[vernon99]

What I don't get is why Snap never tried to build a good product around that and give creators (uhmm) a good way to monetize their profiles. This seems like such an obvious thing to do to me. Why would you give up on that usage and allow it to move to OnlyFans and other platforms if you already have it? And even more, penalize your audience for such practice. And same question to Instagram team (I left the company a while back so don't know the current thinking). If anybody with insider knowledge can comment even top-level, would be much appreciated.

[RileyJames]

Are there any good examples of product that maintains popularity within youth / teen markets while enabling monetisation of adult content?

It seems near an impossibility.

From a product perspective it would be possible, tho it’d be playing with fire. Very different when young people see adult content and you ban it vs they see the adult content you condone but you didn’t intend them to reach. (And they will try to).

But from the perception perspective, even harder. When adults (some parents) see snap as an adult entertainment product, they are not going to want kids using it. Even if there’s some suitable product barrier between the audiences.

[Loic]

I have kids and I fully agree with your analysis. You do not want a 10 year old to be exposed to pornographic content.

Kids are going to be exposed anyway but better to have exposure at a time where theyhave the maturity to handle it.

Education takes time and is hard. It is very nice as parent to know that my kids have some relatively safe social apps.

[itake]

The status quo is girls (or their marketing teams), randomly "quick add" profiles, exposing minors to their teases and adult content.

You're pretty much guaranteed to see unsolicited prn in sc these days. Just create a fresh account and wait for the random friend requests.

[aaaaaaaaata]

> Are there any good examples of product that maintains popularity within youth / teen markets while enabling monetisation of adult content?

The Internet.

Printed media.

[RileyJames]

I was thinking more specifically than those.

But to your point, google, ddg & reddit are examples that enable both adult and non-adult content to co-exist.

Reddit being a better example of a product that’s targeted to a younger demographic, tho far from exclusively.

[morelikeborelax]

Because they are a public company and institutional shareholders wouldn't let them.

Before going public they wouldn't have been able to pass it by VCs already invested or raise any more capital. OnlyFans has this problem.

Even if they had offered it early they would have struggled the same way OnlyFans did recently over payments, and with no way to police it on their technology probably would have been embattled with media and public perception way worse.

Banks, investors and other companies don't want to deal with Pornography and sex workers despite the massive proliferation online.

They wouldn't have been able to have all their partnerships, generate revenue from other sources or have apps either.

[_fat_santa]

My guess is they feared it would pollute the brand. SNAP's key demo is high school and college aged kids.

[cstejerean]

Probably because being open about allowing adult content will risk advertisers on the rest of the platform and the loss of those advertisers might outweigh the revenue from OnlyFans type profiles.

[52358]

Apple does not allow adult content on the app store. For example, OnlyFans does not have an iOS app as a result. If Snap were to openly embrace adult content, they could risk getting booted from the app store.

[shotta]

Twitter and Reddit (and third party clients like Apollo) are allowed to bypass this.