Is OnlyFans telling you everything?
Or are they securing their short-term profits to set sail for their future?
The last 5 days have seen a flurry of outrage for the recent news that OnlyFans was to ban adult content starting Oct. 1st. Starting an industry frenzy over the news, only to post to twitter today Aug. 25th to recant their statement claiming to have suspended their decision.
As the Founder and CEO of PleazeMe.com, the sex positive content edutainment platform, you can probably imagine the lack of sleep and the fast forward motion this put our team and 500+ content creators in after hearing this news. We have spent 3 years in this industry standing with our contemporaries for sexual equality, inclusivity and diversity and we saw this as a slap in the face for all the creators that built their business. Here again a tech platform run by men, this time very clearly making the majority of their profits off of women. Women who are marketing and profiting from what no one can deny is THEIR property. Now it looks likely OnlyFans will abandon all the law abiding, sex positive creators that made them rich.
As upset as we were (and are because we don’t think this is over by far) we also recognized that this presented a huge opportunity to bring the dollars from adult entertainment back into the space to support our industry’s goals and to continue to unite the movement towards greater sexual equality and positivity. This time on a female founded platform that cares for all the members that inhabit it and make it so wonderful! A team of people who are working toward social change and impact in the areas of equality, social reform, better education in schools, child safety online, private access for adults, and fighting sex trafficking online.
To Believe or Not To Believe? That is the question!
Are we to believe this morning’s post saying that they suspended this decision? Most people, including us, were in fact wondering if they had lost their damn minds. However history shows us with Patreon, FB, Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube and Pinterest that it is difficult to trust this recent news and leaves us to wonder if it is simply a delay or an attempt to slow the bleeding of revenue until the change happens. So yes, we should believe that they are “suspending” this ban. For to suspend means to temporarily prevent from continuing or being in force or effect. How long will this suspension last? Now that is the real question.
Let’s look at the “fact”ors shall we?
Market Size: The larger the market (countries, industries, and users) gets for OnlyFans the more content creators these platforms attract. Once the number of SFW creators revenue gets close to the the revenue of the NSFW revenue the discussion begins. Are we (OnlyFans) going to make more money, attract more investment, expand into more countries, and add attract more fortune 500 advertising revenue if we pivot our focus?
Business Identity: What is their brand voice and mission? Are they championing the mission for a sex positive world? Looking to provide safe places for sex workers or sex positivity? Are they dedicated to changing the status quo in sex education, shame, sexual discourse and equality? Let’s take a look shall we? Here is what a quick search of Wikipedia and LinkedIn yielded.
Wiki: OnlyFans was launched in November 2016 as a platform for performers to provide clips and photos to followers for a monthly subscription fee. Tim Stokely founded the company alongside his older brother, Thomas.
Who is Tim and what does he plan for the company?
I took a quick trip over to his LinkedIn and this is what his “About” section says about his mission for Only Fans.
LinkedIn About Section: “Tim Stokely is an accomplished British tech entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of OnlyFans. A lifelong entrepreneur, Tim’s work is rooted in influencer marketing and social communities. After founding several early internet platforms, Tim launched OnlyFans in 2016 allowing creators to share personalized content with their audience.
Tim continues to stay on the forefront of creator and fan relationships as OnlyFans grows its global audience and is home to a range of creators including: Cardi B, Jermaine Dupri, Swae Lee, Amber Rose and more. The platform is home to over 1M creators and 100M+ users. Tim continues to lead his vision of OnlyFans with the site welcoming new creators daily from all genres including music, fitness, gaming, fashion, and more.”
Does it sound like he is the pinnacle of support for adult creators or the sex positive movement to you?
Exit Strategy: Let’s be clear many of these tech firms are either looking to sell for billions or follow the facebook and amazon models which are to vertically and horizontally integrate. Gobbling up more eyeballs, purchasing power and media dollars. If I had to bet my bottom dollar I would guess, based on their CEOs own words, that gaming, fashion, fitness, music and more are part of the SFW exit or expansion strategy! More on this later… (FB?)
