{"id":42484,"date":"2020-12-19T09:16:02","date_gmt":"2020-12-19T13:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=42484"},"modified":"2020-12-19T09:16:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T13:16:02","slug":"in-case-you-dont-know-the-primary-purpose-of-the-internet-is-to-disseminate-porn-big-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=42484","title":{"rendered":"In case you don’t know, the primary purpose of the Internet is to disseminate porn—BIG TIME!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Internet is for Porn<\/strong><\/h1>\n

<\/p>\n

It always was, it always will be.<\/h3>\n

Posted by Margins<\/p>\n

Hi. This post is written by a friend of Margins, who happens to be a product executive at a public tech company. He wrote this initially in September 2020, but we were hesitant to publish it anonymously. Nevertheless, our friend turned out to be very insightful and we thought it\u2019d be a shame (hah!) not to share his wisdom. It\u2019s not like we\u2019ve never written about it\u00a0before<\/a>. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the biggest and most interesting things happening in the consumer web right now is running almost completely under the radar. It has virtually zero Silicon Valley involvement. There are no boastful VCs getting rich. It is utterly absent from tech\u2019s plethora of twitters, fora and media (at least, as they say, \u201con main\u201d). Indeed, the true extent of its incredible success has gone almost completely unnoticed, even by its many, many,\u00a0many<\/em>\u00a0customers.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking, of course, about OnlyFans.<\/p>\n

OnlyFans, the content subscription service that has come to be dominated by sex workers, has only been around since 2016. It works a bit like Instagram-meets-Patreon, or perhaps Twitch – for porn. Users pay to follow content creators and unlock exclusive material. The applications to porn are pretty obvious, and unlike its more prudish cousins, OnlyFans has openly embraced adult content creators. \u201cOF\u201d gives creators an array of tools for monetizing their audiences, with not only different subscription tiers, but ways to allow paying customers to directly interact with creators.<\/p>\n

OnlyFans was already growing steadily before COVID, but the platform has absolutely exploded during the pandemic in a manner of \u201chypergrowth\u201d fantasy.\u00a0According to their CEO<\/a>, they were adding nearly 200,000 new users and 8,000 new content creators\u00a0a day\u00a0<\/em>back in May, and have only continued to grow since.\u00a0<\/em>The platform now has north of 700,000 content creators (!) serving a customer base of over\u00a050 million registered users<\/a>\u00a0(!!). Hard stats are hard to come by, but one figure pegged the cumulative total paid out to creators at $725 million as of May.\u00a0Cardi B joined the platform<\/a>\u00a0in May.<\/p>\n

In short, OnlyFans is for real. It\u2019s becoming not just the next generation of porn, but it might just represent a quantum leap in fixing one of the world\u2019s most popular industries.<\/p>\n

And Silicon Valley has almost nothing to do with it. The reasons why are worth reflecting on.<\/p>\n

No, really – the internet is for porn<\/h2>\n