Leonid Radvinsky, an innovative purveyor of online pornography who turned a tiny website called OnlyFans into an adult-entertainment powerhouse, redefining the industry for the social-media era, has died. He was 43.
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I’ve always wondered what the performers think of him (and OnlyFans in general). Like is OF just another skeevy porn site that they have no choice but to partake in because it beats poverty, or did it actually meaningfully shift the economics from exploitative corporations to the performers themselves?
I know from other articles there are OnlyFan “pimps” and “agents” who basically handle all the online marketing and messaging for the models. Presumably only the more successful ones can afford that sort of service (even when outsourced) and have a life where they occasionally make content and otherwise enjoy luxury. But maybe the bottom 80% have a completely different experience? I dunno.
Still, though, Radvinsky saw an opportunity and went for it. Pretty impressive growing OF from $2 million to $7 billion a year in 2018, when online porn and social media were already both well-established. That took some business savvy (and, one would assume, sketchy deal-making). I wonder if he was in the Epstein files.
Why not both?
@puzzlegal might usefully use their Mod superpowers to change the title from “only fans” to “OnlyFans”.
Picky people…
Well, I just mean did it actually manage to fulfill the mantra “sex work is work” (as in making it a socially acceptable, living-wage-able profession), or is it just yet another porn site that maybe pays a few pennies more but didn’t meaningfully change anything.
But that’s half the entertainment value of the thread! 
Misinterpreted thread titles - #374 by John_DiFool
I think the answer is it’s a little bit of both. I think a small percentage make a lot of money and control their own content instead of relying on skeevy at best producers. Most don’t make that much.
I assume most don’t make a ton of money, but i think most do control their content. And their working conditions. I’ve never used onlyfans. (Hey, lots of women don’t use porn, and I’m not interested in producing it.) But I’m a fan of the platform, because it seems like an unusually wholesome way to fill an economic niche that obviously needs to be filled, and is often filled in very exploitative ways.
Right, like just about every form of performance or what we now call the “gig economy” (which is itself not a new thing). ISTM this brought to “artisanal” porn an easy entry to the DTC distribution model, so performers no longer have to find some studio or label or promoter in California (and maybe move there) to make some actual money at it, but it’s still NOT going to be the norm for it to be a profitable full-time career.
And I do read quite a few online posts in different venues where performers state that webcamming and OF are a plus for them over “live” porn or stripping because it’s safer.