August 26, 2021

Why platforms aren't your friends: OnlyFans edition

I've linked to Dan Olson's excellent YouTube video, "Why platforms aren't your friends," before. If you haven't watched it yet, you should, because the points he raises are equally applicable to Vidme (the specific platform he's examining) as they are to any other platform that's trying to lure content creators into joining them, including the Epic Game Store... and, yes, OnlyFans.

OnlyFans, for those who haven't been paying attention, recently made headlines by doing a Tumblr, shedding an unknown portion of their market value by banning the sexually-explicit creators whose content had been propelling the platform's success in the first place. Tumblr dropped from a value of $1.1 billion when they were first bought by Yahoo, to $3 million when they were resold by Yahoo a few years later, after having banned porn creators from the platform, a drop of 99.73%, OnlyFans' losses probably aren't that dire just yet, but the trend is already clearly similar.

For OnlyFans to decide that they also want to follow this path is, to say the least, somewhat baffling, but Olson's video gives some insights:

  1. OnlyFans clearly did not know which content creators/contributors (CCs) they wanted to attract at launch, and made no effort to attract any type of CC in particular. This, naturally, resulted in them attracting CCs who were being kicked off other platforms... and, given the nature of the service they provide (i.e. a somewhat intimate interaction between CCs and their followers), that mostly meant creators of sexually suggestive and/or sexually explicit content. 
    • This could have gone very badly; other platforms that launched with no clear idea who they want as CCs have ended up being a haven for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, domestic terrorists, grifters and con artists. OnlyFans were very lucky: they ended up attracting sex workers.
  2. Having realized that their platform was attracting sex workers, OnlyFans did nothing to discourage them, instead choosing to profit from their presence while basically turning a blind eye to that presence. They were aided in this wilful blindness by OnlyFans' lack of discoverability and content moderation tools. 
    • The feature set your platform launches with is your statement of values; these are the things you care the most about, and which you spend time and money developing before you even went live, to ensure that they'd be baked into the platform going forward. OnlyFans did not have features; they did not value anything, except money. 
  3. Having profited from the presence of sex workers, but valuing nothing except money, OnlyFans then decided to chase even more money, by jettisoning the sex workers who'd made them successful in the first place. The backlash was swift, and clearly damaging. Sex workers, having been told that they and the money they earn for OnlyFans are not welcome, began moving to other platforms like JustForFans and Fansly.
    •  We're all just friends... until there's a windfall of investor money on the line, at which point fuck you. We're friends... until we're not friends.

Which brings us to now, and the desperate back-pedalling of OnlyFans, as reported by WIRED:

Less than a week after OnlyFans announced plans to ban porn from its platform due to pressure from its banking partners, the subscription site announced Wednesday that decision may have been premature. Instead of eliminating sexually explicit content on the site, the company said in a tweet, it had “secured [the] assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community,” and “suspended” its policy change, which was slated to go into effect on October 1.

This seems like a reversal of their terrible, greed-fuelled decision, but look more closely; OnlyFans are not cancelling the policy change, or acknowledging the value of sex workers to their platform. Instead, they're only "suspending" the policy change; this gives the impression that they haven't given up on it entirely, rather just wanting a break from the backlash and time to regroup.

[...] many creators who scrambled to find alternatives in the wake of last week’s announcement do not see this turnaround as a victory. “If this is a win, it’s a temporary one,” says Anshuman Iddamsetty, a nonbinary creator who uploads content dedicated to fat pleasure under the psuedonym Boarlord. “I’ve never seen a platform reverse course like this ever. The language they chose in their announcement worries me. ‘Suspend’ doesn’t instill confidence. And they refused to mention sex workers or erotic laborers by name—they went back to the careful doublespeak of ‘creator’ and ‘all genres.’ We’re long past the point of dancing around the stakes. The porn ban could return October 2nd.”

Boarlord isn't the only OnlyFans CC who finds this seeming retreat to be less than adequate; others are continuing their moves to competing platforms.

All of this was predictable; OnlyFans had the cautionary tale of Tumblr to warn them. But they refused to heed the lessons of history; refused to codify into their platform's structure that sex workers are not only valuable, but welcome; and they are still refusing to admit that they don't have a business without these creators of sexually suggestive and explicit content. And so, OnlyFans are losing them, along with the revenue they earned, and have thoroughly sabotaged any value they might have had to any other potential stake-holders, including both creators of the content (without which they have no product to sell) and investors. Welcome to Tumblr territory.

