Life as an OnlyFans 'chatter'
bbc.comHow is this not fraud, or at least false advertising? If I'm paying money to chat with a specific sex worker how is it even legal to let some random dude in a third world country pretend to be the person I'm supposed to be talking to? I've never personally engaged in these types of systems, but I don't think there's a problem with them as long as they are run honestly. It sounds like Onlyfans is exploiting workers and their own customers.
It is fraud. However, one thing has become crystal clear lately is that laws are only as good as we have systems in place that are willing and able to enforce them.
And further, scamming people in the context of sex has always been easy because of the shame in admitting you fell for it.
Imagine filing a report that you spent thousands of dollars chatting with some random person, having the chat logs submitted as evidence, etc. it’s similar to why all types of sexual assault are rarely reported
> laws are only as good as we have systems in place that are willing and ABLE to enforce them.
The 'able' part is the critical insight. Laws are too often passed that really have no ability to be enforced, but end up adding bureaucratic processes that law abiding companies have to follow. This also implies that governments need to actively clean up existing laws, which almost never happens unless there is enough support to pass a new law to actively supplant the old one.
There is also that international problem. If an South American is frauded on an US American platform, by an east European using an African fake chatter: Which legislation, which court is applicable? Which oversight authority should handle this?
I don’t think this problem is that hard to solve, it just requires political will that doesn’t exist. The solution is to make it the platform’s problem. If the platform doesn’t want to deal with fraud, they don’t get to operate in that jurisdiction. Sue them into submission. If they don’t care about that geography, then there is now a gap in the market for a more local business to fill.
> I don’t think this problem is that hard to solve, it just requires political will that doesn’t exist
This is equivalent to saying "I don't think the problem is hard, it just requires an a simple solution that doesn't exist". Problems are hard problems specifically because simple easy solutions for them don't exist.
> because of the shame in admitting you fell for it.
I would argue that the reason has more to do with our utter inability to create common sense laws regarding anything "sex".
Which goes back to the shame thing, really. Few people are willing to stand up and advocate for common sense laws because they don’t want to be associated with anything regarding sex. Politicians, whom are not generally noted for being averse to hiring sex workers, sure as hell don’t want to be advocating for them for fear of losing elections.
Don't you think it also comes down to "exploitation" and not shame alone?
> Politicians [...] don’t want to be advocating for them for fear of losing elections.
This assumes that the politician plans and has a chance to become re-elected. If this is not the case, the arguments for not advocating for such laws become much less important for the respective politician.
A politician can rarely enact laws alone, and the above issues typically apply to enough politicians at a time to make having a quorum difficult.
Is there anywhere with one term limits for law makers with no staggered terms? If every member of a parliament is yoloing it, I'm not aure if things would be better or worse.
This was done by “mail order bride” companies like those in Russia and Ukraine, that charge per message or letter sent back and forth, using their platform that does not allow for contact information to be shared; you are not talking to Anastasia but “Hairy Boris”!
Later scams evolved to use prerecorded video clips etc. Which I assume is next for OF also.
What if I want to talk to Hairy Boris but I’m getting scammed by some blonde bombshell pretending to be him? I shudder at the thought.
It's no more fraud than any other "fan club" where you got letters and personal autographs and such from the celebrity but didn't realize it was all done by a hired staff of employees. It's been a thing for decades.
You mean it's equally fraud as that. Fraud has a particular definition which does not permit "someone else is committing fraud and getting away with it" as a defense.
Not to mention politicians begging for money and in return you get begged for more money by more politicians.
There have been lawsuits about it [0], however it seems most of them get dismissed by judges for one or another reason [1].
[0] https://www.courtwatch.news/p/onlyfans-sued-after-two-guys-r...
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/court-throws-explosive-o...
Someone paid to have a fantasy of sex, and they got that fantasy. If they don't like it, they don't do it again, and this is true whether it's "the model" or someone else. If they do like it, what's the issue?
This is like saying you paid for a celebrity plumber & a regular plumber did the work, but you're upset because you wanted the celebrity. "The job" got done one way or another. They're selling digital handjobs here, there's no need to be precious about it.
That’s not what they paid for, they paid to speak to person x, not person y.
Which makes me wonder why Person Y doesn't just spin up their own account, since they've already got warm leads.
They paid to interact with a computer, and they did. On the Internet nobody knows I'm a dog, and that's ok.
This is not what is advertised, and if it was there would be no money in it.
I've been alive for several decades and almost nothing I've gotten was exactly as advertised.
I'm not saying that's good, but it's consistent with reality.
Consistent with what you think of as reality. For all you know, you're being Truman Show'ed.
> If they do like it, what's the issue?
Are you serious? However goofy that sounds, they paid for a specific fantasy. They would not have paid if you advertised the service as "talk dirty with a random dude in India". If the reason they paid for this service is that they were promised a specific person, that's fraud. As simple as that.
Your judgment about whether the services are equivalent doesn't matter. If I pay you for Gucci socks, and you intentionally send me cheaper HZBZZYXY socks from Amazon instead, that's fraud even if they're still socks.
> If I pay you for Gucci socks, and you intentionally send me cheaper HZBZZYXY socks
The difference is t he product is 'blessed' by the official seller: Would you feel defrauded if Gucci sends you the Gucci-branded socks you ordered, but you discover later they were made by the HZBZZYXY factory in Guangdong rather than by an Italian master sock-craftsman?
That question falls entirely under the legal concept of false advertising. Depends on what Gucci proclaimed.
Good framing.
Jamtarians pride themselves with such deeds
It's probably buried in the ToS that who you're talking with is at the discretion of the hosting company. The only issue is that no one reads it.
I can’t believe that someone paying for this actually expects to chat with the model. Just think of the logistics, it would be impossible
I have some models I really chat with, like outside of their performances. Not all day obviously and they often don't respond for days but that's ok. I know it's them because I can see them typing live sometimes and also some of them I know in person and they remember what I've said online.
> I can’t believe that someone paying for this actually expects to chat with the model. Just think of the logistics, it would be impossible
It's not impossible, you can do it with a little bit of fine tuning starting from her history of chats on the platform, and having her set a custom user-level prompt where she lists her interests, hobbies and things she likes. Then give her auto-compacted daily or weekly summaries of the most compelling chats. It's a model either way, right?
You’ve not even begun to scratch parasocial relationships- since there have been cases of murder, I think it’s safe to assume at least some think they’re really chatting with the model - and she loves them?
The market is not you.
There is probably some lingo somewhere clarifying that you pay for the "experience" of her and not for her in particular.
This is everywhere not just OnlyFan, sadly
I wonder to what extent the clients care. Either way its still paying for a fantasy.
if a person pays for a Nike product and receives a counterfeit, are we saying no harm no foul if they don’t realise?
Nike determines what counts as a Nike product; it they are selling it, it is not counterfeit; It may be poorly made or made in ways you didn't expect, but nor counterfeit.
No, i'm not.
Good. Your initial comment makes no sense.
I'm not retracting my original comment, i just don't think your analogy is related to what i said and in many ways is the opposite of what i said.
