth inequality in the world? Inflation being "sticky" feels like it's being driven by most people not really, actually needing to tighten their belts in the face of inflation. The number of new cars on the road, the number of people out shopping retail doesn't seem to be shrinking. Having said that, unemployment numbers have been surprisingly good up until the last print. P.S. I know someone who pays for regular "youtube coaching" sessions. Maybe I'm just old and don't get it, but... :rollseyes: sigh.
- anonymoushn 2y ago
  > performers (is that the right word?) able to hire "chatters" and their various production teams It's a business expense. They hire them because they bring in more money than they cost.
- stonogo 2y ago
  Yeah, the guy working in the fab is probably making more money than the people who can't pay their heating bills. It is in fact increasing wealth inequality. New car sales peaked in 2015 or so and have been dropping since then. The average age of cars on the road is at an all-time high. Unemployment doesn't reflect underemployment or people who have just given up on finding work. The federal minumum wage hasn't shifted at all since 2009.
leidenfrost 2y ago
I think the problem is both loneliness and a completely warped sense of attraction. In part, I don't blame these men for falling for that scam. The idea of "engaging into a relationship with people I find pretty" is an almost ubiquitous human trait. I think that the problem for them, is that they're exposed for so long at OF models that real women, with varying body types, simply fall of the insanely high standard set by the models. And I'm sure that the brain, at its most primal self, can't distinguish between a PNG and "a super attractive woman that lives in my tribe near my hut". That, and a really lonely life that sets the standards for a relationship really low.

wiseowise 2y ago

> “I fell for her,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.” Help Patrick spot a contradiction!

lyu07282 2y ago
We still protect stupid people from harm all the time, lots of fraud is based on stupidity of their victims. The sophistication of the deception doesn't really matter, does it?
thinkingemote 2y ago
Intelligence may help a little bit to avoid addiction and falling into bad behaviours but it's no guarantee. And once captured, its even less help. These platforms are designed for maximum effectiveness to empty our wallets, our brains and our souls. I wish this man all the best for recognising the bad. May we all change.
4gotunameagain 2y ago
You see, in the case the genders were flipped, we would now be talking about victim blaming. Because he clearly is a victim.
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  And she still would have been gullible to put herself in that position. In the GFE-MMO, the only way you win is not to play.
weinzierl 2y ago
A couple of years ago the New Yorker (I believe) had a story about an accomplished university professor that fell for a romance scam that financially ruined him. There might be just a couple of different forms of intelligence but there are plenty ways to be stupid and one does not preclude the other. EDIT: I tried to find the article, but apparently so many accomplished university professors fall for romance scams that it is hopeless. EDIT: Found it. Wasn't in The New Yorker, but The New York Times Magazine https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the-bikini-model-and-the-suitcase-full-of-trouble.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-th...

cornholio 2y ago

> “If you’re telling customers that you’re giving them one thing, but instead giving them something else, then that seems like a paradigm case of a deceptive business practice,” said Brian Berkey, associate professor of legal studies and business ethics I'm not convinced the link is so direct and easy to prove. If an eBay seller sends you a rock instead of a gold ring you don't really have a claim against eBay. OnlyFans does not employ these chatters nor is explicitly aware of their existence. They are a very thin intermediary that offers communication, moderation, safety and payment services, but do not produce the content, nor do they employ the obviously freelance performers. It's very likely they have lines in their performer TOS that forbid models from such misrepresentation, while securing a chat session to ensure a certain person is the one typing is a very hard problem to solve and by no means an industry standard approach.

wzdd 2y ago
The article covers this extensively. For example: """OnlyFans’ terms of service say that only individuals can be creators, but they can choose a third party to operate their account and remain “legally responsible” for its content and use. Two legal experts said that disclaimer might protect the company from liability. Six others disagreed. “They still have to have some sort of due diligence to stop people getting defrauded,” said Katherine Hart, spokesperson for the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, a UK nonprofit consumer protection group."""

jlarocco 2y ago

I'm surprised they're not using ChatGPT by now.