So, what can OnlyFans do to repair things? At this point, probably nothing. This is another point from Olsen's video: by the time you've realized what sort of a platform you've accidentally ended up with, it's already too late to change. OnlyFans is so thoroughly associated with porn that it's become something of a meme; YouTubers joke about creating an OnlyFans to offset declining Adsense revenue. Nobody else is going to want to associate their brand with OnlyFans; sex workers were the only people for whom the OnlyFans brand was valuable. Now, it's not even valuable to them, and OnlyFans' waffling has already hurt them:

“Workers still lost subscribers in this confusion,” says artist and adult content creator Trapcry. “I think they changed their minds, not for the sake of sex workers, but because they realized the backlash would hurt their pockets more in the long run.”

Trust is a delicate thing. It takes a lot of hard work to build it, and only moments to lose it forever. OnlyFans haven't even begun to do the work which would be required to rebuild trust with their content contributor community; until they do, they will only be able to watch helplessly as that community heads for the exits. 

Tumblr is still hanging on, as are Vidme, and Vimeo, and any number of other essentially failed platforms. I expect that OnlyFans will join their ranks: earning just enough money to keep the lights on, but not attracting enough traffic to grow again, and never again attracting a content contributor community that anyone would want to be associated with, even for the memes. 

Because OnlyFans still don't have any apparent values except money; they still don't have a statement of values, i.e. a feature set, which would set them apart; they still haven't explicitly stated who they want on the platform, or what they're doing to attract those people to the platform, or to retain them.  

As Olson puts it, the charitable reading that they were simply unprepared; the less charitable reading is that they were rent-seekers, internet grifters looking to make some money off the hard work of others... and the internet already has enough of those.

Labels: , , , ,

August 06, 2021

Epic v. Apple: Round Two. Fight!

Much as Activision Blizzard have deservedly dominated video gaming news for the past few weeks (and look like they'll continue to do so), it bears remembering that ABK aren't the only video game company behaving badly. Tim Sweeney's Epic Games, who:

yes, that Epic; they're still in court, and apparently it's now Apple's turn to start firing back, and whoo boy! are the details ever fun to read.

As reported by PC Gamer:

Various documents have been coming out from the ongoing Apple vs Epic legal case in the state of California, and here's a full rundown of the core of Apple's (pretty decent) defense [...] Apple's lawyers executed what one can only call a drive-by on the Epic Games Store, which Epic's lawyers had been claiming was comparable to the App Store.

"Epic Games Store is unprofitable and not comparable to the App Store" the lawyers began, rather bluntly, "and will not be profitable for at least multiple years, if ever." Ouch! 

Ouch, indeed! 

Apple's legal eagles are just getting started, though -- now it's time to break down just how far from profitable the EGS is:

"Epic lost around $181 million on EGS in 2019. Epic projected to lose around $273 million on EGS in 2020. Indeed, Epic committed $444 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone, while projecting, even with 'significant' growth, only $401 million in revenue for that year. Epic acknowledges that trend will continue in the immediate future: Epic projects to lose around $139 million in 2021."

[...]

"Epic lost around $181 million on EGS in 2019. Epic projected to lose around $273 million on EGS in 2020. Indeed, Epic committed $444 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone, while projecting, even with 'significant' growth, only $401 million in revenue for that year. Epic acknowledges that trend will continue in the immediate future: Epic projects to lose around $139 million in 2021."

[...]

"At best, Epic does not expect EGS to have a cumulative gross profit before 2027."

But wait! There's more!

Part of Epic's case against Apple is that it wants the ability to have the Epic Games Store on iOS, and the other reason it keeps bringing the store up is that Epic's commission rate on the store is 12%. This is rather neatly countered by the observation that, well, iOS and the Epic Games Store are two entirely different things: "While Epic’s commission is lower than Apple’s, it does not offer all the services that Apple provides. EGS is essentially a storefront—it lacks the integrated features that make the App Store a desirable platform for consumers and developers."

The Apple wonks end by pointing out that Epic's basis for claiming exclusionary conduct from Apple is that the iOS store was not designed to host other stores. Which, I mean, of course it was. "Epic’s allegations thus depend on the notion that Apple’s design and implementation of its own intellectual property can constitute exclusionary conduct. That theory fails as a matter of law."

Now, this is the part where I say, for the record, that I am not a lawyer. Even if I were a lawyer, it would Canadian law I'd be practicing, not California contract law. That said... that looks pretty devastating to me, as far as Epic's case goes.

As I said at the top of this post, I have serious problems with the way Epic went about bringing this suit in the first place. The obvious bad faith that preceded their removal from Apple's App Store just rubbed me raw; the fact that a PR campaign, aimed squarely at Fortnite players, for some reason, was all prepped and ready to go before the removal had even happened speaks pretty clearly to what their intentions had been right off the jump. As a matter of principle, I don't think the courts should be rewarding Epic for that behaviour.

