Bella Thorne, OnlyFans and the battle over monetising content - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53979625 <comment><USER2> For years, I was profoundly puzzled by people that are willing to give hundreds -- if not thousands -- of dollars to (mostly women) they'll never meet for what's basically freely available offline. I saw a very interesting mini-documentary on YouTube[0] not too long ago that kind of opened my eyes. The idea here is that places like Onlyfans, and to a lesser extent Twitch, monetize loneliness via parasocial relationships[1]. This is _fundamentally_ different than being a fan of, say, an actress like Emma Stone, or an athlete like LeBron James.

Viewers (the subject) actually _believe_ they have a relationship with the object (be they a pro gamer or scantily-clad model). To most well-adjusted folks with a healthy social circle, this seems kind of nuts, but parasocial relationships have a long and sordid history -- starting with the invention of the "fireside chat" on radio. Loneliness is a powerful motivator and the psychology here is profoundly interesting. At the end of the day, I'd say places like Onlyfans end up being net negatives for both the models as well as the fans. It's a bit sick that the internet -- the very thing which was supposed to bring people _together_ \-- ends up cannibalizing its own.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djMojvschs0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djMojvschs0)

[1] [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20...](https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100305809)

<comment> compiler-guy The economics of entertainment (and that is what an only-fans account is: entertainment) don't follow this cold calculation of value.

A single ticket to an NBA playoff game ranges from about $150 to over $5,000 (back when you could go).

You can see the game for effectively free at home, with better commentary, exactly the snacks you want and all of that.

A night at the symphony or opera starts--starts--at $50 a ticket, and can go to $1500 easily. After the show is over, it's over, and all you have is a memory.

Good seats at a popular rock concert are easily $250. You can get the mp3 for next to nothing, and it will be a better recording too.

Even just a movie these days starts at almost $20.

And yet people still fork out the money. It isn't just the show itself that they are paying for, it is the entire experience. The interaction, being part of the crowd, a crowd. Many things.

The value captured by an entertainment here isn't just the bits of the picture.

And I say this as someone who would never, ever pay for the content I know of on only fans. But I have sunk a lot of money into the other things on the above list.

<comment><USER2> > and that is what an only-fans account is: entertainment

While trivially true, this is extremely reductive. People don't attend basketball games, operas, or go eat at Michelin star restaurants because they're _lonely_. People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are.

<comment><USER3> > People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are [lonely].

Speaking of being reductive...

Consider the possibility that people also do it because they enjoy the interaction they get out of it, however shallow and/or fleeting.

The same way some people pay top dollar for a "meet and greet" with rock stars or athletes before a show or game, where you get to shake hands, take selfies and trade platitudes with famous people and then they never see you or think of you again.

People donate to streams to hear the streamer thank them or call them out by name or interact with them, in some manner, for some amount of time.

I'm not saying loneliness is not a factor, but it's definitely not the only factor. Like everything else to do with human interactions, it's complicated.

<comment><USER4> >People donate to streams to hear the streamer thank them or call them out by name or interact with them, in some manner, for some amount of time.

Let's get one more accusation of reductiveness in here.

You are still viewing it through a lens of parasocial behavior. The token thanks isn't the only motivating factor. People don't donate to NPR just to get tote bags. They donate because they recognize the content has both value and costs. Those donations are part of recognizing that value and supporting future content creation. The same applies to streaming. Some donations are a means of thanking the streamer and providing them with both a means and a motivation to continue making content.

The interactive nature of the content on a site like Twitch doesn't necessarily make it any different than non-interactive content you might find on a site like Patreon.

<comment><USER2> > People don't donate to NPR just to get tote bags. [...] The interactive > nature of the content on a site like Twitch doesn't necessarily make it any > different than non-interactive content you might find on a site like > Patreon.

Comparing someone like Pokimane or Amouranth to NPR is laughably disingenuous. There are _amazing_ content creators out there (ranging from math, to dance, to music, to films, to politics) that _don 't_ exploit parasocial relationships with their audience. Onlyfans is, arguably, positioned to _specifically_ exploit parasocial relationships.