If you don’t recognise the parallels then I don’t know what to say really. All the best.
To use your own analogy, surely you must see there is a difference between someone attempting to purchase nike shoes and being tricked vs someone intentionally seeking out counterfeits (e.g. to get a deal)
My comment is wondering to what extent the clients are "tricked" vs to what extent they know (or suspect) its not the real OF model and dont care as long as the fantasy is intact.
It is fraud. But these parties are protected by OnlyFans themselves. Similar to how dating apps promote (and actually lot of them enforce) fake accounts with fake pictures because it boosts everything - engagement and revenue. So they always turn a blind eye.
Last week, I used a dating app where they used a fake profile tailored specifically for me, using a married woman's photo. I deleted the app. Every app in this space is scummy and the people at the top running these are just trash. That's the real reason.
Prostitution is not an industry known for its ethics or integrity.
That's only really in jurisdictions where it's illegal. It just comes with the criminal aspect. In Holland they even have a union called the red thread.
It is also a case in jurisdictions where it is all legal, because to meet demand it becomes then more profitable to bring (illegally) trafficked women to meet it. In particular, netherlands appear to be one of the highest in trafficking inflows [0, Appendix B].
From [0]:
> Our empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect. On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows.
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1...
Even in jurisdictions where it’s legal it’s still filled with exploitation - e.g. soliciting 18 year olds to do various sex work, like pornography, while they may not necessary understand what they are getting into and just chasing money they cannot get elsewhere. And how it’s correctly stated, trafficking is still a thing.
do they have a pussy ombudsman to investigate malfeasance and poor customer service?
The chances of that happening are 0.0001% compared to the chances of the visitors misbehaving.
On the one hand, yes, on the other hand, personal touch doesn't scale. Webcam models maintain a personal touch by broadcasting their interactions with those who tip, but OF models can't do that. They have two options when their customer base grows too large:
Option one is to use these chatters.
Option two is to chat only with those who pay extra or with no one at all.
If you can't scale part of your self-employment without scamming people, that's fine, don't scale that part.
Being unable to sell 30 hours of work in a day is normal, not an excuse for fraud.
But then.. how is it any different from Amazon saying automated stores while a human is watching cameras or waymo having humans operate in some circumstances. If there are no rules, you can't expect corporates to govern themselves in a way that does not benefit them..
>But then.. how is it any different from Amazon saying automated stores while a human is watching cameras or waymo having humans operate in some circumstances.
Did amazon/waymo actually claim they were 100% automated? Moreover is the fact that they're 100% automated a material fact to the consumer? The investors might have grounds to sue for securities fraud, but it's going to be much tougher for a consumer, when for all intents and purposes they got what they expected (ie. whatever they bought from the shop).
> Moreover is the fact that they're 100% automated a material fact to the consumer?
I do think that for a meaningful fraction of first time customers, the choice to try it is about the novelty of it being automated. In SF I do often see people explaining waymo to out of town visitors, and the uniqueness of "driverless" vs "remote controlled" is part of the appeal.
But that's not what they're paying for. You're hoping to get the automated experience but you aren't paying for the automated experience. This is like going to Hooters to buy a meal and then suing because the girl you wanted to see didn't serve you.
https://x.com/Waymo/status/1890083513531084973
Here's a waymo ad from a year ago. In like 10 seconds they repeat "it's driving itself" 3 times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kJPDg207oc
Here's another one. The closing screen says "Autonomous rides 24/7". They talk about the robot
Here's a blogpost from 2021 in which they insist that their messaging from there forward will talk about "fully autonomous driving", and not merely self-driving. https://waymo.com/blog/2021/01/why-youll-hear-us-say-autonom...
Here's a post from this year where as part of their expansion to new cities they say " we continue our accelerated growth and welcome the first public riders into our _fully autonomous_ ride-hailing service in four new cities" (emphasis mine). https://waymo.com/blog/#:~:text=Waymo%20will%20begin%20fully...
I haven't read the TOS in the app and I'm sure they didn't legally commit that no human will ever be involved even in unusual circumstances (which would probably be irresponsible). But they have been advertising on the basis of being autonomous, they're presenting that as part of their value prop to new users. Maybe it's up to lawyers to decide whether that's "material". But they are repeatedly, loudly, proudly advertising and marketing on the basis of it being fully autonomous.
People don't usually pay for automated stores or rides because of the automated aspect. They just want to get the items or get to their destination. I think waymo was mostly upfront that humans are working behind the scenes, but if amazon lied to investors and shareholders by claiming that their stores were automated when it was "Actually Indians" I think they could/should have been sued.
How many celebs, politicians, CEOs ... do you think manage their own socials?
Nobody is paying to read their socials.
Do we know if onlyfan is already training their own models with their user's content?
They do, but not an AI chatter.They train a content moderation model.
How could they not be? At $2 an hour they'd be leaving money on the table by not paying a tiny fraction of that for an LLM.
I don't think it's the platform paying the workers. I think they're third parties hired by the posters. Of course, OnlyFans itself could theoretically create and offer a service to replace them, but Fraud As A Service doesn't actually seem all that reliable as a business model.
That service is already offered by Fanvue.
these are all symptoms - the larger problem is there's a lot of lonely men out there - specially in the small towns.
these people probably know they're not talking to the real model, but want someone to talk to.
someone insert Blaise Pascal quote
You sound upset.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
> It sounds like Onlyfans is exploiting workers and their own customers.
But this is the basic principle of capitalism. The company exploits workers (in order to obtain a net benefit from their work), and exploits customers (by selling the lowest-quality, most expensive product it can manage to). Companies that don't behave like that get out-competed by companies that do. This dynamic is the root of our economic system, as was very clearly explained by Adam Smith and Karl Marx two centuries ago (in slightly different tones of voice).
The particular case you mention is nothing special. The exact same thing happens for all the products that people buy. This is just the stable state of our (some would say "rotten", some would say "healthy") society.
The sex workers aren't legally speaking staff. It's a platform that takes a cut like all the app stores.
Sex workers often work for onlyfans agencies, that organise their content, hire people to chat for them, etc.
It’s not exploitation unless the participants in the deal are being coerced. You can’t make a solid case for employees being coerced to work for an exploitative employer outside of company towns or non-functioning labor markets; neither of these apply to the Philippines.
If the chatter thought the job was so bad, they can quit and get a different one. Millions of people make that choice, it is available to them. There is no requirement that they do this work; it is entirely voluntary. The people doing these jobs have determined that it is the best option for them, personally, or they wouldn’t be there.
PS: $2-4/hr is a more than decent wage in the Philippines. Median income there is $2.11/hr, minimum wage is $1.36/hr.
If you don’t work, you die, or at least suffer much worse quality of life, especially in poor countries or countries without a big social safety net.
There is a reason why in many places it’s considered highly unethical to pay people for organ, egg, blood donations, etc (besides just compensating lost wages/travel expenses).
> unless the participants in the deal are being coerced.
Here's the nice thing about it: they are! If they don't work (for any of the equally exploitative companies in their country) they die.