The second problem deals with Epic's creative definition of the word "monopoly" in this context, one which even they admit is on shaky legal ground... while also admitting that current anti-trust law in the U.S. probably doesn't cover the App Store in its current form. So bringing an an anti-trust suit against Apple is, essentially, legally frivolous, since Epic knew from the outset that the law wasn't on their side.

That left only the claim that Apple's 30% cut of the proceeds of App Store sales was excessive and unfair... a claim for which Epic also had no evidence, unless one counts their own Game Store... which, yes, only takes a 12% cut, but is losing money hand-over-fist, with no end in sight for at least another six years. I can see why Epic want the California court system to order Apple, and Google, and Valve to chop their own revenues by two-thirds, reducing them from profitable businesses to money-losing enterprises that the EGS might hope to catch up to, but again, I don't think the courts should be rewarding Epic that richly for bringing what looks like an utterly frivolous, money-and-time-wasting legal action.

Ethically, Epic have acted in bad faith and deserve to lose this one. Legally, it looks like Epic have no case, and deserve to lose this one. And, given how weak Epic's case has looked so far, especially compared to the can of whoop-ass that Apple's legal team just opened up on them... I have a feeling that they're going to lose this one.

Prognostication

I'm calling it now: In the matter Epic v. Apple, the latter will prevail, and Epic will end up adding Apple's legal and court costs to their non-stop Game Store losses. The only reason Tim Sweeney isn't sweating the outcome of this doomed legal adventure is that he is Epic's majority shareholder, and thus can't be fired or reigned in by Epic's board of directors in any meaningful way.

Incidentally... Epic's suit against Google? It's probably weaker that their suit against Apple, since Google only allow the installation of apps outside of Google Play (Apple don't); Epic actually went that route, initially bypassing Google entirely, with no restrictions or retribution from Google over the matter. It's tough to argue monopoly when the alleged monopolist have gone out of their way to create and maintain Android as an open platform, on which users can do basically anything they want. I predict that Epic will lose that case, too.

And, yes, that thought does make me just a little bit happy. 

#FuckEpicGames

Updated Aug. 29th, 2021

We're still waiting for the judge to decide Epic v Apple, but in the meantime, and for people who find my layman's take on these matters less than satisfying, here's a much more expert opinion, from an actual lawyer:

An Antitrust Epic (Playlist)

Now, whether or not you agree with Richard Hoeg (I don't always), I did find it interesting that he had all the same problems with the details of Epic's case, and the ethics of Epic's approach to this matter, that I did. The "pot calls kettle black" nature of Epic, whose own Game Store has been profoundly anticompetitive from its inception, arguing that Apple's App Store is anticompetitive for doing much, much less, feels like hyperbole at the very least, if not outright hypocrisy, and I can't recall if ever I called that out, specifically.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

August 03, 2021

Activision Blizzard's crisis of systemic abuse finally delivers its first high-profile resignation

Like many, I've been watching the unfolding story of Activision Blizzard's crisis of failed leadership and resulting employee abuse with horrified fascination. From:

  • the moment that the details of the court papers were reported out, complete with butt plug business trips and at least one employee harassed to the point of suicide; 
  • through the abhorrent, insulting initial responses to the lawsuit from ATVI's leaders, who mostly seemed to think they could bluff their way out of this one; 
  • to the apparent reasonableness of Bobby Kotick's official response to the whole mess, which initially tried to at least strike the right tone, although it later turned out to be the announcement that he'd hired union-busting law firm WilmerHale to staunch the bleeding of ATVI's legal liability, and didn't appear to be much concerned with actually improving the situation for employees at all;

ATVI's flailing responses have demonstrated, as clearly as anything could, that the leadership of that company see employees as interchangeable and essentially disposable and easily replaced, and care only for limiting their own costs. That shouldn't have been a surprise; the aforementioned Bobby Kotick just finished pocketing $155 million USD in bonuses following a year in which he also laid off nearly a thousand employees, not because ATVI didn't need people doing those jobs, but rather because they wanted cheaper people doing those jobs.

I've avoided commenting on the situation though, simply because I didn't feel like I really had much to add to the conversation. What does one say? Yes, the details are horrifying. They are also not surprising; women in the video game industry have been complaining about these same problems for a long time now; only specific details were missing, details which we now have. 