IPO: Very rarely do you see an adult company do an IPO. There have been a handful and none of them performed the way people had hoped. Playboy recently went public through a $10 SPAC and we saw some initial growth when the stock launched at about $12.32. Then they got a bunch of buzz around their announcement of the launch of their NFT platform in April 2021 amidst the temporary excitement the stock rose to just over $59 on June 4th, 2021. It has since pulled back as low as $20 and is hovering around $23. The point is that even a brand as iconic as Nike and Coke-a-Cola is likely to struggle like its “adult” predecessors as a publicly traded company until the status quo changes as to the way we treat sex in the world. Especially for women!
Venture Capital: Oh so many VC firms have what is called a Vice Clause! What does that mean? I’m so glad you asked! It means absolutely no investing in any brands that are qualified under the Vice definition for fear of it “tainting” the reputation of the other 80 or so odd brands in their portfolios. Here is a quote from a recent Forbes article about the OnlyFans challenge “one must first consider the “vice clause” (or covenant) that venture capital firms make with the investors whose money they deploy (venture capitalists typically only play with a relatively smaller pool of their own cash, in exchange for a somewhat larger share of the upside). These agreements limit how venture firms can invest away from their core focus. (Such restrictions on holding public equities and cryptocurrency investments, among others…” you can add in many cases cannabis, adult, sexual wellness and gambling. See this article on Forbes for more information.
My Summary Prediction: I see a future where OnlyFans slowly tightens restrictions just like all of the other social media platforms did across the board. The other possibility is that they do what Tumblr did but just don’t give as much notice so they can rake in more commissions until D-Day. Of course these are simply speculations of what could happen but I highly doubt they are going to change their brand mission and future vision to be one of supporting sex workers vs. global expansion and potential IPO or Sale to Facebook for example. Just saying.
Speaking of which…this might have been why they would have been willing to kick off “Adult”. About 2 months ago I was referred to a Facebook Investment scout through a friend in a networking group to see what FB would say about investing in PleazeMe and the answer was very simple, “Facebook will not buy or invest in any SexTech.” Perhaps this is what OnlyFans wants to do…sell to Facebook?
Take a look at my prediction in 2019? This is one of those times you hate to be right. However it was clear to me that we, the sex positive movement, were going to be facing tremendous shifts in online marketing guidelines so we published this industry PSA April 22, 2019 warning creators of the coming censorship and potential crippling of their marketing efforts. We also started offering “The Essential Social Media Marketing Guide” to industry colleagues for FREE to help their marketing teams and efforts from getting thwarted or worse face devastating losses from losing their audiences. Click here for a link to the guide if you don’t already have it.
I want to share that as a SexTech entrepreneur I deeply understand all of the considerations, risks, opportunities and decision points they need to consider. It is important when you are choosing a platform that you look at the heart of the brand. What do they stand for? Is it purely profit or is there a social good or social impact they are looking to make. Which social good, which social impact? Does it align with my business needs and goals? The other thing that is important in today’s world is to diversify your accessibility, widen your net if you will. Yes it takes more time to be on multiple platforms but in today’s environment of censorship and restriction it is important to have more than one income stream. Truth is that all of the wealthy people know that the goal is to ultimately have 7+ streams of income.
Our message to the Sex Positive Community: Pleazeme was created to challenge the status quo as it relates to the way people treat sex in life and society, especially for women.
Oddly, though sex is the pillar of human experience, it is one of the most widely censored subjects, leaving us to feel ill-equipped and isolated in our lives and businesses. Our goal is to unite those working to remove the shame and elevate the sexual discourse to a normalized and celebrated conversation.
The future of healthy sexuality relies on our ability to bring sex out from the shadows to illuminate the important role sex plays in our lives.
Check out our article that shares our mission, vision and core values! Set up your Free Account on Pleazeme to reserve your name and be united with the movement!