deleted 2y ago
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xxs 2y ago
it's addressed in the article: "He said human chatters still outperform AI when catering to subscribers with erotic niches – such as submission and domination.". The last chapter is dedicated to 'chatbots'

figassis 2y ago

Ashley Maddison had the same issue. It seems if you hide one side of the interaction from the other, and one side benefits from scale, fraud is guaranteed to happen. Even robots do it, see the movie Her.

slowmovintarget 2y ago
You're not wrong, but I always get a chuckle at someone citing fiction as evidence.
- figassis 2y ago
  It's not evidence, it's a point, that as a society we predicted this.

chokma 2y ago

> Then Kunz started noticing strange things. She seemed to forget subjects they’d already discussed – a recipe for overnight oats, a picture of her own cats. He started asking questions. I know a developer who wrote the software for an SMS call center about 2 decades ago - it would keep a log of all texts sent, so any agent could pretend to be any of the completely fake profiles of women looking for a relationship. At 1-2€ per SMS, this was a quite profitable business for the call center, the dev and the telcos, who took about 50% and had no interest in shutting this down.

corgihamlet 2y ago
Sounds like a nice application for an LLM, lol.
- knallfrosch 2y ago
  Indeed. I'd be surprised if GPT-4 doesn't already beat cheap contractors. It would even be a bonus if they confessed their love! [1] [1] New York Times: A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled – https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-m...
  - patates 2y ago
    > I'd be surprised if GPT-4 doesn't already beat cheap contractors How? It'll deny any conversation even with the smallest hint of adult content.
    - knallfrosch 2y ago
      You are right. Sorry for the confusion, I used "GPT4" as a shorthand for "current top of the line model." Also it's mentioned at the end of the article (where the background is dark): AI bots talk dirty so OnlyFans stars don’t have to
    - theshrike79 2y ago

mikhael28 2y ago

It’s insane behavior like this that is why we didn’t discover electricity for five thousand years of civilization. Scammers ruthlessly exploiting people, and people uncritically accepting the exploitation. Then, one day, the truth is revealed, but it’s too late.

yawpitch 2y ago
Ok, I’ll bite: which scammers ruthlessly exploiting uncritically accepting people kept us from discovering electricity for 5 millennia?
- n4r9 2y ago
  Not OP. I interpreted his point not to literally refer to scammers. It refers to people who would rather invest their smarts and energy into stealing from others rather than exploring new frontiers and sharing their knowledge.
wiseowise 2y ago
You mean there was no electricity for 5k years, because all the Benjamin Franklins of their time were simping for prostitutes?
plsbenice34 2y ago
But discovering electricity has merely made those problems expand to a greater scale and depth

lifestyleguru 2y ago

Funny that the victim is German... as an EU national living for almost decade in Berlin, I heard multiple times "I already have friends, why should I even talk to you?!". It's that thin border between being honest and a cruel asshole, which you just crossed. The male desperation is so draining and hopeless that one former Bulgarian female colleague simply started charging for "coaching sessions" through video calls, easy money.

fxtentacle 2y ago
Yeah, the stereotypes are true about most Germans. "Some people think that the Germans are all straightforward and undiplomatic. The perceived inability of the Germans to engage in small talk and their unromantic nature are discussed by foreigners." and "Germans are perceived to be stiff and humourless." from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Germans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Germans But it's also reinforcement bias on your part. The 10% of Germans that speak perfect English, have explored foreign cultures and are great conversationalists, those you probably won't remember as typical Germans.

Jiahang 2y ago

So I like to communicate with others face to face

roenxi 2y ago

This is an interesting one because it overlaps a lot with gambling - how exactly do we approach a situation where someone's instincts have tipped them over the edge and they simply aren't behaving particularly rationally? It seems pretty obvious that these men are acting on a bunch of mating instincts designed to trigger courtship rituals. The situation is so far away from them ending up with a mate though that the whole thing is a bit sick - but given that they were always going to end up with nothing, does it matter if they got nothing in a different way than they expected? They're basically paying for a fantasy, getting a fantasy, then some people are getting unhappy when they discover that the fantasy was all in their imagination. The obvious answer to me is to note that the situation is very sad and then leave it alone. If someone is going to dump money into the internet then that is on them. If there is technically fraud happening and someone wants to push that angle then let the courts sort that out.