Maybe you should take it up with your deity of choice. Capitalism didn't make humans need to eat to survive. Or perhaps you should try to bring back slavery, to make others work so you can eat without doing any work yourself. I admit it's an attractive proposition, but I'm not too fond of the impact on others since I'm a bit of a softie
They are being coerced to participate in the capitalist system, maybe. Not to be a “chatter”.
No argument against protections, though.
And yet lots of people don't work for companies and still manage not to die. I wonder how they do it? A mystery, I guess.
Yes, everyone should become a one-person company!
The requirement is that they not starve, not be made homeless, and not be forced into even less appealing and/or more dangerous work.
The coercion comes from the very limited choices they have to avoid that.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it is the reverse.
So what you are saying is that, under communism, women exploit women and men bear the children?
I know Projet de communauté philosophe is utopian, but I don't think that is the story it tells. Maybe something got lost in translation?
Someone upvoted you for tripping on a joke this hard? Weird.
Nobody upvoted me. That goes without saying, no? Why would anyone take time out of their day to press a button that does absolutely nothing?
The problem with Marxian exploitation is that a better system can provide you with more luxuries beyond basic needs.
If you're buying a fancy car and capitalism makes you pay 50% more for the car, calling it exploitation is silly when the communist part of Germany only offers a waiting list for a Trabant. You can't complain about being exploited over luxuries.
This leaves just housing, food, energy, education and healthcare. Other than energy, those things suck in the US, but they are very reasonably priced in Germany.
Marxian exploitation is also incompatible with economic equilibrium, which means that a better solution than communism is to introduce equilibrium into our economies and not just declare equilibrium to be automatic.
It is fraud but nobody cares anymore. Laws only matter if you're defrauding rich corporations with pockets deep enough to actually pay lawyers to sue you over it.
It is blatant fraud and onlyfans should be suable for this. Fuck that whole company and all their bs pr management workers doing nothing getting rich on regarded male beta simp money.
But in this case its not OnlyFans doing the (potential?) fraud, it's the individual performers and potentially their agencies. OnlyFans just provide the platform and turn a blind eye.
First you could sue all the singers who have lip synced in a live performance and see how it goes.
I'm reminded of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli fiasco: nobody sued, but revealing they were lip syncing killed their career.
Girl, you know it's true
It might be fraud, but it’s hard to drum up sympathy for internet perverts. Imagine a guy in his 50s believing an 18-year-old with thousands of followers is personally texting him. It’s pure delusion - like going to a strip club and thinking the girls are actually into you. There are no innocent victims on these sites, just losers looking to exploit someone. Maybe them getting exploited instead is just poetic justice.
Just wait until you find out that a MrBeast burger is not made by, or of!, the guy who plays MrBeast on TV either.
They’re not passing themselves off as MrBeast.
So you understand that a MrBeast burger isn't made by, or from, the person known as MrBeast, but when one pays to join the MrBeast YouTube channel you are certain the comments from user MrBeast are made by the person known as MrBeast? What's the difference?
Feels like you're making this more complicated than it needs to be. The elements of fraud are quite simple:
1. a false statement of material fact
2. knowledge that the statement is false
3. intent to induce reliance
4. justifiable reliance by the victim
5. resulting damages
The "buying a burger from a MrBeast cafe" fails to meet element 1, because nobody at MrBeast burger is falsely claiming to be MrBeast himself.
On the other hand, falsely passing oneself as a model in order to earn revenue for them meets elements 1, 2, and 3. Elements 4 and 5 will depend on whether the victim fell for the scheme.
> nobody at MrBeast burger is falsely claiming to be MrBeast himself.
Nobody said that they were. You must have forgotten to read the thread. When 'MrBeast' comments on YouTube to those who pay for a subscription to his channel, it is claiming to be MrBeast, however. But is it him? You completely understand he doesn't have time to flip burgers, and thus would never expect him to, so why do you think he has time to chat to random internet customers?
> You must have forgotten to read the thread
There's no need to be rude.
The issue here comes down to money and therefore reliance and damages. Nobody's paying "MrBeast" in response to his (or his delegates') YouTube comments. So there's no material reliance and no damages; the 4th and 5th elements above aren't satisfied.
On the other hand, people are paying money thinking that they're talking to the model herself. Thus the 4th and 5th elements are satisfied, in addition to the other three.
> There's no need to be rude.
There's no need to interpret words through the arbitrary lens of silly feelings, yet here we are.
> Nobody's paying "MrBeast" in response to his (or his delegates') YouTube comments.
According to what? Is this something you made up?
If someone is willing to pay to talk to an internet figure, as you asserted they are, why not MrBeast? We can probably find agreement in MrBeast not being "herself". Is that the difference you find? The white knights only consider it fraud if the figure identifies as "her"?
> people are paying money thinking that they're talking to the model herself.
I'll have to accept your personal experience for what it is, but what in the marketing suggests the model is anything more than a brand? You even literally call it a model, not a person. That is quite telling that you understand the business at play, even if you want to pretend you don't for the sake of the fake argument.
We all know full well that MrBeast is a brand. Why are you treating MrsBeast differently?
You're getting mixed up. Some people would pay to talk to Mr. Beast, but the people commenting on YouTube aren't paying.
> You even literally call it a model, not a person.
That's the name of the job. With this, the feelings remark, and half of your statements so far it's hard to believe you're not trolling.
> it's hard to believe you're not trolling.
Look at the account's comment history - I've had the misfortune of interacting with them, and they're not replying in good faith at all (IMO)
If there's a way for someone (with moderation powers) to look at the account to see if it is ever doing anything but trolling that would be good.
> but the people commenting on YouTube aren't paying.
MrBeast is allegedly the highest paid YouTuber and yet, I guess, you think he works for free? While not exactly public information, industry analysts estimate that $5MM per year revenue is generated from direct fan funding to support his channel, so that, you know, "he" can do things write comments to the patrons.
> That's the name of the job.
Exactly. "Model" is used in recognition of the dehumanized object. In art, a human model is considered to be no different than a clay model. In fashion, the human model is considered to be no different than a clothes rack. The point of using the word is to separate the person from what the person is displaying. Otherwise you could simply say "person". "Model" is also used in this context because the concept is the same — the product isn't the person.
I think what you're missing here is the difference in the communication dynamics and what people are paying for.
In the model-customer dynamic, a customer is giving money to a model on a quid pro quo basis: the model -- or so the customer believes -- is promising the customer personal attention and customized content in exchange for money. No money, no attention.
In the MrBeast example, nobody is paying MrBeast specifically in exchange for his YouTube comments, which are public. Paying MrBeast is not a precondition for his engagement; he (or his agents) are responding spontaneously. His fans may be inspired to contribute to funds, although MrBeast gets a lot of money from ad revenue. But there's no quid pro quo arrangement here.
> I think what you're missing here is the difference in the communication dynamics and what people are paying for.
Exactly. I asked for details on exactly how the models are being marketed for that very reason. It was fully recognized be me that we cannot meaningfully discuss this without understanding the communication taking place. What I'm missing is the answer.