<comment><USER4> I'm not comparing their content. I am comparing their business models. I don't see many differences between the business model of NPR and many Twitch streamers. They give their content away for free knowing most people will never pay for it, they ask for donations knowing only a small percentage would be willing to donate, and they give donators a few token gifts as a thank you.

You admit yourself there are "amazing content creators out there... that don't exploit parasocial relationships" so why are you judging everyone by the standards of the worst examples you can find? That is why you were also accused of being reductive.

<comment><USER2> > You admit yourself there are "amazing content creators out there... that > don't exploit parasocial relationships" so why are you judging everyone by > the standards of the worst examples you can find? That is why you were also > accused of being reductive.

Because the article is about Onlyfans and Bella Thorne: a platform (and a creator) that leverages parasocial interaction. It's not like models make Onlyfans accounts to fund their science and math YouTube channels.

<comment><USER4> The conversation grew beyond talking specifically about Bella Thorne or Onlyfans in part becomes of comments like yours from a few posts back:

>People donate thousands to streamers and models because they are [lonely].

So once again you are making generalizations about this business model and the people who participate in it because of the worst examples you can find. Maybe that means Onlyfans and other similar services need more moderation, but it doesn't mean this business model is unethical or inherently preys on the lonely.

Also AFAIA the only real difference between Onlyfans and Patreon is that one allows adult content. I am having a hard time understanding why someone would be against one and not the other unless the reason was due to some ingrained prudishness. Is there any difference between the two that I am missing?

<comment><USER2> > Also AFAIA the only real difference between Onlyfans and Patreon is that one > allows adult content. I am having a hard time understanding why someone > would be against one and not the other unless the reason was due to some > ingrained prudishness. Is there any difference between the two that I am > missing?

Yeah, I guess I should've been more clear.

I don't think that the only difference between the two is that Onlyfans merely "allows adult content." Onlyfans is specifically aimed towards monetizing parasocial behavior (why you buy private messaging rights[1], etc.). Patreon is a way meant to support creators. I sub on Patreon to several creators, but there was no parasocial element: I didn't pretend to be someone's friend and no one sold me on that.

[1] [https://blog.onlyfans.com/5-content-tips-to-keep-your- fans-h...](https://blog.onlyfans.com/5-content-tips-to-keep-your-fans-happy/)

<comment><USER4> From that link:

>3\. ENGAGE

>Importantly, as with your existing social platforms, make sure you engage and interact with your fans, as it's a two way street. Using this to your advantage enables you to create a more personalised experience and strengthen the bond between you and your fans. OnlyFans private messaging facility puts your fans in direct contact with you, and you can ask what they would like to see. This way you can tailor your plan to give fans more of what they want. Asking fans what they most want will help you understand their preferences and you can build the most popular requests into your plan.

I don't think anything listed here is advice that is specific to Onlyfans. Engagement is generally good for all creators.

I have also supported numerous creators on Patreon, mostly podcasters. Not every creator on Patreon follows this advice. There are certainly some that setup a clear one way transactional relationship in which you donate money and they give you content. However I have subscribed to creators that prioritize interacting with their patrons. That has included live interactive patron-only streams, Q&As, as well as fielding requests for specific content. Patreon also does have private messaging, but I have never used that functionality before so I don't know all the details.

I don't get the impression that all engagement is meant to fool me into thinking that the creator is my friend. I don't think that necessarily would change if the content creators were taking off their clothes versus talking into a microphone. It is really all up to how the creator wants to handle their business. Some like Bella Thorne might do so unethically. That doesn't mean every creator will take that approach.

<comment><USER2> Let's not mince words: the fact that the platform itself supports features like "private messaging" \-- when most creators are attractive women in their 20s and most subscribers are men in their 30s and 40s -- is kind of a red flag. The staunch libertarian in me says "who cares, let people do whatever" but I do think it's a net negative overall (not to mention quite sad).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are 2 very different reasons for using OnlyFans. 1\. Sex workers are using it to offer a luxury service (The Girlfriend Experience) to clients, virtually. It's taking something that used to be only available to the very wealthy and making it scalable. 2\. Celebrities like Bella Thorne, Tana Mongeau and Cardi B are using it as a means of publicity, similar to the sex tape strategy used by Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton.