It seems to me that ATVI is a fish that's been rotting from the head down for a long time now. The fact that so many more lurid, damning details are still coming out, now that the press has actually started digging, would seem to indicate that there's basically no end of this insanity. Seriously, guys, a Cosby Suite? One company demanded a Misogyny Tax before doing business with you, and told you why, and had you barred from Black Hat, and you still didn't see any reason to actually take a real look at yourselves until now?

And the failures of leadership just keep coming! Fran Townsend, now billed as "Activision Blizzard's Torture Apologist Executive," has responded to Bobby Kotick's promise that leadership were listening to employees by blocking those same employees on Twitter. Not a good look.

And so, with all of this swirling, and with ATVI's share price dropping by 12% and counting in less than a month, the next thing that I expected to see was for rats to start fleeing this obviously sinking ship. It's too late for them to avoid having the stench of this follow them to other gigs; even people like Mike Morhaime and Chris Metzen, who'd left ATVI before the scandal broke, have seen their legacy indelibly tarnished by the failures of their own leadership here; after all, most of the behaviour described in those court filings happened while they were in charge. 

But still, I was waiting for someone with a greater sense of shame than Fran, or maybe just less intestinal fortitude, to decide that it was time to "spend more time with family," or to "pursue new opportunities," or some similarly meaningless PR pablum phrase. The only remaining mystery was: which rat would flee the sinking ship first?

Well, today we have the answer to that question, and it turns out to be no less a person than Blizzard president J. Allen Brack. Yikes.

From Blizzard.com's own announcement:

Starting today, J. Allen Brack will be stepping down as the leader of the studio, and Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will co-lead Blizzard moving forward [...] The following is a message from J. Allen Brack:

“I am confident that Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will provide the leadership Blizzard needs to realize its full potential and will accelerate the pace of change. I anticipate they will do so with passion and enthusiasm and that they can be trusted to lead with the highest levels of integrity and commitment to the components of our culture that make Blizzard so special.”

There's also a lot of investor-friendly boilerplate about how Oneal and Ybarra are totally qualified to do this job, and how they'll do a great job, so there's no reason at all for shareholders to be taken aback by the fact that Blizzard's president resigned suddenly with immediate effect in the midst of a leadership crisis; you can read the full text there if you like. We'll "hear more from Jen and Mike soon," apparently, and I for one can't wait to hear how they plan to set about "rebuilding [our] trust."

But for the moment, let's ignore them, and focus on the fleeing rat du jour. Brack is not, apparently, being fired for having done a terrible job leading Blizzard, although he would appear to have done a terrible job leading Blizzard. He's not resigning to take responsibility for his failures to ensure that Blizzard employees had a safe and inclusive place in which to work, although he's clearly failed on that front, too. No, according to reporting from Jason Schreier, Brack is leaving to "pursue new opportunities," as per an internal email announcing his departure. Not an email from Brack, though; the email came from Daniel Alegre, who is apparently Activision Blizzard's president (Brack was only Blizzard's president).

As Schrier points out, it's noteworthy that Oneal and Ybarra are designated as "co-leaders" of Blizzard, not "co-presidents" of Blizzard. Apparently, they've been given a typically corporate bullshit opportunity to take on more responsibility, but without actually having any more authority, or more pay, or even proper titles, for their trouble. It's pretty clear that "Bobby" will be the one issuing marching orders to his new Blizzard hench-people. I am not sanguine about the possibility of meaningful reform happening, but I suppose we'll see.

The other noteworthy detail here? Brack hasn't, apparently, penned or posted a proper farewell letter to Blizzard's employees, or even Blizzard's fans, the way Morhaime and Metzen both did when they left. I wonder why that might be?

One thing seems clear. WilmerHale have a row to hoe if they're to stop the bleeding here. Because Activision Blizzard's ongoing scandal has become exactly the type of scandal that someone embroiled in the scandal hates to see: one being kept alive, and in the headlines, by a steady drip-feed of new, lurid, details.

Drip. Cosby Suite. Drip. Misogyny tax. Drip. Blizzard's president suddenly resigns, but without actually speaking about the scandal in his resignation statement, and without bidding a proper farewell to Blizzard employees and fans. Drip, drip, drip.

UPDATED: 

Activision Blizzard's"Senior People Officer," Jesse Meschuk, has also stepped down. As reported by Bloomberg:

A human-resources executive, Jesse Meschuk, also left the company this week, according to an Activision Blizzard spokesperson. Meschuk was the senior people officer at Blizzard and the unit’s top HR representative.

There are no specific details as to exactly when or why Meschuk stepped down, and no statement was issued at the time, but it appears that Meschuk may actually have beaten Brack out the door. 

Drip, drip, drip...

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)