No doubt the other commenter realized that it is actually made clear to the buyer exactly what they are getting and that's why the response devolved into off-topic ad homiem and then disappearance. Funny how people react when their worldview crumbles, isn't it?
Honestly, I think this was just a case of other folks already understanding the nature of the issue discussed in the article (pay for DMs), while you did not. This isn't an insult or anything, just an observation.
A little humility is, I think, helpful for everyone here. Let's be kind to one another.
Most certainly. I wouldn't be here if I understood the nature of it. Nobody talks about the things they know about. The mind loses interest in what it already understands. If it didn't we'd all be sitting here discussing 1+1=2. The whole point of having a discussion is to work together to build mental models around the things not understood.
Kindness is irrelevant, but lack of information did leave us without having learned anything. I suppose that's the game of trolling: To suck someone in thinking there is mutual desire to learn something and then leave them hanging in the end. But to want to control others is illogical, so that's life. On to the next learning chapter!
It might be fraud, but it’s hard to muster up sympathy for perverts on the internet. Imagine guys in their 50s who actually think an 18-year-old girl is talking to them. There are no innocent people on porn sites — just losers looking to exploit. Maybe it's just poetic justice that they're the ones getting exploited, no?
You’re not paying to chat. This isn’t therapy. You’re paying to see content and the chat is supposed to be complementary for support reasons.
Now this is almost entirely automated anyway, there is a big adult ecosystem here in Cyprus and i talk to a lot of people. No manual work is used there anymore, "chatters" are a thing of the past.
Now they are well on the path to automate OnlyFans models themselves, there are plenty of hybrid sites where known live models are attracted with good terms to bring in the users, and then slowly switched for AI ones, and it WORKS.
Adult industry is so competitive and fast-evolving because there are few deep moats, it shows the way for everyone else, in fact.
Saw a funny video [0] in the music-adjacent part of YouTube about an Instagram trend when man record themselves playing a musical instrument (usually guitar), then use AI video editing to turn themselves into scantily clad women and use these videos to lure people into viewing their adult content (also AI generated).
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqrJgjrBV2I (it's a very short video, only 45 seconds)
I noticed this thing on Youtube in general with cover images and I've always wondered if it was the content creator that does it or Youtube's platform. I find it both depressing and understandable that this is the kind of content that gets the most views.
Even bigger stars seem to be doing it. This is Carmen Electra's _verified_ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CarmenElectra
Scroll down a bit and you'll see all of the images have the exact same face plastered on a clearly AI body and the account is posting new photos multiple times per day.
And every single post has thousands of likes and hundreds of messages from actual humans. People either don't notice the obvious fakes or don't care.
Instagram is similar, you don't need to go far to find extremely obvious AI generated "people" with big accounts and links to OF accounts. There's no way to report these either, because Meta doesn't care.
Isn't it technically against Meta TOS anyway to promote sex work?
try reporting an account and see what options you have. 'this person is advertising sex work' is not one of them, they dont care.
Also "this account is CLEARLY fully AI-generated and pretends to be an actual human" is not an option.
Sure, but it takes at least something like 17 founded reports to get someone punted off the platform, so good luck getting through the report-walls and AI content moderation to punt it out.
"Our robot thinks this is OK to post, so screw you."
Heh, she's 53 years old! Obviously her followers don't care they're looking at fake photos.
God that's depressing. Even when you _pay_ for human connection you're being fobbed off onto an AI
Ironically, I was trying to explain to someone I know that was somewhat considering getting into that milieu that what such people are really doing is selling affection to an affection deprived audience. Every person that sells themselves has the same orifices and they more or less all look the same, and everyone has seen thousands of them by now. The differentiation is the connection and being able to identify the particular sad void needing to be fill.
AI will make this really bad, because it will surely quickly learn how to tap into your deepest impulses and desires for connection and affection. It sounds weird, but in a way, there is some strong correlation between other forms of fraud, the most obvious being romance cons/frauds; where women are not looking for big rods, but for romance lady boners... yet another form of seeing affection.
Some of us harm ourselves for a lack of an affection, others fall prey to it making them vulnerable. I do hope that AI could and will also be used to help people get a semblance of healthy affection, if not maybe even facilitate making real connections that can provide real human affection.
To pay for a human connection, take someone out for a dinner, and foot the bill.
At OnlyFans you're paying for a video feed, and computers are pretty good at producing convincing video feeds now.
>To pay for a human connection, take someone out for a dinner, and foot the bill.
I'm married now, and never used any parasocial platform OnlyFans or another, but trivializing the problem of young adult loneliness is either ignorant or condescending.
A large fraction of young males don't have anyone to "take out for a dinner", or at least have no idea how to initiate that. You may scoff at that, but I certainly wouldn't know how to do it, and money was not a problem. Paying for human connection, especially online, was tempting.
Taking someone out for a dinner and footing the bill does not require you to be some cassanova. Escort services are a thing and honestly somewhat increasingly normalized. The latest chris hemsworth movie had him using an escort and didn't paint him as weird for it or anything, kind of just seemed like a gym membership or any other service the way it was casually broached (he played a certain healthy/rich/clean cut professional thief/perhaps even autistic character).
Escorting is more similar to OF than to "real" dating. In both cases the "service provider" pretends to be a perfect match for the customer, actively molding their persona to fit them. The more someone interacts with such tailored experiences the harder it is to adjust to the "real" experience.
Which is probably fine if you're a successful man in his 40s who has more time than money and treats escorting as a shortcut. Not so fine if you're a man half his age who is struggling to find a partner.
LA is weird and not everyone wants to live there.
Escort services are still a very niche interest in most of the world.
And they provide a simulacrum of human connection.
I bet a lot of people would get into escorting if they expected their customers to look like Chris Hemsworth. Who's Hollywood got playing the next normalized John, Emma Watson?
The solution to loneliness isn’t fake connections. And I think makes it even worse because fake friends don’t act like real people and make it harder to form real relationships with people who have their own desires and needs and aren’t just sycophants receiving pay.
> At OnlyFans you're paying for a video feed
Then they can prominently state the chat is not with the actual creator, or they can go to jail for fraud. This "oh they say they're providing you X but you're actually paying for Y" argument is getting even more tiresome than the "fraud is so widespread why worry about it" one.
Bet you had some really deep human connection with that guy chatting to you from the Philippines.
You betray your ignorance of how parasocial OnlyFans and their ilk get. Yes, people get real connection out of it, whether its with who they think they're talking to or not. I think that connecting those people into a chat bot instead of a real human is depressing, and a bad thing for society, but you're welcome to disagree with that
Talking to a real human seems more depressing to me, especially when they're making less than $2/hour doing it, have multiple chats going all trying to hit sales targets, and they feel bad for you in the interaction. Paying for female attention is pretty bad, but not even getting the attention you paid for is just bleak. At that point go with the machine. At least it's not thinking "what the hell am I doing here?" while it's generating messages.
I'll admit. I' too old to 'get' OF.
