No Mercy / No Malice: Lonely Fans

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I'm Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.

OnlyFans has a customer base greater than the U.S.

population, but that success comes at huge cost.

LonelyFans, as read by George Hahn.

Loneliness is lucrative.

Leonid Radvinsky, the secretive owner of OnlyFans, received a $700 million windfall last year, while the platform's top tier of content creators, mostly women, earned millions annually.

With $7.2 billion in annual gross revenue and just 46 employees, OnlyFans may be one of the most profitable companies on the planet.

The site is viewed as a porn-centric hub where men pay women for sexual content.

The company claims it's giving their creators and their 378 million fans, greater than the population of the US, something more: an opportunity to forge authentic connections.

Some crazy stats.

The top 0.1% of creators capture 76% of revenue and earn an average of $146,881 per month.

The average creator earns just $150,000 to $180 per month.

Private messages drive about 70% of revenue versus only 4% from actual subscriptions.

71% of users are male, but 84% of creators are female.

About 0.01% of subscribers are whales, who generate more than 20% of all revenue.

85%

of users access the site via mobile.

We've created a platform where 95.8% of men pay nothing but still consume content, while a tiny fraction of whales subsidize an entire economy built on loneliness.

It's digital feudalism, with OnlyFans as the landlord collecting rent on human connection.

The pitch resonates with millions of men retreating from the high-risk but high-reward activity of forming real-world relationships.

It also appeals to women.

OnlyFans has paid more than $20 billion to creators since 2016.

Women are flocking to the site, with an estimated 1 million plus in the U.S.

alone.

The success of OnlyFans is making some people rich.

However, it's also a symptom of a loneliness epidemic with devastating second-order effects.

Humans are hardwired to connect.

Interacting with families and friends is as essential as food, water, and shelter.

Through the 1970s, Americans seemed adept at forming social groups, political associations, labor unions, local memberships.

Those bonds have faded.

Weekly religious service attendance has fallen to 30%

from 42% two decades ago.

Marriage rates have plunged.

Third places, public gathering spots outside home and work, are disappearing.

The driving factor is technology.

Addicted to YouTube and TikTok, nearly half of American teens report being online almost constantly.

Jonathan Haidt, my NYU colleague, estimates kids' time with friends has been cut in half.

We've literally taken childhood and poured it into a screen.

This isn't just an epidemic, it's a pandemic.

Loneliness affects nearly one in six people globally, contributing to 100 deaths an hour.

The health impact is massive.

Loneliness is about as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes daily.

Social isolation reduces productivity, boosts job turnover, and drives up healthcare costs.

The economic toll in the U.S.

exceeds $400 billion

annually.

Men are especially vulnerable.

The most unstable, violent societies have one thing in common, a plethora of lonely young men.

We are producing millions of them.

In Japan, 1.5 million people are hikikomori, modern-day recluses who withdraw for more than six months.

In Britain, the loneliness crisis costs employers more than $3 billion annually.

In Spain, the economic impact equals 1.2% of GDP.

Millions of Chinese women seeking companionship are downloading AI boyfriends.

We are in the midst of a sex recession with rates at record lows.

Participation in clubs is waning.

Nearly three out of four restaurant orders in the U.S.

aren't eaten in the restaurant.

As Esther Perel told me on the Prof GPod, we're in an age of artificial intimacy, where we're planning our extinction.

At current fertility rates in South Korea, you need to pass 20 people to find one who will have grandchildren.

In Britain, pubs are closing at a rate of one per day, faster than Nazi bombs destroyed them during World War II.

Today's owners blame taxes and costs, but young people increasingly choose online gaming, porn, drugs, Netflix, and OnlyFans over nightlife.

I've gotten shit for suggesting young people should drink more, so be it.

I believe the risks of alcohol to a 25-year-old liver are dwarfed by those of social isolation.

When I go out to bars and clubs, I don't see drunkenness, but togetherness.

My household had little money, but my mom made exceptions.

She bought me Izod shirts, sparry top ciders, and Varnais because she'd heard they were what cool kids wore, and she wanted me to have social capital.

My college girlfriend threatened to stop having sex with me if I didn't quit smoking weed.

My first boss consistently pulled me into conference rooms for brutal feedback.

These connections keep us on track and challenge our worldviews.

Without them, citizens become vulnerable to radical ideas.

A German study linked loneliness to authoritarian political views and conspiracy theories.

As Hannah Arendt wrote, isolation and loneliness are preconditions for tyranny.

A preview of what's to come is to witness the behavior of orcas when they are put in isolation tanks.

Simply put,

they go crazy.

Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts is pushing investment in community infrastructure.

Centers, pools, green spaces, pedestrian malls, You cannot overfund these projects.

Taxpayer-funded Westwood Park gave me a place to play sports and meet kids when I hit a growth spurt and was cut from my high school baseball team.

The best solution?

Mandatory national service after high school.

Uniting young people from different backgrounds in service to something bigger than themselves.

There are glimmers of hope.

The movement to ban smartphones in schools is gaining momentum.

Independent bookstores are staging a comeback.

But as women flock to OnlyFans, many will ditch education and careers for webcams.

There's likely a one in three chance that an attractive young woman without a college degree outside a major city is on OnlyFans.

Meanwhile, men choose frictionless digital connections over challenging but rewarding real ones, foregoing opportunities to find mates, friends, mentors, and business partners.

As millennials and Gen Z tire of dating apps, we're transitioning from a Tinder economy to an OnlyFans economy.

The next frontier?

AI startups like OCHAT, building lifelike digital doubles for spicy fantasies.

I think about my sons, 15 and 18, and the world we are handing them.

A world where human connection has been commoditized, where intimacy is artificial, where young people retreat into digital caves instead of stepping into the messy and rewarding complexity of real relationships.

Being human is not a solo sport.

The loneliness epidemic isn't just killing people at 100 deaths per hour.

It's killing our capacity for joy, for surprise, for the modern encounters that make life worth living.

Every swipe right, every OnlyFans subscription, every AI boyfriend is another step away from the fundamental truth.

We not only need each other to survive, but to really live.

We can keep feeding and ignoring the machine that profits from our isolation, or

we can remember what what it means to be gloriously, beautifully human together.

The most subversive act in the 21st century may not be starting a unicorn,

but showing up, approaching strangers, asking someone out, grasping for their hand.

It's not only fans that will save us,

it's only us.

Life is so rich.

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What's in your wallet?

Support for this show comes from Saks 5th Avenue.

Saks 5th Avenue makes it easy to shop for your personal style.

It's fall and it's time to invest in new arrivals you'll want to wear again and again, like a relaxed Prada blazer and Gucci loafers that are great for work or a weekend rendezvous.

Sacks makes shopping feel totally customized to you, whether that's in person with their in-store stylists or online at Saks.com, where they show you only what you like to shop.

They'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in, or when an item you've been eyeing is back in stock.

For a personalized, easy shopping experience, head to Saks 5th Avenue for the best fall arrivals and style inspiration.