Even if the chat bot would lack verisimilitude, I can imagine outsourcing the messages to developing countries and adding some tools to let them make quick, cash-generating responses more efficiently.
Arguably, this has been attempted already with Projekt Melody.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projekt_Melody
Twitch suspended the account, and a bunch of biological female streamers were pissed that a computer-generated female was cutting into their market.
Ultimately those dollars come at the expense of others, there is limited attention and money, it really isn't something that would just exist elsewhere.
For example people also spend a lot of money on virtual slot machine games, so much so they were usually one out of every 11 apps in Apple's top grossing, back when they reported this list. It couldn't possibly be healthy for the app ecosystem, it sucks the air out of the room for other developers making creative or useful stuff. Sure it makes money, but a lot of things make money, it's stupid to reduce the effect of virtual slot machine games down to, "Well its users wouldn't spend the dollars elsewhere, and the more money to Apple the better, so it helps everyone."
The success of virtual slot machines has hurt video game developers, because financiers expect you to reproduce their mechanics, even though their expectation that it's all about mechanics is wrong. Hence many games with pointless slot machine mechanics.
Nobody needs OnlyFans. OnlyFans harms earnest creators, it ghettoizes earnest female creators especially because your agent, your manager, your friends, your family, your viewers - they will now expect that the surest way to make money is selling your body, and not by having any real talent or skills. OnlyFans and its porn stars have completely co-opted well-meaning people with this talk about sex work, COVID, it sucks to live in Bulgaria and whatever. Bella Thorne is of course a huge hack, it is preposterous she is repeatedly being given a platform by the media where the net result will be, more people will stop trying hard and gamble on being nude online.
They're not the only platform. TikTok is full of talentless hacks too, who simply win a random Internet lottery and are completely and utterly distorting earnest creativity and opportunities for hard working people. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube also reward SEO / ripping off other people's stuff much more than creating something original. This "well it makes money" bullshit has to end.
> Ultimately those dollars come at the expense of others, there is limited attention and money,
What? There are huge untapped markets for live streams of "things" outside pro-gaming. I have zero interest in gaming but watch streams of people doing various projects (mostly on Youtube, but this is just showing there is a market).
> people also spend a lot of money on virtual slot machine games... it sucks the air out of the room for other developers making creative or useful stuff.
This seems an incredibly zero-sum way of looking at it. Maybe there is some cross-over between some zero-effort casual gaming and gambling, but that is a long way from "useful stuff".
oh here we go again. Explain to me how OnlyFans models sell their bodies, but countless actresses who play shitty parts in shitty movies, for peanuts, do not, just because they don't show their tits?
Given that their experiment was quite successful and already had a few sponsors ... couldn't they just add some clothing to avoid being banned?
Man, that's an awfully written Wikipedia article.
For content as well, you can scrape other platforms and create a new identity.
So this has already happened to some degree. As AI (aka humans teaching computers) to make for better "hungrier" chatboxes, with the escalation (buy more messages, send client to next tier), sell a "more personalized package" (to use the parent comment of his friend).
This could do a nice Black Mirror episode. Like the one where she lost her husband, her friend registered for the Tier1 service and it went on from that..