The Shady History of OnlyFans’ Billionaire Owner | Hacker News Reader

The Shady History of OnlyFans’ Billionaire Owner

forbes.com

43 pointslxm43 comments

I don't find his affiliate marketing play shady. He made websites advertising shared passwords to paid porn sites that just got people to the porn sites lol. To me thats no different than those discount sharing websites simply pivoting to affiliate marketing websites. Simply saying “but the porn version is shady” isnt strong enough of an argument to me.

And the image and likeness lawsuits are not unique to his properties.

I thought the shady part was that it was advertised as child pornography, not the affiliate marketing aspect.

Something to keep perverts busy instead of letting them find what they were already looking for

>I don't find his affiliate marketing play shady.

>Forbes uncovered 11 such sites, all created in the late 1990s and early 2000s by Radvinsky and his Glenview, Illinois-based business, Cybertania. They included Password Universe, which, in 2000, published a link directing web users to a site claiming to offer pedophiles more than 10,000 “illegal pre-teen passwords.” In 1999, a site called Working Passes had a link for “the hottest underaged hardcore” containing 16-year-olds. Also in 2000, another site, Ultra Passwords, promised a link containing “the best illegal teen passwords” and “the hottest bestiality site on the web.”

He nailed the SEO game while ya’ll were buying books

If he wasn't offering that in actuality then its not shady

> He nailed the SEO game while ya’ll were buying books[.] If he wasn't offering that in actuality then its not shady

You should double check your ethics algorithms. It is absolutely “shady” to advertise child rape for profit, regardless of whether or not you intend to ultimately make good on that advertisement.

Something to keep perverts busy instead of letting them find what they were already looking for

If the affiliate sites were actually intentionally providing that kind of media I would call it very shady to take affiliate dollars from them

If they were intentionally providing that media they would be criminals, not “shady”.

accepting affiliate money from criminals is shady

the criminals are criminals this wasn’t a debate

it would be debatable whether that would make the affiliate payment transactions criminal, but that ship has sailed as its too late, which only makes it shady, if that media was being intentionally provided

if not, then not shady

easy calculus for me

It’s fine for you to have a custom internal definition of a word, but it’s counterproductive for you to use it to offer veiled praise for patent misconduct. Edgy semantics for the sake of edginess is neither clarifying nor educational.

I think we should look at what could happen to creators content in the future.

Everything you put online eventually gets exposed (pun intended).

For all the hundreds of thousands of amateur creators that started in the last year…. You’re about to get a rude awakening.

Add a sketchy owner to the mix…..

Or enough of them do such that nobody cares

#beyourauthenticself

I don't think anyone really cares. Do you? I don't.

If I'm hiring I don't care if someone put nudes online. Most employers probably don't either -- except for early age schools and probably religious institutions.

But paradoxically, the content creators themselves are the ones who care later on. Witness the deluge of old pron stars who wish their content was not there.

The thing about humans is that we constantly reinvent ourselves. And as a result, we always want to erase a thing or two in our past that we regret doing or are embarrassed about.

It's the same distribution as, say, tattoo'd people that care about their old tattoos later on.

Some do, some don't. Its not always.

I'm not sure anyone's "authentic self" is taking nudes for cash. It seems more like a job that people take because it pays well. Or it pays anything, because some of those people make very little money.

I also don't think that the actual incidence of people doing it matters as much as you think for social acceptance.

Some are passionate about their work, some aren't. Same as any other job.

I love this "creators content" euphemism that equates onlyfans models with musicians, writers, philosophers and art creators.

Isn't an embarrassingly large fraction of classical art just nude women?

Michelangelo would be indeed embarrassed if he knew his Venus is called "just a nude woman."

He'd say with a smile that it's instead a representation of a good Catholic with the body God gave her. He knew, he did it on purpose, his clients wanted it that way, and the church approved and asked for more, probably because they knew and wanted it that way too ;)

It was designed on purpose to be puritan-compatible pornography indeed.

This is not a secret in Europe, where we fight tooth and nails to let wikipedia show pictures of vagina because it's high art.

There is nothing embarrassing about it, it's done with a wry smile.

Yes, and? What's your objection?

Where did you see an objection? At the plain language level, it's a neutral observation that such euphemism exists and I love it. Interpretation of why I made this observation and why I love it is up to the reader. In other words, my statement is like the Rorschach test that reveals subconscious biases of the subject. I find it entertaining that people map their biases onto my words, assign these biases to me and then accuse me for having the biases; but in essence they are really accusing themselves.

Its not a euphemism though, so you have your own barely subconscious bias but you try to deflect any criticism by saying its the respondent's subconscious bias

hm, I didn't respond to your first comment but now its clear that you'll gaslight either way, so let me fail your Rorschach test for everyone else: you are having contempt for mostly women and that is the definition of misogyny, you are a misogynist.

