Why is OnlyFans censorship beneficial to the crypto market?
Popular subscription content service OnlyFans will block pornographic content from October. Bloomberg reported this on August 19, citing a statement from the company. With this decision, OnlyFans hopes to please payment providers and banks, as well as attract investors, advertisers and celebrities who are intimidated by the site's reputation as a premier platform for porn stars. We figured out why the British platform is forced to take this step, how the current situation can help the spread of cryptocurrencies, and what are the prospects for decentralized analogues of OnlyFans.
What the OnlyFans OnlyFans is a UK based content subscription service. Platform users can subscribe to content creators for a fixed fee, and in return, they post unique content for them that is not published anywhere else. Free content is also available on OnlyFans. OnlyFans has been operating since November 2016. However, since the spring of 2020, after the introduction of lockdowns around the world, the service has experienced multiple growth - over the past year, the number of OnlyFans users has grown from 20 million to 120 million. Now OnlyFans has over 130 million users and 2 million content creators and authors. Registration is available only for users over 18 years old. That being said, today some content creators at OnlyFans make millions of dollars a month.
On OnlyFans it is convenient for content creators to monetize it: they can set the subscription price for their accounts and the frequency of its renewal themselves. The service keeps 20% of the amount paid by subscribers, of which 12% remains after taxes and fees. The uniqueness of OnlyFans was that there was no censorship on the platform, and therefore users could publish explicit and even pornographic content. Another plus of the service: the ability to communicate with content authors directly in the chat. OnlyFans has even become a competitor to the world's most popular porn service, PornHub.This happened against the backdrop of the refusal of the Visa and Mastercard payment systems from cooperation with PornHub in December 2020 and the cancellation of the platform's ability to directly pay content creators. As a result, some of them moved from PornHub to OnlyFans.
As a result, OnlyFans has become popular among porn actors and is largely associated with them. They accounted for up to 60% of all content posted on the site. There is a point of view that OnlyFans has revolutionized the porn industry, giving content creators more independence, as well as allowing them to communicate directly with fans and create a new way to earn money.
But OnlyFans does not only publish adult content. There are many athletes, musicians, models, celebrities, bloggers, photographers, chefs and people of other creative professions on the site. At the same time, OnlyFans can be used for charity. For example, in January 2020, American Kaylen Ward raised more than $ 1 million through the service to fight forest fires in Australia, sharing candid photos with subscribers.
Why OnlyFans will ban explicit content From October, OnlyFans will no longer be able to post sexually explicit material. However, content creators will still be able to post nude photos and videos that comply with the updated acceptable service policy (details of this policy will be announced at a later date).
OnlyFans wants to step back from the adult industry, reach a larger audience and transform the platform into a Patreon counterpart, where celebrities can communicate directly with fans. Therefore, OnlyFans are already taking steps in this direction. On August 17, the OnlyFans platform launched the free OFTV app for iOS and Android, which has no erotic content, subscriptions or ads, but features many other service authors.
However, onlyFans needs sponsors to rebrand. In June, Bloomberg reported that the company is looking for investors to raise $ 1 billion, but so far it has failed to do so. At the same time, the service wants to attract advertisers who are intimidated by the current reputation of the service. Also, the refusal from explicit content was influenced by pressure from payment providers and banking partners, who expressed concerns about the materials posted on the service. For example, in Stripe, one of the payment services used by OnlyFans, pornographic content falls into undesirable areas and is contrary to the policy of cooperation.
At the same time, OnlyFans has strong financial performance: last year, net profit was about $ 375 million, the first quarter of 2021 brought in $ 390 million, and OnlyFans's expected profit for this entire year will be approximately $ 1.2 billion. The total amount paid to content creators is $ 3.2 billion. more than 300 content creators earn from $ 1 million per year, and about 16,000 - over $ 50,000 per year. With such data, finding investors would not be a problem. But many venture capital funds are unable to invest in certain types of businesses, including adult content providers.Investors are also concerned that minors can create accounts on the service. Those who are still ready to invest in OnlyFans fear that the reputation of the service will hinder its development in the future.
Also, OnlyFans was threatened with litigation. In July 2020, data emerged that the company had not paid VAT for three years and could face serious fines. In August last year, some of the authors accused the service of stealing money from their accounts. And in May 2021, the BBC released a documentary, from which it became known about the existence of explicit content on the service with underage users, as well as various perversions (for example, bestiality), weapons or filmed with hidden cameras.
Moreover, in August, US Congresswoman Ann Wagner urged the Department of Justice to investigate allegations of sexual exploitation of children against the service. It was after similar accusations last year that payment systems stopped working with Pornhub. Probably, the last two events were the reason for such a sharp change in the company's policy regarding explicit content.
How OnlyFans Censorship Will Help Cryptocurrencies The introduction of censorship on OnlyFans attracted the attention of the crypto community and renewed the talk of decentralized content services.
Despite the continuing destigmatization of the porn industry, financial companies remain conservative and wary of money passing through these platforms. Payment services increasingly control what content pornographic sites can post. For example, in December last year, Visa and Mastercard briefly banned payments to sites owned by online pornography giant MindGeek, after reports that it is hosting so-called "revenge porn" - videos uploaded without the consent of those who are in it. participated. Payment systems only backed down when MindGeek removed tens of millions of unverified videos from their sites, including PornHub.
Many OnlyFans authors and users believe that a new platform should be created that will provide sex workers with the same safe space to post content. In order not to depend on the position of payment systems, investors and advertisers, such a platform could be decentralized, and all payments in it would be made in cryptocurrencies. Given the size of OnlyFans' audience, this is a great chance for cryptocurrencies to gain wider adoption. In addition, the use of digital currencies would increase the privacy of users.
The porn industry, which in many ways can include OnlyFans, is increasingly supporting crypto payments. For example, Pornhub has been accepting cryptocurrencies since 2018. In December 2020, when Visa and Mastercard refused to service the platform, crypto payments and wire transfers became the only ways to pay for his premium subscription.
Digital currencies are also accepted by major porn sites such as xHamster, Naughty America, Chaturbate, Playboy TV, and VRPorn, among other payment options. But these are not the most popular payment options - they do not bring significant income to the services. It is easier for most users to pay for subscriptions with cards - if they do not have cryptocurrencies yet, then fiddling with them is too troublesome for them. In addition, it is simply a pity to spend the same bitcoin, which can double in a month, on explicit content.
It is also worth noting that since 2018, a decentralized analogue of OnlyFans has appeared on the market - the SpankChain adult content platform, powered by the Ethereum blockchain. SpankChain users can subscribe to content authors. All payments go through the SpankPay payment system in the BOOTY platform's own stablecoin, the native SPANK token, as well as in BTC, XMR, ETH, ZEC and LTC. The service keeps 0.5% of payments for itself. SpankChain already has several partners, such as the SkyPrivate web service and the adult site JustFor.Fans. The number of users and income of SpankChain are unknown, but the capitalization of SPANK is only $ 31 million.
