OnlyFans in 2024 generated $6.3 billion in gross revenues. 80% of which was paid out to its 4.1 million creators from 305 million registered fans. The high percentage the models get of the gross revenue, compared to what they would earn elsewhere in the porn industry, is one of the key success factors of OnlyFans. However, obviously this revenue isn't evenly distributed. While the revenue distribution is a lot more equal than it is on YouTube, the top 10% of accounts collected 73% of revenues. So what is a less successful model on OnlyFans to do to increase revenue? That leads us to the shady world of an activity known as "OFM", or OnlyFans Management: Agencies that promise to increase an OnlyFans model revenue through better marketing, but who then take up to half of that revenue for themselves.

So after stumbling about a story on Fanvue allowing AI models, I did some research, which very quickly led me to a bunch of YouTube "get rich quick" videos. The latest YouTube get rich quick scheme works by applying lessons learned about OFM to not OnlyFans but Fanvue, and using publicly available software to generate NSFW AI images to create an AI model and running a whole creator channel with "her". I was sceptical how that could work: Why would somebody pay a subscription on Fanvue to an AI model, when the images he can get that way are nothing but images he could get for free on various NSFW AI image creation sites?

After some more research it turned out that my error was that I had assumed that OnlyFans and Fanvue are in the business of selling pornographic images via subscriptions. But when looking at published breakdowns of OnlyFans revenue streams, it turns out that many creators make more money via paid-for messaging (sexting) than they make from selling images. The product that is being sold is a whole package of a parasocial relationship with a "girlfriend", with many customers being lonely young men, part of the WHO-recognized loneliness epidemic. But successful OnlyFans models have thousands of fans, how can they possibly keep up even a parasocial relationship with them? The answer is simple: While the models on OnlyFans are real, with a verification process keeping out AI models, the messaging / sexting is increasingly done by AI chatbots (replacing or aiding the model's "staff" that was previously doing that work of impersonating the model in chat). So already today, AI is earning billions of dollars on OnlyFans.

Through thousands of years of a culture teaching us the importance of hiding our nudity with clothes and keeping our sexuality private, humans tend to feel a degree of shame and vulnerability when being naked in public. Pornography at its core is a transaction in which somebody is overcoming that shame in exchange for money. An AI doesn't feel shame, and is thus very suited to sell pornographic images. The reason why today OnlyFans has real images and AI chat is because that is where AI technology is right now. AI images of humans can still sometimes fall in the uncanny valley, have the wrong number of fingers, or curves that aren't quite right. But AI image generation is rapidly advancing. How long until we can't actually tell AI images from real images anymore, pornographic or otherwise?

I never paid for sexting on OnlyFans, but I can only assume that it must involve a certain degree of suspension of disbelief. The buyer somewhere deep in his heart knows that he isn't sexting with his girlfriend. Many are probably even aware that they are talking to a chatbot, because while chatbots have become quite good, they aren't 100% at passing the Turing test yet. Will the buyers mind if the images aren't real anymore either? The advantage of an AI girlfriend is that the customer can make her look however he wants. He can also ask for and easily receive pornographic images that are exactly suited to his sexual preferences. Are we heading for a future in which an increasing part of the internet pornographic image content will be AI generated? Looking at Sora today, AI porn videos still seem to be a while off.

The current discussion about AI generated images is frequently revolving around those images being based on images "stolen" from actual artists, and the negative effect of putting real artists out of business. I feel that these arguments become a lot weaker when we talk about AI porn. Should we really be worried about putting real porn models out of business? Over my lifetime the moral discussion of porn has shifted from a religiously motivated "pornography is generally immoral" to being more of a feminist worry about women getting exploited. If a man based on a OFM get rich quick scheme is getting money from other men for AI generated images and text messages, it is hard to see where any woman is exploited in the process. To claim that AI porn is bad requires to say that real porn is comparatively morally better, and I don't think that society is at that point yet. Although personally I do believe that at least some of the current OnlyFans models (without male managers) are among the most empowered women on the planet. Overcoming cultural norms can be quite profitable. I'd actually be more worried that the current system is exploiting lonely young men, and is not actually helping against the loneliness epidemic.