xxs 2y ago
>because it overlaps a lot with gambling Gambling in the UK is quite heavily regulated, though. That includes deposit limits, forced loss limits, max bets, min period between bets - stuff like that.
- roenxi 2y ago
  As far as I know, gambling is quite heavily regulated everywhere. This isn't gambling though, for obvious reasons. Nothing is being gambled.
  - xxs 2y ago
    >As far as I know, gambling is quite heavily regulated everywhere. Sort of. There is a massive difference even within the EU (GB is not EU, of course). Most of Asia is quite lax for instance. So is South America (and South Africa). US is on per state basis, generally more lax than Europe. However, in most jurisdictions KYC is mandatory along with identity+age verification, with anti money laundering applied.
narrator 2y ago

feverzsj 2y ago

It feels like Internet is a relatively new thing for these people.

4gotunameagain 2y ago

You cannot convince me that the proliferation of sex work is a net positive for humanity. Perpetuating the idea that all that women have to do is "be sexy", the downright exploitation of lonely guys, probably isolating them even more and turning them into bigger outcasts (née creeps), fuelling the short term reward frenzy in both sides, and let's not even open the can of worms that is the drugs that are behind everything.

throwaway290 2y ago

How is OF business model viable? It's basically all LLM and deepfakes.

Ekaros 2y ago
Why would it not be? You need what two people? Model and someone to take photos and maybe touch up them a bit. Then you have a scalable enough platform to sell these to multiple people. The platform is one where real waste could happen... But as whole, it is not so much time to put in in single session and uploading result.
theshrike79 2y ago
Dunno which bits you're looking at, there are definitely actual people in there. The LLM/AI-gen ones are on Instagram, selling subscriptions.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  I never actually looked at it tbh but just think, if 1-2 people can maintain hundreds of generative profiles real people kind of can't compete:)

yawpitch 2y ago

> he was chatting with Nikki about everything from their sexual fantasies to their shared love of cats Dear gods, sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

dartharva 2y ago

Companies like OnlyFans that exploit people's loneliness and vulnerability should not exist. There needs to be a ban on these virtual narcotics just as there is on real ones. This company gives nothing back to society except misery and addiction.

eviks 2y ago
But there isn't a ban on all real narcotics, alcohol is freely available in many places, so why ban this virtual narcotic vs any other (gaming, social media, fantasy forums?)
- corgihamlet 2y ago
  At least porn addiction does not cause physical health issues except for gooning-induced calluses. ;)
  - dartharva 2y ago
    Extremely deluded and tone-deaf take.
- dartharva 2y ago
  Alcohol was a tool for social gatherings long before its narcotic tendencies came to be established. For better or worse it has been a part of generations of human societal growth. Unlike alcohol, other narcotics like gaming, social media, fantasy forums, cocaine, methamphetamines etc don't bring people together, instead push them away and latch on as parasites making it their hosts only goal to obtain more of themselves.
  - eviks 2y ago
    You've never heard of LARPing? Or live events organized via social media (using it as ... a tool)? Or people, you know, socializing via social media??? Or recreational non-alco-drug use in such social gatherings as nightclubs? Also, other drugs have "been a part of generations", e.g., "Coca leaves have been used by Andean civilizations since ancient times"

wqtz 2y ago

I used to run a social media management firm where we catered to real estate agents. For 12 dollar an hour, me and my partner would manage personal facebook and instagram accounts of realtors and small business owners but mostly realtors. We would pretend to be them, interact with people, add new friends and maintain a CRM of influential facebook acquitances they had. We had better virtual relationship with complete strangers then our realtors had in real life. To us it was the same. We pretended to be charasmatic and took risks in social communications that we wouldn't in real life. People trusted the person they thought they were talking to and recommended them as a realtor to their friends. We journaled their birthdays, anniversary and any significant thing in the CRM. It was a win, win and win. But at the end of the day real estate market crashed and we had an incredibly hard time to convince new clients that these business model actually works.