I don’t think it’s an age thing, I think is desperation. I’m not desperate enough to get it
I'm also often not desperate for a pun from a stranger, but I think a 'get' it.
Now that you got the balls rolling in an unwanted direction, I'm sure you're not the only one here with blue jewels.
What's there to get? People, overwhemingly men, pay for adult content from performers, majority women.
It often involves a supposedly personal touch (like chatting with (someone pretending to be) them, or being able to pay for custom content).
Nothing really exceptional in any way other than scale, democratisation (anyone of age can sign up to post content) and the digital transformation. Back in the day people used to buy porn magazines with their niche preferences, and write in letters to share their stories / fantasies and get responses back.
What's the difference? The users think they talk to some specific person and form a connection with them, and they don't.
Whether they get strung along by a human, a chatbot, or a simple cronjob - does it matter?
It’s not a real connection. It’s completely invented in their mind. Probably more accurate to call it a delusion.
What do you mean by "human connection"?
It appears a lot of people using OF are using it as a parasocial medium, not strictly for porn. They want to believe they're actually in touch with the performer and part of their lives to some degree.
Yes, and it's sad.
I wish someone would create a business that profits from people forming actual connections with each other, but every opportunity has been displaced.
Dating sites replaces meeting IRL, and foster superficial relationships anyway. Bars are passé. Social clubs, golf clubs, etc, seem to belong to a past generation. Social media killed the social part. The damage to society is real.
Every time someone says something like this, I can think of examples of every point just from the limited scope of my own life to the contrary, which from the frequency it happens I'm guessing indicates my experience isn't so unique and the world isn't this doom and gloom black and white world as described on the internet. People still meet serendipitously. People still go out. The golf club at my municipal course still throws out several tournaments a year with enough demand for like four each mens and womens handicap flights. Maybe the people alleging these things have to look inwardly and ask why they aren't themselves doing these things that can still be done today.
Golf clubs are super niche and self-selecting.
There are almost no spaces left which are easily discoverable by "analog" means without relying at all on social media.
The UK used to have a very strong pub and club culture. That's been collapsing for most of this century - some of it helped by government legislation.
This hasn't changed direction recently.
https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/graph-of-the-day-how-...
There is one: universities. They're just really expensive so you can't stay there for more than a few years, and people aren't properly advised of how important the opportunity is.
Meetup is kind of like that. I use it for ongoing hiking clubs and book clubs and movie clubs.
Comically, Facebook sort of serves this way as well by brining together hiking clubs and d&d groups.
Meetup's still fighting the good fight :)
They did, but it turns out that people’s most common social activity/interest is sex-based.
Omegle wasn’t known for making BFFs.
What does "para-" mean?
Edit: Right, 'beside', 'outside', like in paranormal. Now, are parasocial relationships "human connection"?
“Para-“ tends to mean “around” or “beside,” kind of in the sense of “close to" or "almost”--paraprofessional teachers or lawyers, paramilitary groups, parallel lines, parasitic symbiotes. In this specific context, American sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl (1956) [0] coined the notion of “para-social" relations, in order to describe audience members’ intensifying, one-sided sensations-of-relationships with media characters as American-style mass media came into its own:
> The most remote and illustrious men are met as if they were in the circle of one's peers; the same is true of a character in a story who comes to life in these media in an especially vivid and arresting way. We propose to call this seeming face-to-face relationship between spectator and performer a para-social relationship.
They contrast para-social relations with face-to-face ones, which they call ortho-social:
> The crucial difference in experience obviously lies in the lack of effective reciprocity [...] To be sure, the audience is free to choose among the relationships offered, but it cannot create new ones. Whoever finds the experience unsatisfying has only the option to withdraw.
> ...the media present opportunities for the playing of roles to which the spectator has–or feels he has–a legitimate claim, but for which he finds no opportunity in his social environment. This function of the para-social then can properly be called compensatory, inasmuch as it provides the socially and psychologically isolated with a chance to enjoy the elixir of sociability.
It's a brisk accessible read, and spookily still relevant. Thanks for the impetus to dust it off :)
Anyway—in the 2010s, social scientists began to use the idea to think about the emerging class of even-more-intimate, confessional celebrities—like the Kardashians—as those celebrities started to use the socials ‘round the clock and to broadcast seemingly intimate, unguarded moments [1]. “Healthy” doesn’t seem to be the word the researchers and clinicians tend to choose...
[0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00332747.1956.11...
[1] e.g. https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research_all/7/
para- has a variety of meanings [0] depending on which word it’s used to form.
Parasocial itself means “one-sided” in a relationship [1].
> Now, are parasocial relationships "human connection"?
No, they are a proxy people attempt to use as a substitute for more genuine, two-sided relationships. It's quite common. I think lonely people are most susceptible to it, though.
It means that it shares some, but not all, aspects of a social relationship.
It's often applied to one-sided relationships with celebrities, where you feel a personal connection to them but they literally don't know you exist.
Social relationship is much broader than human connection.
If I fall in love with Harry Potter, is that a human connection?
It's going to kill the software industry as we know it!
We're literally killing our field by making the devices and internet so repulsive that people are actively unplugging. You can't hear about this online because the bot generated content is filling the gap and the people doing it aren't online to tell you about it.
Children are getting addicted to everything because the internet has killed any sense of self-stimulation and they are growing up into gamblers with cards, sports, and prediction markets or rage-addicted media consumers.
There is plenty of human connection to be had out there, it is free, and all you have to do is put down the phone or computer. It is getting extremely compelling as an alternative for increasing large groups of people.
The tech industry is energetically strangling its golden goose.
There will be some interesting game theory studies in the aftermath.
I think that's just a good old prisoner dilemma. You can't have a free-range golden goose, because if you grow it responsibly, others will abuse it first and you will get out of business. The only way is to be as greedy as legally allowed, because otherwise you're left behind.
Does that mean that people do not recognize that some of the content is AI? Or do they simply accept it?
A little bit of real content goes a long way toward getting people to pay for something unknown, which then turns out to be AI-generated. Even if they are not satisfied, that counts as AI content making a sale.
There's enough people on both camps I'm sure.
That's pretty smart.
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to seedy OF behaviors. The goal of the most successful OF chatters and chatting is to develop parasocial romantic relationships with highly invested whales who then go into debt due to their obsession. Many fans do it hoping they'll one day be with the girl in real life (and this is insinuated and propagated by the chatting team). Fans will rack up credit card debt and in extreme cases, have been cited to take out loans or sell their possessions to continue purchasing. Overtime, such whales are tracked by the agency via advanced CRMs where they are then shuffled from account to account via shout outs on the model's accounts.
If you want to directly address this chatter's grievances, the going rate for most chatters is $3+/hour + commissions. I won't share links but this can be found via Telegram or Google. ~$500/mo base is pretty good for the Philippines when call centers make you work 6 days a week for the same price without commission.
2$ an hour chatter and 20$ an hour 'model', both replaced by AI.
And then there is 2500$ a hour solo creator not replaced by AI (different mode of operation though).
