🛑 OnlyFans’ huge change

When it comes to the “creator economy,” one of the biggest winners during the pandemic has been OnlyFans.

Users of its platform sold $2.2B worth of premium content to fans in 2020 (i.e., subscriptions, tips, chats), with OnlyFans notching net sales of $375m, per Axios.

There’s 1 huge catch: the majority of its content is sex-related.

A huge business pivot

Last Thursday, OnlyFans shocked the tech world by announcing that it would ban certain sex content starting in October.

Observers joked it was like McDonald’s saying it would stop selling burgers or Starbucks saying it would stop selling coffee.

Why the move? Per CNN, OnlyFans is likely responding to a policy shift from credit card companies that might restrict payments related to sex content. Relatedly, Axios notes that OnlyFans was having problems raising money from investors wary of its R-rated reputation.

There was a potentially much bigger problem

An investigative report from the BBC found that OnlyFans’ content moderation system often misses illegal content (e.g., escort services).

The episode may sound broadly familiar: When Pornhub’s parent company, MindGeek, was accused of allowing banned content, it ultimately deleted 80% of its videos and enforced a verification system.

What’s next?

OnlyFans is home to 130m fans and 2m creators, many of whom made a living on the platform as the pandemic swept away more traditional jobs.

While the startup says it will still allow certain sex content, it has yet to release clear guidelines.

The crypto community — with key tenets of decentralization and censorship resistance — wants to fill the void: 1 service called OnlyCoins is supporting sex workers with crypto subscriptions.

OnlyTime will tell if this will work.

If you need a new toaster, check CNET. Wondering what to do in the Maldives? Lonely Planet. Think you have an ulcer? Maybe Healthline can help. And as it turns out, all these sites are owned by the same company.

Recently, The New York Times profiled Red Ventures, a South Carolina-based digital media giant “you’ve never heard of.”

Red Ventures owns several sites that you probably have heard of, and the 1 thing they have in common is that they all provide advice:

• MyMove (Moving)
• The Points Guy (Travel/rewards points)
• Greatist (Fitness)
• BestColleges (Education)
• Reviews.com (Consumer reviews)
• Bankrate (Personal finance)

Red Ventures’ business model…

… is to take readers who are already looking to buy something, inform that purchase, then take a cut — like if you choose 1 of these 5 grills preferred by CNET’s editors.

And does this business model work?

Apparently, yes. Red Ventures has:

• 4.5k employees across 5 continents
• A valuation of $11B+
• Annual revenue of ~$2B
• ~751m site visits per month

And the biggest commissions? Credit card sign-ups, like those found in The Points Guy, which was part of the company’s $1.4B Bankrate acquisition in 2015.

Oddly enough, CEO Ric Elias decided to expand Red Ventures from a marketing company after surviving the infamous US Airways Flight 1549 that miraculously landed on the Hudson River in 2009 — an experience about which he gave a TED Talk.

1) Pop Its — colorful silicone toys that function like bubble wrap — now resemble the second coming of the fidget spinner, with sales reaching 7m+ units since 2020, up from 700k in 2019.

2) Get a whiff of this: Through 2026, waste management companies will spend $11.8m on smell detection tech; food and beverage companies will spend $10.9m; military and law enforcement will spend $8.1m, up ~100% across all fronts compared to 2020.

3) In 2020, Google received 11.5k+ geofence warrants from law enforcement ordering Google to identify users in a geographic area at a given time. That’s up from 982 in 2018.

4) The coin shortage is back. From January to mid-July, banks deposited 45% fewer coins at Federal Reserve Banks than they did during that period in 2019.

5) Apparently, hot air ballooning was hottest in the ‘70s. Now that lots of OG ballooners are retiring, used balloons are going for $10k-$20k, much lower than the $40k+ price tag for a new balloon.

6) In 2010, the US military, along with geologists, said the ground underneath Afghanistan is full of mineral deposits worth ~$1T. The country also sits on 1 of the largest lithium deposits, critical for battery tech.

As part of Zuck’s push into the metaverse, Facebook announced a VR-powered work app called Horizon Workrooms.

It is exactly what it sounds like: meetings held in the VR world. In the tweet above, Brendan Keefe captures the Twitter-verse’s response to Zuck’s reveal.