So, I have a different take. Based on the fact that MC and other processors were starting to push back on the narrative that OnlyFans was pushing. OnlyFans was leaning into this perception that the card processors were the problem for them to continue with their current policies, but there's a ton of holes in that. The problem was ACTUALLY that OnlyFans weren't making as much profit as they'd hoped for the size their platform had grown to.

Key number is: $2bil. That's the amount OnlyFans claimed in overall transaction activity last fiscal year. Math is easy, and at 20% cut, that means OF made 400mil in fees. They pivoted that into a search for venture capital to grow their platform, because 400mil was not commiserate in their minds with the size of the platform they had created.

To secure capital you need several things: promise of growth, and competition among investors looking to get in at the ground floor (their notion of where they are). You create investor competition by soliciting additional investors (more than those initially interested in you). And you do THAT by promising to expand your platform further into the mainstream of users (promising to lessen the image of a being a vulgar sex shop).

OF announced they were soliciting venture capital way back in March or earlier, and they announced these policy changes, I think, in May. The sudden hype over the approaching October deadline was a combination of media rags jumping on the story and playing up the victimization angle "think of the poor whores!" and sensation of another PornHub or Tumblr situation... whatever made sense in the writer's mind in that moment.

OnlyFans, to some credit, were taking a relatively high-road in all of this, announcing austere policies for an indeterminate future, and privately assuring their biggest account holders that the policies wouldn't affect them as much as it seemed. Check out ItsAGundam's coverage of this, he lightly delves into the rumor mill of some insiders who contacted him and others in the media to tell them this was OF blowing smoke and they were privately assuring big accounts to hang tight, because it'd all work out fine in the end. This is supported by the very real problem of crime on the platform that a surprising few articles in the media were written about.

This is probably the biggest red-flag to me. The media weren't going after OF on the basis of child exploitation, sex-crime, human and drug trafficking, bestiality, or the host of other head-spinning examples that had provably happened, been prosecuted, and in some instances, continued. There were also the very light rumors from ex-employees that OF were complicit in the criminal behavior because they didn't want to scare anyone off by "over moderating." If OF was the enemy, truly, they'd have been tarred as evil, corrupt exploitation peddlers, but they weren't by-and-large. Cynically, I think that was being kept as a kind of blackmail if the OF situation went the wrong way in the end. The media picked their darlings, the thots, and if ultimately they lost, THEN they'd come after OF with cannons blazing and ruin whatever was left as a warning to others.

Then you come to a very big one. OF put out a blog post recently that actually named "the problem" as being payment handlers. MasterCard immediately fired back that this was a lie. That was super strange, because MC historically has not shied away from the idea that they are the taste police, but in this instance they straight up denied it and said OF were full of shit. I think this is because, primarily, this WAS a lie. This was OF leaning into the narrative that had emerged to seem as less of a bad guy and more of a victim. Secondly, for the same reason, MC pushed back hard because OF had never been on the wrong side of the media, fundamentally, they weren't a "social ill" they wanted to remedy in the way that blowing up amateur porn producers who were a threat to established porn producers was (what PornHub was really about).

So what is the main outcome? I think OF got their venture capital investment. The investors they found did not have a problem with funding a sex shop, but having competed with other investors (who potentially did and were attracted by the casualization angle OF were selling briefly) their value commit went up (possibly, maybe it didn't, but I think this was the game OF were trying to play). OF gets to (try to) blame an external force (MasterCard) and people who already thought that's what this was will continue to believe that despite whatever MC says. OF gets to play the victorious hero who fought hard for those poor fragile prostitutes and got them a good deal so they could stay, finally.

It was a risky game, that could still go wrong. Especially if someone powerful feels like they got shafted by the chicanery. But I think, it was always just a game.