(There's a good doc about this on Youtube here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsK_6VSmlMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsK_6VSmlMI))

<comment><USER6> I though that for Kim Kardashian it was about riding the wave of a fake sex tape and for Paris Hilton an actual leak she didn't profit from (similarly to Jennifer Lawrence)

<comment><USER5> Everyone claims that it was leaked, but both of the sex tapes were timed to come out during the first season of Keeping up with the Kardashians and the first season of The Simple Life.

Life has a lot of coincidences, but the real question is- were they making lemonade from lemons OR is it artificial lemon juice, something that looks like lemons but isn't?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm wondering if what actually happened is that Onlyfans leveraged the backlash around Bella Thorne to implement the limits they have been thinking about for a while, instead of implementing those as a reaction.

<comment><USER8> Do they charge a flat fee or some kind of commission? If its a flat fee I guess it would be in their interest if its commission it wouldn't.

<comment><USER7> It's commission based I believe. But it could still be in their interest to mitigate chargebacks for example.

<comment><USER9> Chargebacks are HUGE in this field and all the mitigations you might find as part of your big payment processor don't apply because eg. Stripe don't allow any of this kind of thing on their platform.

<comment><USER10> That's funny because OnlyFans uses Stripe...

<comment><USER9> Ah, wasn't aware. One of my contract positions right now is in a sex worker field and a lot of the infrastructure and billing needs to be done themselves.

<comment><USER11> In some other HN thread it was explained that they use multiple CC processors, and only use Stripe on the non forbidden by Stripe stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My takeaway: Bella Thorne scammed tens of thousands of people, OnlyFans didnt kick her off the platform, WTF?

<comment><USER13> You don't kick the golden goose.

It's the same reason why the biggest Twitch stars can do pretty much anything on stream and not get banned, while normies get the banhammer immediately for lesser offences.

<comment><USER14> Remind me again how Dr. Disrespect could do pretty much anything on stream and not get banned.

Dude did nothing and got banned.

<comment><USER15> He's been banned before for issues like recording in bathrooms at cons. It's all an act but streaming can be a 12+ hour day and it makes sense for his character to 'get banned' especially when Twitch/etc won't comment and he can take a summer vacation. He'll re-enter with some drama that'll make headlines then be back up and running again with plenty of subscribers.

<comment><USER14> You should see one of his latest videos. It's definitely not a stunt and also if you follow his YouTube streams you'd know.

<comment><USER15> I don't, mostly because he's a celebrity character and anything he says is a PR release from his business. He just seems to trend up with various viral moments or activities like recording/streaming inside a bathroom full of people at a convention. It makes sense that someone who lives (literally) on hype and attention would generate that whenever possible to further their brand, just like a Kardashian. With that in mind, some unspoken ban, real or not/insinuated or not, is an excellent chance to set up a big story when you're back in the office and working again. Easy cover for time off and solid cash back once streaming again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it primarily a biological or cultural phenomenon that most creators of this content are women and most consumers of the content are men? Honestly, I don't know if that's true, but from what little this intersects with my news feed it appears to be true.

<comment><USER17> Most woman can get attention at some appropriate level. Even if not coolest, prettiest, smartest. A lot of man can't. And the way to get together to be attractive is sometimes hard. Better to pay for only fans than to shoot up some place...

<comment><USER18> But is paid attention worth it, wouldn't it end up making you feel hollow once that interaction is over and you realize how made up the whole thing was.

<comment><USER19> > _But is paid attention worth it_

Well, good old prostitution has been pretty successful since the dawn of mankind, so the answer must be "yes" for a lot of people.

<comment><USER20> That logic would say that drugs, junk food, etc. are worth it. Plenty of people spend money on things that bring them no joy in the long term because they feel like they need them in the moment.

<comment><USER19> It's very difficult to objectively evaluate whether something is universally "worth it" or "hollow" (I'm using terms from the original comment). You have to place yourself as the ultimate judge of "long term" worth, which is a doomed proposition. You're entering the realm of philosophy (or religion, of course).

Why is long term always better than short term? Aren't there people who enjoy junk food, and in fact love it? Is going to the movies a wasteful act, since most movies don't give you long term enjoyment? Is playing videogames? Is having sex with a person you don't intend to marry something that will "leave you hollow"? Is casual sex worthless, or is it only a problem if you pay for it?