Yeah I saw one of these online. An onlyfans performer was livestreaming on another platform, clearly not typing and at the same time chatted me up on onlyfans lol. Clearly it wasn't her herself. I kinda strung "her" on and she sent me some obvious stock pics saying "she" was out on the town.
I only pay genuine performers, some of whom I even know in person. I only subscribed to the above one because it was a free sub. But I was kinda appalled. First I thought it was a chatbot but it probably was a person like this.
For me the connection is a lot more important than the erotic content. But it's pretty easy to weed them out for now. Maybe this will change with better AI. I hope not.
As an aside:
> OnlyFans, which generated $7.2bn (£5.3bn) revenue in 2024, ..
I didn't expect their revenue to be that high, but I suppose it's also unsurprising.
This and companies like paddy power are the breakout British business successes of the last few decades
Each region’s greatest successes represent them quite well:
UK: gambling and porn
Europe: luxury goods
US: advertising and retail e-commerce
China: direct from manufacturer commerce
I’m not so convinced by this. In the uk I think the big home grown successes are either serving the local market physically like supermarkets (though they are not very new as companies) or they will be relying on some difference in regulations from other anglophone countries. A business not in those categories needn’t be worse in general terms to lose to an American company, but the American competitor will have lots of advantages (cheaper fundraising, bigger market with more discretionary spending, more pro-business political environment, etc).
Scott Galloway said the other day that their revenue per employee is higher than any company.
You’ll be shocked to see how many job postings for only fans chatters are up on Reddit when you search for them (several are posted every hour). Some ads are looking for 10-20 chatters at once.
But the people taking on these jobs are applying for them still. Somehow I find it hard to be sympathetic? Ok I get it the job opportunities in the Philippines aren’t great, but it’s not like you’re being forced to be an OF chatter; you can simply stop being one.
The sad thing about AI usage and the lack of jobs here in the poorer part of the world is that around the $6 mark per hour there would be literal queues of people forming to sign up for the job.
At about the $10-12 mark you'd be able to hire people with serious linguistic skills.
Somewhat unrelated but I won’t be surprised if we eventually find out a lot of OnlyFans revenue is money laundering.
Doubtful, there are other, less-well known pay-for-content platforms than take a smaller percentage cut than onlyfans. It wouldn't make any sense for a launderer to use the most expensive platform.
Money laundering via platforms can work indirectly, where the dirty money is spent on advertising and other expenses used to drive business to legitimate vendors. Sex sells quite well so OnlyFans is a great platform for that kind of laundering, even if they take a higher cut. It might not matter anyway, if a dollar of dirty money drives more than a dollar of legitimate income that covers OF’s cut and their AI costs.
For larger operations wouldn’t it be most effective to mix laundered money with legitimate earnings? If so that would make OF the top choice.
Mexican cartels absolutely use OF to launder massive quantities of money. They use OF because it's the one thats actually used by people. It's a lot easier and less suspicious to declare ridiculous high subscriber counts in OF that other platforms.
> She would be set targets to earn the model hundreds of dollars worth of sales of pictures and videos during her shift.
So lets assume $300 per shift, so with an 8 hour shift, that would be about $37.50/hour of merchandise per hour. So the workers makes about 5.3%. Google says standard for sales workers paid on comission normally get 5-10%.
So its possible this is within what would be normal for a low end non-salary commision job, but it depends on what "hundreds" really mean. Of course i think normally for commision only sales jobs you move much more expensive product to make it worth your while.
Otoh they probably deserve a lot higher than normal sales commision given the nature of the job and all the stuff they undoubtedly have to put up with.
They're doing sex work and sales at the same time. Even if it wasn't sex work specifically, they're doing a lot of direct labor which also makes a fair cut much higher than 5%.
Why? Why do the math on someone else’s misery? What is the best case scenario you could have ended with?
The central claim of the article seems to be that they are being compensated unfairly relative to the value they bring in. I think its a pretty natural question to ask how their compensation stacks up to other industries.
The best case scenario you could end with would be that they are not being economically exploited. The worst case scenario would be that they are hopelessly being exploited. The truth seems to be that on a pure economic level they are being exploited about as much as your average low wage worker in capitalism in a poorer country (which is a significant amount of exploitation) but its not quite extreme level of exploitation as the article implies. However, you also have to somehow account for the ickyness/mental affects of the job and its unclear how to do that.
And yes, i believe its important to do the math on human suffering. That is how we make a better world. Not all claims of suffering are equal. The millionaire techbro sad he cant afford a private jet is not sufering in the same way as someone who is struggling to pay for a meal. We distinguish the cases by doing the math.
I do not see the point of OnlyFans. I just don't get why anyone would want to interact with anyone on this site or would believe it to be anything other than what it is. Just another platform to take advantage of lonely people and horny guys who cant get laid.
The most surprising thing imo is that the chatter is a real person and female.. I would have assumed that they were, in order of likelihood...
1. AI chatbot 2. A reddit mod type guy
Related: in Germany, there currently is a huge scandal surrounding the company "Fanblast", where you could purchase the supposed "whatsapp phone number" of various "celebrities" and, allegedly, the chats were also run by random freelancers [1].
[1] https://www.comicschau.de/news/fanblast-aloa-me-klengan-krit...
Just put an ai behind it already. People will get bored of it and onlyfans will die by itself.
If OF managements can't see what's coming, I think it's well deserved.
Hell, there are even cases of only fans models being entirely AI. photo, video and chat entirely made by ai.
I mean at this point you're better getting a chatgpt subscription, right ?
You're joking, right? Haven't you heard the stories of people having 'relationships' with their chatbots? Far from getting bored of these things, we're getting hooked on them.
Oh man I'd rather not believe it. Getting hooked on a computer program which has no will, decision, or even say in love matter...
Isn’t $2/hour a pretty high salary in Philliphines?
This is skeezy (edit: fixing autocorrect’s sleepy), but then so is chatting with onlyfans models. It’s already a fake, paradoxical relationship and even that aspect is fake. It’s delusions on deceptions.
I have never seen sleepy used that way before.
I did a quick run of the numbers and it is rather hard to tell what the average hourly rate ìs. But it look a like if you went for four 40 hour weeks to get 320 it seems to be a little below the average pay for a call center operator.
In one sense this is a story of someone feeling bad about being paid to do something wrong.
It is not quite so simple when the reason why this happens is the income differential between countries makes it possible for people to be paid enough to put aside their ethics. That becomes easier when the processes is normalised so that they are not the only person making the same compromise.
Adding to the complexity of the situation is the fact that paying people like this puts money into the their economies and that can spur regional development to provide a higher pay level all round, causing the ethically dubious work to become less attractive.
In the very long term the only way to avoid the higher power of foreign weather from doing this is to balance incomes around the world. That requires accepting that the current wealthy countries cannot get cheap things by paying poorer people low wages, and that means having less for themselves.
Sorry, autocorrect changed “skeezy” to “sleepy.” I think at the end of the comment, too. It wasn’t an immediate word or sentence change. I need to work harder to proof comments before posting. (Autocorrect changed “proof” to “prof” at the end of that sentence)
you can also turn off this bug in aurocorrsct settings and hust deal wuth tge misspellongs
> The most popular creators on the platform claim to earn millions of dollars per month.
