"Across a four-day span in late August, porn star Siri Dahl invites her followers to "cum on in" on OnlyFans, goes live on YouTube ("100% raw, organic, grass-fed" content, she advertises with a wink), hawks "Corn Star" T-shirts via her personal store, posts about appearing in a live podcast taping of Lovett or Leave It on X, where she has nearly half a million followers, and uploads eight videos to Pornhub."
""It was like five CEOs who completely dictated what was attractive and what kind of person was allowed to become a porn star," she says. "Performers were essentially at the bottom. I'd be on set for 12 hours all for one check, and there are no royalties in porn. The power dynamic was inverted compared to what it is now.""
Porn performers now control production and distribution across multiple platforms, combining subscription sites, free hosting, livestreams, merchandise, and social media to diversify income. The studio-era model offered single payments, no royalties, and limited performer input. Direct-to-fan platforms enable recurring revenue, brand-building, and varied content formats. New age-verification laws impose strict user checks that reduce casual traffic and ad impressions on open platforms, lower ad revenue, and increase friction for viewers. Those laws shift attention toward paywalled platforms for verified audiences but also raise compliance costs and threaten overall discoverability and earnings for many creators.
Read at WIRED
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]