Let me complain about how I'm being exploited at my job while voluntarily choosing said job over literally every other job available to me.
Yes, it may be that it pays more than equivalent non-porn jobs due to being rooted in foreign exchange. But that doesn't make it any more voluntary
Pretty much any Wagie job?
For example, someone could compel people who are starving to do all sorts of horrible things for food, and then say 'well, they chose to do it!'.
If the labor market caused employees to be paid more, would the employer refuse? Shut down?
If somehow the labor market was able to coordinate to demand higher wages, the business would have to increase its price. There would be less demand at the higher price. Consequently there would be fewer businesses and fewer workers would have jobs at all.
Businesses are profit-maximizing organizations. They operate at maximum profit, not at the lowest! A business's managers don't meet to consider the lowest profit but how to maximize it. Critically, they don't price what they sell at (costs + some profit); the price it for maximum profit regardless of costs.
Some businesses have enormous profit margins, some businesses sell at a loss - many businesses do that regularly (e.g., clearance sales) - because that is the best they can do. Some sell at a loss strategically to gain market share, a common tactic of well-funded Silicon Valley companies.
> If somehow the labor market was able to coordinate to demand higher wages, the business would have to increase its price. There would be less demand at the higher price.
From the business owner's perspective, wages are a cost. Costs, including wages, go up and down all the time. If you make TVs, the price of glass might be X one month and 1.5X the next.
The business brings in revenue, which it splits between costs, investment, and profit. When costs increase, you can raise prices (which reduces demand, as you say, and also drives away customers longer term) or reduce investment and/or profit.
Also, the relationship between price and demand isn't linear; it varies by price and by good/service: Increasing gas prices temporarily may not impact demand much because most people have little choice but to drive, though in the long term they might make adjustments. Increasing candy prices, on the other hand, could have a big impact because most people can easily eat something else.
The employer of the person in the OP has a choice if wage costs increase: Increase prices, reduce investment, or, heaven forbid, reduce profit (reduce their own income).
If the profit in this business becomes less appealing relative to other businesses, the owner will change businesses, there will be less competition in this business and the prices will go up. Increasing potential profit.
This is basic stuff. Despite your aversion to business owners making a profit and wishing employees were paid more, introducing non-linearities, loss leaders, price inelasticities or any other complication does nothing to change the fundamental point.
Closing a business because wages or any cost go up a bit would be absurd. That is way overstated. Of course there is some undefined point where costs are too high to sustain, but closing and opening businesses is not trading stocks on Robinhood. There are large transactional costs, including to your reputation - investors, creditors, co-workers, business partners, employees, who have invested their precious time, money, and careers and reputations with you, would be very angry (probably they would replace you as CEO and keep going). And how will you pay your mortgage next month?
> the amount of profit can be increased or decreased independently of any other factors
It indeed can be decreased that way, except that the money has to go somewhere - retained earnings (savings), new gardens in the courtyard, even wage increases.
It is not absurd at all. This is economics thinking. There are always businesses on the margin of staying in business or going out of business. You don't base an argument on the extremes. You look at the marginal cases.
It's only absurd in the scenario you're imagining in which every business is somehow able to make so much profit that it's still worthwhile for them to reduce profits and increase wages. But there are other businesses who are willing to decrease profits to compete with that business. This is the precise mechanism of how profit is constrained and how consumers benefit from competition.
This salary is over the Philippines minimum wage. It's a legal job like any other.
The people interviewed are not super happy about the content of the job, but none of it seems to be anything more than it being pornography-related.
Nobody's really seeming to cross any lines of illegality as described in the article. This doesn't come close to the kind of conditions faced by Meta's contractors in Africa spying through Meta glasses in private homes.
I would equate this type of job to any type of job that has aspects that some people would never be willing to do.
E.g., I would never be willing to be a window washer. I'm too scared of heights. Same deal with tower construction. But there are plenty of people doing those jobs who don't feel exploited.
The plus side of jobs like this are that you can do this work at home, you can be physically disabled, there's often some level of flexibility of hours, and there's no manual labor.
I'm going to guess that the only scandal here is that the Philippines is 80% Catholic and possibly more conservative than people in the countries where OnlyFans generates its income.
I don’t think a significant amount of OnlyFans customers are under any false impression that they’re making a real person horny or that they are engaging in any kind of genuine relationship with a performer.
I think they know that they are paying for sexual interactivity as a service. They are getting what they paid for: someone at the other end conversing with them and semi-custom erotic photo/video content.