SAN FRANCISCO — Ami Gan, Chief Executive Officer of OnlyFans, told an audience at the latest edition of the TechCrunch Disrupt conference that the platform has no immediate plans to eliminate adult and sexual content. In fact, Gan said that adult content creators will still have a place to post their content on OnlyFans five years from now, a significant commitment for a site that briefly banned explicit content last summer, only to quickly reverse the decision.
Gan’s statement is noteworthy given the tumultuous history OnlyFans has had with its adult content creators. In August 2021, OnlyFans announced that it would eliminate adult content entirely in an effort to attract new investors and go mainstream to compete with platforms like Patreon. This announcement was walked back days later after thousands of content creators promised a mass exodus from the platform for others that are more welcoming and open to social and adult content.
Tim Stokely, the founder of OnlyFans and the former CEO, told Financial Times the impetus behind even contemplating a ban was the company’s financial partners. According to Stokely, the Bank of New York Mellon “flagged and rejected” all interbank wires linked to the website, and “the change in policy, we had no choice — the short answer is banks” in a stark criticism of financial institutions discriminating against sex-based businesses and platforms. The walk-back of the policy, however, permitted OnlyFans content to remain on the website.
OnlyFans operates on a revenue share model of 80 percent for creators and 20 percent for the company. OnlyFans is owned by the private firm Fenix International Limited, based in the United Kingdom. The company is one of the fastest-growing premium social networking sites in the market with billions of revenue paid out to OnlyFans creators. Performers in 2021 earned over $4 billion with a total of 2.1 million creators of all types and well over 188 million users registered. Millions of that number are active on the platform every single month. By the numbers, the audience of users, or ‘fans,’ is growing at nearly 130 percent versus the rate of content creators joining OnlyFans at 34 percent.
PitchBook estimates that OnlyFans is on track to earn $2.5 billion in revenues in the current year of 2022. OnlyFans is also becoming a social and cultural powerhouse, having gained popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns forcing people to distance themselves. While Gan’s pledge that adult content creators would still have a home on the platform in five years, the goal to grow the platform and compete in the mainstream space remains in place.
