How platform firms underestimate porn actors and rideshare drivers alike

At a porn shoot in California's San Fernando Valley, a performer we'll call Jake explains why he got into the industry after dabbling in escorting. He says he was drawn to porn work due to freedom he finds as an independent contractor.

He works a mean of 10 to fifteen hours per week and spends the remaining of his time at home along with his wife and son. The neatest thing about his job, he says, is that he can leave at any time: “I don’t have anyone responsible for me.”

Jake – consistent with standard research practice in our field, we’ve got referred to everyone in this text by pseudonyms – is way from the one employee in his field who enjoys being his own boss. With the rise of subscription-based platforms like OnlyFans lately, the porn industry has grown transformed right into a hybrid labor market: Artists often produce their very own content for online subscribers while also working for traditional studios.

Across the country, near Detroit, a strikingly similar conversation takes place with Jamir, the driving force who gives him a ride. Unlike traditional office staff, who Jamir describes as being “in a Matrix-type situation,” “holding on to their job, holding on to their time,” he sees himself as “seeing the whole world.” He emphasizes the pliability and earning potential of driving, saying, “If I need $1,000 in a week, I can get it.”…At a job, I couldn't do this without tons of time beyond regulation and permits.”

While Jake and Jamir's every day work is different, the incentives, risks, and pressures of their jobs are surprisingly similar. We know this because, how a sociologist And an organizational theoristwe’ve got spent years researching the porn industry/ride-hailing industry. We examined OnlyFans and the studio-based porn industry, ride-sharing platforms like Lyft and Uber, and other gig platforms like TaskRabbit, Instacart, and DoorDash.

And by “learning” we don’t just mean the sort you do within the library. As a tribute to one among the forefathers of sociology, Robert Park, We got the seat of our pants dirty by speaking on to, observing and even collaborating with people like Jake and Jamir. We interviewed a whole bunch of staff and observed these industries up close, from helping film OnlyFans shoots in forged members' bedrooms to ferrying passengers around town.

One of our most interesting findings is that porn actors and rideshare drivers often enter their industries for a similar reason: autonomy. While autonomy can mean various things, for these staff it typically means flexible work schedules, the power to set their very own overall income, and the liberty to show down bad job offers.

OnlyFans and other gig platforms promise staff autonomy. An OnlyFans ad warns would-be YouTubers: “Make money doing what you love while using our features” and “Set your own price,” while Uber and Lyft ads entice drivers to “Be your own boss” and “Make money on your own schedule.”

But do these platforms deliver what they promise?

The illusion of worker autonomy

When Jake is asked if he has ever walked out of a porn shoot, he admits he hasn't.

Likewise, Jamir admits that he generally accepts any ride request and is “here to make money.”

While Jake and Jamir could theoretically turn down work or quit a gig, doing so could be a costly move.

As independent contractors, each employees Many protective measures are missing of employees; The next gig is rarely guaranteed. In the porn industry, where people move between different studio sets each day and independently produce shoots for OnlyFans, fame spreads through gossip. Rejecting or canceling a gig can harm an artist's prospects. On other gig platforms, employee reputations are sometimes made visible through app reviews affect their likelihood of being suitable for future gigs.

Jake and Jamir face the identical illusion of scheduling flexibility: They've escaped the dreaded 9-to-5 workplace and, as independent contractors, can supposedly turn down any job. However, when that is the case, platforms and others involved of their work have mechanisms in place to punish them.

First, gig platforms, like traditional gatekeepers like agents and directors, can blacklist staff by creating the impression that they’re unavailable or less available for work. Platforms can demote those that refuse rides or ordersby assigning them to lower paying or lower quality games. For example, Salvatore, a New York City driver, accuses a ride-hailing company of depriving him of income by only arranging out-of-town rides at times of high demand.

On other gig platforms like Upwork or TaskRabbit, search engine algorithms can construct profiles of those staff less visible to customers. Workers often report being frustrated because they don't understand how the algorithms that manage them make decisions that impact their livelihoods.

OnlyFans represents an implicit contrast to those gig platforms and social media platforms in its marketing: “OnlyFans has zero algorithms. Your fans see everything you post.” But OnlyFans doesn’t exempt porn actors from algorithms. Due to limited search functionality, performers must rely heavily on other social media platforms and their algorithms to drive traffic to their OnlyFans accounts.

Even porn actors usually are not exempt from the blacklist. Porn actors who juggle their work between OnlyFans and studios use agents for studio bookings. Performers often report that agents blacklist those that refuse filming or otherwise prove noncompliant by telling directors that the performer is just not available on requested days.

Second, gig platforms can “deplatform” employees by removing content and employees from their app. Ride-hailers often complain about being locked out of the app while the corporate “investigates” customer complaints. often customer fraudand have hardly any opportunity to take part in this process, let alone any recourse. (When asked about this issue, an Uber spokesperson said the corporate had done so recent steps taken to make its deactivation processes fairer.)

Another driver, James, tells us he was suspended all of sudden when the app informed him that a customer had accused him of sexual misconduct. Three days later, after countless unanswered messages and useless phone calls, with lack of income, he was reinstated. The platform said it made a mistake when attempting to report one other driver's account.

OnlyFans may portray itself as an ally of content creators and declare that it’s different from algorithmically mediated gig platforms, nevertheless it and other social media platforms similarly remove certain content and content creators that allegedly violate policies on explicit and obscene content violate and supply them steadily vague reasons for this.

In extreme cases, platforms can push entire classes of staff off the platform. In 2021, OnlyFans notoriously announced that each one pornographic accounts were removed, in what was widely seen as an attempt to rework the platform right into a mainstream social media company. After widespread backlash from its content creators, the corporate reversed that call five days later.

Sasha, a porn actress who’s in the highest 1% of OnlyFans content creators, earning over $400,000 a 12 months, points to the “fear”: “I spotted I shouldn’t put all my eggs in a single basket. She tried to cut back her financial dependence on OnlyFans by creating accounts on rival platforms like Fansly, which marketed itself as a porn worker-friendly alternative. But Sasha estimates that over 90% of her income still comes from OnlyFans, while her Fansly earnings peaked at around 3%.

OnlyFans' monopoly on subscription-based porn platforms puts even performers like Sasha, who’ve earned lucrative income on the platform, in a precarious position.

Platforms can further marginalize staff

The unfulfilled promise of autonomy affects probably the most marginalized and vulnerable members of the workforce.

In the ride-hailing industry, it's often drivers Men of color, Many of them are first generation immigrants. Depending on the platform's income and with limited outside options, these employees are more reluctant to make waves and challenge the platform's authority, even when they might navigate the byzantine call center trees and robo-support messages.

Likewise, within the porn industry, female performers are particularly susceptible to being blacklisted or banned from the platform. porn consumers, most of them They discover as heterosexual men, view male actors as mere props in a scene, and yet demand a relentless rotation of “fresh faces” female actors. We found that this implies male artists can work for a similar studio more often and rely less on agents for networking. In contrast, female artists see agents as essential to creating contacts with latest studios.

Female performers can grow to be more independent from their agents by concurrently creating content on OnlyFans. However, this makes them more depending on a platform that tends to impose unpredictable and arbitrarily enforced policies regarding acceptable content.

Our immersion within the porn and ride-hailing industries brought us to a Kafkaesque conclusion: Workers join these labor markets to flee “the man,” only to search out that the person is captured by the usually opaque logic of platforms and their Algorithms were replaced.