If you’re only interested in money…

I got an e-mail about this last Thursday, when it went live. Before I saw it on the WaPo site. Would I have seen it anyway? Probably. It was never the top story, but it was featured pretty prominently in the app.

But no one else contacted me about it until just now, when I got a text.

To analogize the record business, this is a hit, hiding in plain sight. Used to be hits surfaced all by their lonesome, you couldn’t keep a good record down. Now a track can be phenomenal and not break. Just like this story.

Ah, it’s not that good, it’s not phenomenal, but it’s very interesting, sex is always fascinating, but the way the business is done, it can translate to almost any industry, but once again, you are probably unaware of it.

This is what happens when you live in a silo. This is a more interesting story than you’ll ever read in “Billboard,” this is the kind of story we used to salivate over in “Rolling Stone,” the kind that made the magazine great, the heartbeat of a generation. But there are no ripples, none that can be found when searching in the Google News. Maybe because it involves sex. Maybe because those purveying conventional celebrities have no idea who the real celebrities are. Scratch that, you can make a ton of dough being known by very few. So if you’re interested in cash, don’t go into music, which is why so many went into it back when, because there are a lot easier ways to make money.

So now you’re interested, I made you aware. But you’ve got to pay to play, just like with OnlyFans itself. No, that’s not true. A lot of these women, and it’s almost all women, give away a taste for free. This is how Spotify works. If you want it all, you’ve got to pay. And you can tell me how bad a free, advertiser-supported tier is, but then I’ll tell you Spotify dwarfs its competitors in the number of subscribers, but even more in overall consumption. Spotify subscribers are active, they listen a lot, and only when people listen do they create a bond with the song and the act.

But to subscribe you’ve got to pay. Oh, you get a certain number of articles free every month, there’s a soft paywall, just like with the OnlyFans girls, but this restricts activity, because you don’t want to waste your freebies and you end up not even coming close to the limit. Or, you reach the limit and are so damn cheap you won’t pay the $120 a year.

But the dirty little secret is you get the “Washington Post” with your Apple News+ subscription. Yes, for ten bucks, you get the WaPo and more. But you’ve heard that information wants to be free on the internet. But you forgot the second half of that aphorism, it also wants to be really expensive! In other words, if you don’t pay, you don’t get the good information, and information is everything.

That’s what Charlie Munger said. In the “Wall Street Journal,” also behind a paywall.

“I think I learn a little something from…everything I’ve read. I think that one of the reasons I was as economically successful as I was in life is because I read so damn much all my life, starting when I was about six years old. I don’t know how to get smart without reading a lot.”

https://tinyurl.com/26xznbjp

Bingo, it’s all there in books and periodicals, you just have to spend the time. I get more out of reading than I do in conversation with almost anybody. Hate to say it, but it’s true. Except for a thin layer of people who truly know what is going on. Then again, everybody thinks they know what is going on, they keep telling me so.

Now here’s my gift to you, a free link to the WaPo OnlyFans story:

“Inside an OnlyFans empire: Sex, influence and the new American Dream – The fast-growing platform represents the creator economy at its most bluntly transactional, where sex is just another unit of content to monetize.”: https://wapo.st/3u5zgFY

And you should read this article. And be sure to watch the video embedded therein.

Or, you can watch the WaPo OnlyFans video on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/2vp2y39p

And now I’m wondering about the tone of this piece. It’s didactic, and angry. And I guess that’s a result of all the b.s. that comes over my transom each and every day, oftentimes blatantly wrong, a Google would tell the the writer the truth, and always spewed forth with anger and suffused with intimidation. To the point that you get the pushback above. But it makes me crazy the world we live in, with self-declared experts who’ve got no clue what is really going on.

Now when I read this OnlyFans article one thing became clear, I’d want nothing to do with this, this is not where I’d want to spend my time, no matter how much money I might make. Because it’s boring!

And if you watch enough TikTok you’ll see the big-breasted girl lamenting that she can’t date because of her OnlyFans account, the boys don’t want someone who’s been with seemingly everyone. She signed off OnlyFans, gave up porn, but came back, because that’s the only place she’d be understood, never mind all that money.

And these are middle class girls. Oftentimes in college.

And Bryce Adams has a boyfriend, her partner in crime. But there is no crime, OnlyFans is totally legitimate. I wonder if it pegs the needle in that anti-masturbation app that Mike Johnson shares with his son.

Now it’s not that Bryce Adams is so delicious. I mean she’s pretty attractive, but her visage does not send the message “porn star,” like that woman with macromastia I referenced above. But Bryce Adams, not her real name, knows how to work it. She knows what her fans want. And how does she do this? VIA THE DATA!

Yes, that’s why you should read this article, to see how they do it. This is the modern music business, you just don’t know it. You’ve got to know how the game is played if you want to win. And to win, you don’t have to appeal to everybody, just a certain few, who become really attached, who form a bond with you, that you feed.