red-iron-pine 2y ago
what CRM did you use?
- wqtz 2y ago
  We used a real estate agency focused CRM but it is just too niche and might expose my client. On the more popular end, I used hubspot, and a little bit salesforce. The main thing was any CRM that provided reminders. So, I often used Google Sheets and airtable and calendar events. Tried to convince the clients to use Monica or Nat for personal crm but they prefered Google Sheets.

pram 2y ago

“We had a really close relationship,” he told Reuters. “I trusted her.” He even tattooed her birthdate over his heart – “at least what I believe is her birthdate.” I’m having a hard time forming an opinion on this. Yeah I guess he kinda got scammed, and it’s definitely exploiting lonely people, but also… trying to establish a relationship with a porn star? Getting a tattoo of her birthday? Guy has an insanely serious lack of self control. Like a degenerate gambler.

knallfrosch 2y ago
> Like a gambler. Exactly. Most countries try to protect their citizens from stuff like the most harmful of drugs, gambling and fraud. Should be easy to find out what's right. OnlyFans gets multiple billions of revenue, which only represent 20%. So customers on OF, a single platform, easily spend tens of billions.
alx_the_new_guy 2y ago
>exploiting lonely people >lack of self control Not quite "been there, done that", but anecdotally being lonely/alone accelerates and reinforces any "mental illness"-ish behavior. "Eating your own dogfood" type of thing, but in a bad way - it's a positive feedback loop, probably with combination of feeling guilt, inferior, being ashamed, not wanting to admit you messed up, and so on. What I'm saying is - could be you, or me, or anyone else really. If the psyop is good enough and there isn't an external support structure to provide a "reality check", it's actually fairly easy to fall into this rabbit hole.
Xen9 2y ago
Economically it'd still be fraud, however not very usual one because the men who buy that will keep buying regardless of what is done. Don't regulate: get Fraud industry + OnlyFans Regulate: only get OnlyFans.

_xnmw 2y ago

This problem is as old as time itself and a part of human nature that monotheistic wisdom (or even Buddhism) has always cautioned against. People attributing love, protection, adoration, etc. to fake images construed in their imagination is also known as "idolatry", or "polytheism".

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eviks 2y ago

> Kunz slowly realized he was chatting to more than one person. “I fell for her,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.” He was beguiled, he said, by an illusion of intimacy created by a “fraudulent” system. But you're since you expected there to be a anything but an illusion of intimacy. The extra people/AI bots involved don't change the fundamentals, but just a fantasy cherry on top of an illusory cake

knallfrosch 2y ago

What a great piece of reporting. Impressive to find so many people willing to talk: Porn stars, agencies, chatters, victims – and all acknowledge the fraud. The victims even open their chats, knowing how shameful this can be. And then Kunz, who had already investigated by himself and even became a chatter. What an incredible story really. It's great even though I know all of the "revelation" about porn stars not actually chatting with the customers.

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sfink 2y ago

This makes me wonder: how much demand would there be for the exact same service that wasn't deceptive? As in, a porn site that freely acknowledged that the women you're talking to are not individually reading and replying to each of your messages. It may sound dumb, but think of it as engaging with a TV show or movie character. There may be different people behind it, but they're all playing the same character. And that character is hot, often naked, and attracted to you. You could even restrict the scale a little, by promising and contractually requiring the "model" to read all of your (mostly inane) chat messages, and perhaps personally reply to some minimal number. Or maybe that's a higher cost tier. Of course people wouldn't spend as much as they do on OF. But would it have enough value to people? It's more than what I assume regular porn sites provide. More interestingly: is it ethical? Obviously, it's moreso than OF. But taking advantage of people's base impulses always feels creepy to me. I even have misgivings about coffee shops, not to mention liquor stores. Feeding addiction is not kind, even when the consumer is wholly willing.

Ekaros 2y ago
I am pretty sure entirely virtual AI girlfriend/boyfriend would do well enough. One could ask would adding interactivity makes things worse compared to more static media? Like books, music or movies? Many which sell similar fantasies.
noobermin 2y ago
There was a This American Life article about something like this, a ghost writer who wrote for fans of a supermodel who then became friends with the model's fans, who knew what he (the ghost writer) was doing. Unfortunately, I can't find the article now.