This has never made sense and I'm convinced these "creators" are a front for money laundering.
Horny people will pay and much like software this scales. A creator can record something once and sell it 100 times
Perception is definitely slanted in that only the top few percent make the big bucks but I have zero doubt that they make millions
OF has control of what models are promoted, they shift their firehouse of money from one model to another so there's always someone becoming a millionaire. its to recruit new models.
OF deliberately lacks a functioning promotion algorithm. And no, those manual promotions are rarer than you'd think.
Average wages in the Phillipines are around $360/month USD, so $2/hr isn't too bad for an easy job. BBC is playing rage-bait arbitrage with that headline.
That's fairly misleading because the average person around there is very poor. It's not what you'd consider average in a first world country.
True although prices are also not what you'd consider average in a developed country. Purchasing power parity is important too.
They're not low enough to offset the low wages, though. [0] puts $2/hr at around $15k/yr purchasing power in Chicago which sounds about right.
People live with families in multi-generational homes until they're married, sometimes after. Retirement plans are your kids looking after you.
Prices also aren't lowered across the board - it's mostly housing and anything where labor is a major part of the cost. Cars are similar prices. Groceries, utilities and tech also.
"OnlyFans, which generated $7.2bn (£5.3bn) revenue in 2024" ...
Holy mother of ... the feet business is booming.
I kind of regret studying 3 years of economics ... we studied the rational consumer maximising their utility. Is this what that looks like? (LOL)
lol, a job that I would support to be 100% automated by OpenAI
Despicable of OnlyFans to hold this at arm's length.
I question tech community integrity because they will constantly attack Meta or Microsoft for aggressive anti-privacy, Uber for exploitative rates & policies but turn a blind eye to how corrosive & exploitative OF and PornHub are. Maybe because they are subscribers? Why aren't we collectively trying to shut down smut?
As expected
I am still amazed that prostitution is legal when done online, and these teenage sex workers are allowed to continue selling themselves.
(a) It's not prostitution, and (b) while prostitution is illegal in the US it's perfectly legal in the UK and many other countries.
It's not illegal in the US
You're right - it's only 99.9% illegal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_United_Sta...
(A) https://reason.com/2025/05/28/is-buying-onlyfans-content-now...
(B) Just because the laws do not explicitly mention it does not make it less of a form of prostitution.
(C) Selling your body regardless of the medium is prostitution.
(D) I am looking at it from a moral perspective. Not legal. Let me know if you think selling your body is not prostitution.
selling your body for cash is what a warehouse worker does.
Warehouse workers are not ashamed to show their work to their kids. Imagine an online prostitute's work photos.
Very much agree. They're not "creators", they are prostitutes, as are porn-stars.
I am still amazed that there are people who think that drugs and prostitution will go away if we just make sure that they are illegal.
Might as well add 'swearing' to that list.
What's the point of making murder and rape illegal if people are still going to do it?
Murder and rape are actions imposed onto other people. As longer as it is voluntary, prostitution cannot be compared.
Most of the risks if traditional prostitution are absent in an online interaction so it's not that surprising to me.
Morally, it is still prostitution. Some countries consider OnlyFans prostitution, some don't. At its core, a human is selling its body parts for money.
But they're not risking rape, murder, or sti s and their pimps options for keeping them in the game are much more limited.
AFAIK, many of them are offered an insane amount of money to do weird things in Dubai. It is like a gateway to hardcore prostitution and exposes anyone to prostitution with a few clicks. These videos and photos are permanently stored in someone's computer, too.
I find it sad that there's a story of people (mostly women) doing this disgusting job for little pay (yes, chatting up horny men online because you need the money is disgusting, there's no glamour and little dignity to it), and the top comment is how this is unfair to the john (purchaser of sex work) because it's misleading.
Sex work is work. They’re not being coerced. There’s no more or less dignity to it than being a waitress or checkout clerk. It’s no more or less disgusting than being a hospice nurse or a garbage collector.
It’s just a job.
Jobs are not inherently fraudulent, however. A deal is a deal, and this is plainly fraud.
It is unfair to the purchaser, and it is not unfair to the people who voluntarily accept these jobs (when other jobs are obviously available).
It is rather sad that a job they hate, that only pays ~$2/hour, is apparently the best option they have.
Doesn't 'a job I hate for not enough money' describe like 50% or more of the world's workforce?
I hope not. Most people I know seems to get at least some enjoyment and satisfaction from their job. But I live in a first world country and have a white collar job, so my experience may not be globally relevant.
> it is not unfair to the people who voluntarily accept these jobs (when other jobs are obviously available).
Are you saying that jobs are obviously available in this case, or are you saying that it is not unfair under the condition that other jobs are obviously available? That's very different.
> There’s no more or less dignity to it than being a waitress or checkout clerk.
Do you imagine this is how the workers feel about it? Do you think they tell their friends "I seduce western men online for pennies an hour" the same way they'd say "I am a waitress?" You can ignore this fact if you wish, but these jobs carry a social stigma and most people would prefer not to role play intimacy with men online if there were another option.
"Sex work is work" is like saying slavery could theoretically be OK under some circumstances (We're all born under legal obligations, how is slavery different etc etc.). A tortured theoretical argument could be made to support either of these, but in reality we know that slavery is unconscionable because of the indignity and brutality of it, regardless of theory. "Sex work" is the same: in reality it is a dangerous and unpleasant job (that overlaps with slavery a lot, incidentally) done mostly be vulnerable women, and that they're often abused and left injured by it. See this article before you go saying prostitution is benign and harmless, this stance is divorced from reality: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficki...
“pennies an hour” sidesteps the fact that $2-3/hr is a fairly decent wage in the Philippines.
The average hourly wage is $2.11 and the minimum wage is $1.36 per hour. It is likely easier work and better pay than being a waitress.
Voluntary, harmless sex work such as that described in TFA has no relation whatsoever to slavery. Your crusade is out of place in this thread, I believe. Most working class jobs are unpleasant, and being a sex chat operator is probably one of the safest jobs one could have in the world. You seem to be intentionally conflating the topic at hand with unregulated street prostitution.
> most people would prefer not to role play intimacy with men online if there were another option.
What does that have to do with the people who DO do these jobs? They plainly have other options and they work as sex chat operators by choice.
TFA intentionally frames their wages as exploitative when they are median for the locale and substantially above minimum wage there.
Let me complain about how I'm being exploited at my job while voluntarily choosing said job over literally every other job available to me.
Please do enumerate these other jobs that are available to the Filipino currently performing this job for... checks notes... $2/hour?
Please say what you think the hourly average wage is in the Philippines and how you conclude that this isn't the woman's best option despite her revealed preference that it is.
I don't think you and I are disagreeing here? The article explicitly states that she only took this work because she couldn't find other work, and that she dislikes the work intensely (... but has no better job prospects)
So what is your point exactly? That we as a society should see to it that no matter how much sex work pays, we provide an equally high-paying and easy job for people? What do you propose?