Sure, you pay for a subscription to the OnlyFans page, but the money is in the upsell. The texts. The private videos. And Bryce doesn’t have time to service all her fans, so she has a team that does this. And the guys buy it, because it’s all a fantasy anyway.

That’s what music, when done right, is also selling, a fantasy. Too often it’s based on cash these days, but it used to be based on identity. That the artist understood the listener, and if the listener could just meet the artist, their life would work, it would be complete. Believe me, I’ve met these people, and it’s almost universally untrue. But you need to believe in it to carry on, just like you believe in the American Dream, even though statistically it is fading. That’s the world we live in, facts don’t matter. But usually those who deny the truth are the ones who pay the price.

And Bryce and her boyfriend are working ’round the clock. They don’t have time to crash and smoke dope. They’ve got to be on their audience, because the audience is fickle, either serve people or die. Truly, there are so many competitors. This is what musicians don’t realize, they’re competing against everybody, both alive and dead, they’ve got to be top of mind or they’re not in mind at all. But we’ve still got people hewing to the album paradigm. That might satiate hard core fans, but it’s a piss-poor way to grow your career. That’s seventies thinking, and we’re in the third decade of the twenty first century.

So they comparison test pics and videos, they’re constantly researching what works. If you’re an oldster, Gen-X or above, you’ll read this article and want to give up. Because one thing is for sure, Bryce, and especially her boyfriend, are digitally savvy. And you need to be to succeed in the world today. All those in-person meetings, the bluster of business, it’s passé. I hear it from oldsters who work with youngsters all the time. The office is now quiet, whereas it used to be noisy. The youngsters don’t talk on the phone. Drives the oldsters nuts, it’s not how they did it, but it’s much more efficient. God, if I had to talk on the phone I’d get about a quarter of what I do done. The younger generation knows this.

So you’ve got to know how the devices work. Literally. Because there is no help, you’re on your own, there’s not time for help, you’ve got to understand computers, you’ve got to understand online, you’ve got to be digitally native. You know how to make a PowerPoint? Whoo-hoo! Welcome to twenty years ago, the younger generation has no time for PowerPoints anymore.

So the money is incredible. But the creators make it perfectly clear, the game changes. This is something that still is not accepted in the music business. Radio is forever, TV counts! No. We’re many steps beyond that, but the new world is so chaotic you don’t want to admit it, you want to believe the old one still has merit.

“Since sending her first photo in 2021, Adams’s OnlyFans accounts have earned $16.5 million in sales, more than 1.4 million fans and more than 11 million “likes.” She now makes about $30,000 a day — more than most American small businesses — from subscriptions, video sales, messages and tips, half of which is pure profit.”

This is more than almost all musicians. I mean if you’re broke playing music, maybe you should do something else, especially if you’re into money first and foremost, which seems to be the case with all these artists that call themselves “brands.” Bryce Adams is taking her assets and making it the way musicians used to, not by formula, but from her noggin. She’s making it up as she goes, there is no template. Sounds more like music of the sixties and seventies than today.

And she is doing it for herself. That’s how it works in OnlyFans and that’s how it works in music. You build it and maintain it yourself. And you reap almost all of the money when you do, 80% in the case of OnlyFans. And if you don’t use a label and go direct to Spotify (via a distributor that charges little), you’ll end up with 60-70% of the revenue. But better to bitch at the label, none of which pays this amount, and is busy recouping that advance you thought was so impressive.

And in OnlyFans, like music, your career peak is very short, you’d better make bank then. Sure, a few artists have long careers, but most don’t.

Also, all the money is in the top. This is what musicians can’t get over. If the best is the same cost as the worst, why would I spend time with the worst, or mediocre, even good? Everybody is available all the time. I’ve got to be super to gain attention and get paid. But this is unfair! No, it’s not! Think of it from the viewpoint of the consumer. Do you want to be forced to watch TV in real time, on network, with commercials, or would you rather stream on demand? Do you want to be forced to watch a mediocre program instead of a great one? This is the modern world, the public only wants a thin layer of what is produced, and if you’re not great, superior, incredible, get out of the way, because you’re never going to make it.

I know, the truth hurts. But what is great about Bryce and her boyfriend is it’s their truth. They’re doing it their way. They think they know better than anybody else.

But that damn algorithm, the game is gonna change. Just like in the music business. It keeps evolving, Napster to KaZaA to lockers to iTunes track sales to YouTube to Spotify to TikTok to… Oh, I forgot to mention MySpace! Everything is evanescent, you’ve got to be a student of the game.

And if you’ve gotten this far, if you’re not turned off by my attitude, please read this piece and watch the video. You’ll be stimulated. Your brain will start to cogitate, come up with ideas, refine thoughts. This is what it’s all about. And it seems simple, but it’s not. Rest on your laurels and you’re toast.

“Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don’t criticize

What you can’t understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly agin’

Please get out of the new one

If you can’t lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin'”

Those words are just as relevant today as when Bob Dylan wrote them back in ’63. Only now you’re on the wrong side of the generation gap. So buckle down, or get out of the way. It’s a new world and if you want a place in it…

Read this article.