Let's analyze my phrase again. Its structure is "euphemism A equates B and C". For some reason you picked B and decided that it's treated unfairly, despite B and C are on equal standing in my phrase. I could even swap B and C without changing the meaning and subtext of my phrase.

I decided that they are all content creators of equal standing if they are in the action of creating content, I don't find that to be a euphemism or your meta interpretation to be anywhere near accurate

Lets start ”why do you think its a euphemism” and work up from there

if creating content

content creator = true

its not necessary for me or you to consider that a “less harsh” substitute word for anything else, the definition of euphamism

My interpretation may as well be "music is a waste of time and I find it offensive that the so-called music-makers are somehow equated with webcam models via that euphemism". Besides, it's a bad euphemism because webcam models don't create content, they create emotions. They are entertainers. Hardly anyone would call a strip dancer a "content creator".

Edit. Another possible interpretation: "I love that this euphemism finally equates webcam models with writers and musicians".

here you go again, trying to get us to simply alter your equation to prove that there are so many ways to interpret it!

Its not a euphemism. They create content because it is text, audio and video, copyrighted by the mere existence of them.

Get it through your thick head: its not a euphemism. Stop trying to make it happen. You want to have a completely separate discussion under the most poorly contrived pretext possible. You have poorly creating a prompt, you poorly accomplished trolling. "Poorly" was a euphemism for "sucked at". Isn't it great how we're so progressive that we can equate your poor trolling with improvisational theatre these days? No, no, don't flag this that's just your subconscious bias to see it that way! Its you and everyone else that misunderstand that I actually love that your non-disciplined hackjob of emotion finally has a platform to be compared with such respected trades!

You're fixating on that euphemism word, but it's actually irrelevant. You can even remove "euphemism" from my first statement and its meaning won't change. The key word there is "equates".

Besides, I wouldn't lose it over this fairly boring argument. Emotion is a powerful tool when you keep it on leash, but is a source of misery when it leads you.

Yes it is a pedantic premise and conversation

I agree that its great that there is a normalized inclusive context that allows the benign similarities between philosophers and music to be acknowledged, instead of their less benign differences such as the philosopher’s erotic performances

I won't pretend to know what your motivation/intention is besides finding amusement in people trying to get out your opinions. I do have a couple questions, out of curiosity:

> Besides, it's a bad euphemism because webcam models don't create content, they create emotions. They are entertainers.

In that sense, is an erotic/pornographic video any different from a (non-erotic/pornographic) movie or photograph or song/recording?

Also, to be clear, you do consider "entertainer" a non-euphemistic / less-euphemistic term (not that euphemisms are inherently bad) for a camgirl?

> Besides, it's a bad euphemism because webcam models don't create content, they create emotions.

They create content. The content, as artistic content is generally intended to, may have emotional impact, but the models aren’t manipulating emotions other than through content.

I'm confused. Why do you consider it an euphemism? Isn't that just what people on onlyfans are?

They are webcam porn models. Our twisted society still thinks that one of those three words, I don't know which, is rude and degrading, so the onlyfans PR department came up with that meaningless euphemism.

I don't feel it's a euphemism. It's essentially what they are. They are creating content meaningful to people, just any of the groups you mention.

Can you imagine an introduction: "Hi, I'm Joe, I'm a content creator." Joe is clearly not proud about the content he's creating, so he hides behind a generic job title. That's euphemism.

It could just as well be that Joe doesn't want to bore you with the details of the content he creates. If he started every conversation with "Hi I'm Joe, I create in-depth reviews of old coin marketplaces and their products on a daily basis" 99% of the folks he talks to would probably instantly check out. That doesn't mean he's not proud, it means he's practical and knows his audience.

Or Joe just doesn't want to start an entire discussion about what he is creating. There is a time and place for everything and if the other party is interested she can ask what type of content Joe creates. Not giving every bit of information all the time doesn't mean there is an euphemism at play.

What do you think a "Copywriter" is?!

It's obviously the "webcam" part.

What I like about this is that his net worth is estimated due to his holdings of Felix media that he purchased. This is obviously someone that wouldn’t put all his eggs in one basket so nobody really knows anything.

Forbes rarely knows anything about net worth not in the public record or self-reported. It's how some people lie to get into the top 400 and others work hard to avoid it.

protip: although the article says money is made off of subscriptions, content creators often have free subscriptions and instead make money from one-off content and also charging for direct messages. freemium model is very successful because people are deterred by not knowing what they’ll get

If they are curious about erotic content and it’s not then you bounce a potentially paying recurring customer, for example

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