When OnlyFans skyrocketed in popularity in 2020, many believed the platform would solve two major problems: unemployment and women’s safety. It was the middle of a pandemic, and adult workers now had a way to make money from home without risking their safety or being exploited by the industry.
However, it wasn’t just adult entertainers who flocked to the platform.
Influencers started sharing how much they were making from the comfort of their own homes, simply by uploading photos and videos. This caught the attention of people who had lost their jobs or had never seen anything close to that kind of income, making the idea of joining the app more appealing than ever.
In less than a year, it wasn’t just big names from the adult entertainment industry on OnlyFans – we started seeing regular models, huge influencers, and even people we went to school with joining the platform.
All of them were making a lot of money because people were curious to see someone “ordinary” or familiar share that kind of content for a fee.
Thanks to social media and the “empowerment” marketing model the app used, it grew faster than anyone could have imagined.
By the end of 2021, OnlyFans reported nearly $1 billion in revenue – three times what it made in 2020. That made even more people believe it was worth giving a shot. It seemed like the perfect way to make money from home without much effort, or at least that’s what everyone inside the platform said.
But there was a downside. A lot of young women, especially 18-year-olds, started to see this as a way out of a traditional career path. They chose OnlyFans over college or other job options simply because the money seemed too good to pass up. They didn’t always think about the long-term consequences. After all, why go to school or apply for a job when people were making $10,000 just by recording themselves for a couple of hours a day?
For a while, OnlyFans felt like the quickest way to get rich. From the outside, it seemed like a platform to “embrace yourself.” Women took it as a chance to take control of their bodies and enjoy an amazing lifestyle as a result.
But as with anything that grows quickly on the back of hype, OnlyFans eventually started to fade. Today, I can honestly say that the app is finally on its way out.
But why do I think this is the end of OnlyFans? And why, despite it being a source of income for many people, am I glad to see it go?
I’ll explain why.
Why OnlyFans is Dead
Between 2020 and 2021, OnlyFans was everywhere. It was the new thing, and anyone who joined was either seen as empowered or on the path to becoming a millionaire. And even if you weren’t part of the platform, chances were you had at least one influencer in your feed whose content you were curious to see.
When it first took off, being on OnlyFans made you feel ahead of the game. After all, people were already posting intimate content on Instagram, so why not take it a step further and make money from it?
You couldn’t scroll through Twitter or Instagram without seeing a post or tweet about how amazing OnlyFans was. The way the app was marketed made it feel almost too good to be true.
It almost felt like they were trying to glamorize the lifestyle on purpose, making it seem like everything was fine as long as you were making money. But in the end, it was just a clever marketing strategy by the platform’s owners to attract both customers and content creators.
The truth, however, was that only about 10% of creators were actually making more than $1,000 a month on OnlyFans. So, many regular people who joined hoping they could get rich quickly were left disappointed when they didn’t hit the success other influencers promised. As the hype started to fade, reality set in: it wasn’t as easy as the influencers made it seem.
If you didn’t already have a big social media following, weren’t a well-known figure, or didn’t have a strong marketing team behind you, making money on the platform was a huge challenge. People quickly realized that reaching four figures in income took just as much work as any other content creator. But with OnlyFans, the exposure was more personal and vulnerable than on other platforms.
Consumers who had never been into adult content also started to see that paying for exclusive photos from certain creators wasn’t worth it. The pandemic was over, and people were getting back to their normal lives, finding new ways to spend their time and money.
Between 2020 and 2021, it seemed like everyone knew at least one person who paid for OnlyFans. But now, I don’t know anyone who still does.
These days, the average creator is only making about $180 a month. Getting noticed on the platform is incredibly difficult unless you’ve already built a following. Even those who were making five figures a month when it first took off are now struggling to even hit $1,000.
When you think about it, no one talks about OnlyFans as the solution to financial struggles anymore because it never really was. People woke up to the reality that it wasn’t as easy as social media had made it look, and the hype just fizzled out.
One of the things that made the app so popular at first was the novelty of seeing random people—and even celebrities—using it. But now that it’s no longer new, people who aren’t interested in adult content have lost interest in paying for just anyone’s content. And those who are into adult entertainment have simply gone back to following professional performers.
At first, a lot of people saw OnlyFans as an inspiring business success story. News outlets even ran stories about regular women who became millionaires after quitting their day jobs. But now, those stories don’t carry the same weight. People just stopped caring about “the regular teacher who made five figures overnight.”
So, the app has become something we used to know about, but it’s not something we talk about anymore.
Why I’m Happy About It (Even if It Sounds Selfish)
A lot of people jumped into creating content on the platform without fully considering the long-term consequences this could have on their lives.
If you search “the reality of OnlyFans” on YouTube, you’ll find countless stories from women who regret joining the platform. The main reason they got involved in the first place was the promise of “easy money.” Most of them weren’t eager to expose themselves—they just got caught up in the idea that this would solve their financial problems
One former creator shared that social media painted a picture that didn’t match her actual experience. She thought that by making content from home, she’d be safe from predators, but many men found ways to contact her, and she even had to move out of state to escape the attention.
The glamorous lifestyle that influencers often talked about wasn’t there, either. The truth was that 90% of creators didn’t make enough money to cover basic expenses, like paying rent.
Now that we’re seeing the reality of the platform, people are starting to think twice before jumping in just for the money.
The fact that OnlyFans isn’t being talked about as much anymore, and that the idea of “female empowerment” tied to it has faded, is actually a good thing for the women who never wanted to be a part of adult entertainment in the first place. They’re realizing there are other ways to make money and other career paths to consider.
On top of that, the long-term effects of consuming this type of content aren’t positive. It can lead to addiction, isolation, aggression, and self-esteem issues. It can even negatively affect relationships—causing unrealistic expectations, less effort in the relationship, and feelings of insecurity, making people think their partner doesn’t love them enough.
Many people didn’t understand the concept of a “digital footprint” when they first joined the platform. But now, I think more people are becoming aware of it and thinking about the long-term consequences of what they post online.
In 2020, paying for content on OnlyFans might’ve felt like you were supporting someone you admired, but the truth is you were just feeding into a market that’s been harmful for years.
Just because people tried to portray the platform as something positive doesn’t mean it was. It’s like a thief showing off a luxury lifestyle and claiming to use the money to help others—it doesn’t make stealing a good thing. And now that the money isn’t flowing as easily, people are realizing it wasn’t worth the risk.
Finally, as someone who doesn’t consume this type of content, I’ve always found it uncomfortable how some creators have tried to sexualize everything just to sell themselves. I even had to leave Twitter for a while because it felt like all I saw were explicit posts. Every time a tweet went viral—no matter the topic—there’d be at least three comments from OnlyFans creators promoting their accounts.
Prostitution, in any form, should never be seen as the ultimate solution. I’m glad that influencers have stopped glamorizing a lifestyle that isn’t for everyone, just to attract people who probably shouldn’t have been on that platform in the first place.
While it’s great that adult workers found a safer space to work on, the platform should’ve stayed true to its original purpose: a place for adults, not “the quick fix for any young girl looking to make fast money.”
I’m happy to see other social media platforms starting to take control over the content, so not everything is overly sexualized anymore. I like browsing X or Instagram without being bombarded by models doing extreme things to grab attention. I can follow women for their fashion sense again without worrying if they’ll suddenly start promoting their OnlyFans accounts.
It also gives me peace of mind knowing that teenage girls are no longer rushing to turn 18 just to join this app without understanding the long-term consequences that could come from it.