The person I was replying to suggested that this person voluntarily chose this job over a bunch of equally good jobs. My point is that this is at best a mischaracterisation - they chose this job because of economic necessity.
Yes, it may be that it pays more than equivalent non-porn jobs due to being rooted in foreign exchange. But that doesn't make it any more voluntary
How is that different than the reason most people work? Mining coal, putting out oil fires, industrial fishing. These are not only unpleasant - they are also dangerous.
Agreed. Again, I was only responding to the original comment that this was a choice among equally good alternatives
I don't think anyone was saying or even implying that there were equally good alternatives. Being a con-man might be your best option if you're naturally gifted at lying. But that doesn't mean you get to complain that you're being exploited by the jail.
I'd endorse that principle. It's true, of course, that societies without an abundance of easy and high-paying jobs may struggle to satisfy it except by banning sex work.
> As of early 2026, the minimum wage in the Philippines is set daily rather than hourly and varies by region, with a common daily minimum of approximately 695 PHP in some sectors, often equating to less than $2 USD per hour
Pretty much any Wagie job?
That's how exploitation works: The exploited don't have another choice. That doesn't make doing cruel things to them wrong and (hopefully) illegal.
For example, someone could compel people who are starving to do all sorts of horrible things for food, and then say 'well, they chose to do it!'.
Once you make this job illegal, what do you think she does then for a job? By taking this job she has revealed that this is her best option. When you make the job illegal, you're forcing her to take a worse alternative.
That's the argument of employers, who introduce that false choice. The option they don't mention is to pay them more.
That's only an option in your imagination; not in the world she lives in.
What is that based on? The employer is making a profit; they can reduce those profits and pay employees more. It happens all the time in response to the labor market.
If the labor market caused employees to be paid more, would the employer refuse? Shut down?
It is based on the idea that the employer is running a business and competing with other businesses to provide the best product at the lowest cost. The employer is operating at the lowest profit he considers acceptable. In your imagination there is some "labor market" which is going to coordinate to bring all these businesses to an impasse. That's not going to happen.
If somehow the labor market was able to coordinate to demand higher wages, the business would have to increase its price. There would be less demand at the higher price. Consequently there would be fewer businesses and fewer workers would have jobs at all.
> The employer is operating at the lowest profit he considers acceptable.
Businesses are profit-maximizing organizations. They operate at maximum profit, not at the lowest! A business's managers don't meet to consider the lowest profit but how to maximize it. Critically, they don't price what they sell at (costs + some profit); the price it for maximum profit regardless of costs.
Some businesses have enormous profit margins, some businesses sell at a loss - many businesses do that regularly (e.g., clearance sales) - because that is the best they can do. Some sell at a loss strategically to gain market share, a common tactic of well-funded Silicon Valley companies.
> If somehow the labor market was able to coordinate to demand higher wages, the business would have to increase its price. There would be less demand at the higher price.
From the business owner's perspective, wages are a cost. Costs, including wages, go up and down all the time. If you make TVs, the price of glass might be X one month and 1.5X the next.
The business brings in revenue, which it splits between costs, investment, and profit. When costs increase, you can raise prices (which reduces demand, as you say, and also drives away customers longer term) or reduce investment and/or profit.
Also, the relationship between price and demand isn't linear; it varies by price and by good/service: Increasing gas prices temporarily may not impact demand much because most people have little choice but to drive, though in the long term they might make adjustments. Increasing candy prices, on the other hand, could have a big impact because most people can easily eat something else.
The employer of the person in the OP has a choice if wage costs increase: Increase prices, reduce investment, or, heaven forbid, reduce profit (reduce their own income).
Profit is not some arbitrary amount chosen by the owner to fund whatever lifestyle he prefers. It is constrained by competition with other businesses. I don't know why you keep suggesting that the amount of profit can be increased or decreased independently of any other factors.
If the profit in this business becomes less appealing relative to other businesses, the owner will change businesses, there will be less competition in this business and the prices will go up. Increasing potential profit.
This is basic stuff. Despite your aversion to business owners making a profit and wishing employees were paid more, introducing non-linearities, loss leaders, price inelasticities or any other complication does nothing to change the fundamental point.
Most of that I didn't say, but it's certainly true that wage increases are commonly absorbed by reducing profits (or investment) rather than closing the business (!) or increasing prices.
Closing a business because wages or any cost go up a bit would be absurd. That is way overstated. Of course there is some undefined point where costs are too high to sustain, but closing and opening businesses is not trading stocks on Robinhood. There are large transactional costs, including to your reputation - investors, creditors, co-workers, business partners, employees, who have invested their precious time, money, and careers and reputations with you, would be very angry (probably they would replace you as CEO and keep going). And how will you pay your mortgage next month?
> the amount of profit can be increased or decreased independently of any other factors
It indeed can be decreased that way, except that the money has to go somewhere - retained earnings (savings), new gardens in the courtyard, even wage increases.
> Closing a business because wages or any cost go up a bit would be absurd.
It is not absurd at all. This is economics thinking. There are always businesses on the margin of staying in business or going out of business. You don't base an argument on the extremes. You look at the marginal cases.
It's only absurd in the scenario you're imagining in which every business is somehow able to make so much profit that it's still worthwhile for them to reduce profits and increase wages. But there are other businesses who are willing to decrease profits to compete with that business. This is the precise mechanism of how profit is constrained and how consumers benefit from competition.
I can't tell you more than I have. Good luck my friend!
This is true, but I also think that the information in the article alone is insufficient to make a judgment.
This salary is over the Philippines minimum wage. It's a legal job like any other.
The people interviewed are not super happy about the content of the job, but none of it seems to be anything more than it being pornography-related.
Nobody's really seeming to cross any lines of illegality as described in the article. This doesn't come close to the kind of conditions faced by Meta's contractors in Africa spying through Meta glasses in private homes.
I would equate this type of job to any type of job that has aspects that some people would never be willing to do.
E.g., I would never be willing to be a window washer. I'm too scared of heights. Same deal with tower construction. But there are plenty of people doing those jobs who don't feel exploited.
The plus side of jobs like this are that you can do this work at home, you can be physically disabled, there's often some level of flexibility of hours, and there's no manual labor.
I'm going to guess that the only scandal here is that the Philippines is 80% Catholic and possibly more conservative than people in the countries where OnlyFans generates its income.
What crosses the line is that, as stated in the article, the job is a dishonest scam towards the clients.
OK. But that isn't the main point of this article. It's only an incidental fact in the description of "how "heartbreaking" it is to get less than $2 per hour...". It doesn't sound as if the woman would be heartbroken at all if she was getting paid $20 per hour.
I didn’t really think so.
I don’t think a significant amount of OnlyFans customers are under any false impression that they’re making a real person horny or that they are engaging in any kind of genuine relationship with a performer.
I think they know that they are paying for sexual interactivity as a service. They are getting what they paid for: someone at the other end conversing with them and semi-custom erotic photo/video content.