<comment><USER20> I'm not taking a position on the broader question, but the blithe "it must be worth it because people pay for it" is simplistic to the point of being wrong.

<comment><USER19> But your counterpoints (drugs & junk food) are trivially disproven: for a lot of people, those are truly "worth it". Why, I still remember an argument I had here on HN, years ago, where I said real homemade burgers were way better than McDonald's, and had more than one people reply to me with "nah, sometimes I really want a McDonald's burger, I really enjoy them".

As for prostitution, you have to admit such a long tradition of _existing_ \-- the "oldest profession", as the saying goes -- is strong evidence that it's indeed worth it to a lot of people.

I'm not making a moral argument, by the way. Only your own personal convictions, or your religion's, can tell you that.

<comment><USER20> > But your counterpoints (drugs & junk food) are trivially disproven: for a > lot of people, those are truly "worth it".

Where's this trivial disproof? Citation needed.

> You have to admit such a long tradition of existing -- the "oldest > profession", as the saying goes -- is strong evidence that it's indeed worth > it to a lot of people.

No. It's strong evidence that a lot of people momentarily decide to pay for it. That's not at all the same thing, because addiction exists and is fundamentally not a phenomenon of rationality. A lot of addicts explicitly recognise that the thing they crave won't, and doesn't, make them happy.

<comment><USER19> Citation needed? I take it you don't trust my word? Because I provided one.

As for your second point about addiction: you are entering the realm of the highly subjective, randomly deciding which things are addicting and which are worthy. I'm uninterested in that discussion. How do you even determine which things are capable of bringing people long term joy and which aren't? Are videogames worthy? Are movies? Is the fleeting less worthwhile than the permanent? Etc.

<comment><USER20> > As for your second point about addiction: you are entering the realm of the > highly subjective, randomly deciding which things are addicting and which > are worthy. I'm uninterested in that discussion. How do you even determine > which things are capable of bringing people long term joy and which aren't? > Are videogames worthy? Are movies? Is the fleeting less worthwhile than the > permanent? Etc.

I'm not saying you have to agree with me about which things are or aren't worthy. All I'm claiming is that it is possible for something to be addictive and not worthwhile, and so to show that something is worthwhile you need to do more than showing that someone was willing to pay for it. Do you disagree with that much?

<comment><USER19> Yes, of course it's possible. However, in this case the evidence points to the contrary.

Here's how I see this discussion so far:

"But is sex worth it if you pay for it, or do you later feel it was a hollow experience?"

"Well, prostitution's _huge_ success points to the answer being: yes, it's worth it to a lot of people"

"(Tangent about the nature of addiction and worth)"

That's all there is to it, really.

<comment><USER20> It's not a tangent. It directly refutes "Well, prostitution's huge success points to the answer being: yes, it's worth it to a lot of people".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> High cost individual transactions sounds like elevated fraud risk.

I bet this isn't even their decision. (Card processor is probably making them do this).

<comment><USER22> From what I understand Bella Thorne promised full nude images. When the image that users payed for wasn't full nude this upset many users. Since OnlyFans lacks a refund system many users issued charge backs in order to get their money back. The large number of chargebacks are what prompted OnlyFans to make the changes.

<comment><USER23> For the Bella Thorne case in particular, it seems like it could be handled by onlyfans creating their own refund/fraud system.

Returning money received fraudulently seems reasonable and unlikely to be challenged by content creators (whom you are presumably clawing it back from). A short "escrow" period to enable this seems unlikely to be challenged by content creators.

The problematic case for chargebacks are probably "all the other ones" that aren't demonstrable fraud.

<comment><USER24> > A short "escrow" period to enable this seems unlikely to be challenged by > content creators.

So people can pay for your content, look at it/screenshot it, and then refund it. I think content creators may have an issue with that, yeah.

<comment><USER23> Escrow does not imply that they can refund it without some sort of process agreeing with them.

For instance if they can prove that you defrauded them... as in the Bella Thorne case...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is there a reason why people would want to pay for this OnlyFans content? Genuinely interested.

<comment><USER26> Disclaimer: I don't and would never.

It's to feel a connection. Porn is free. Connection is not. Creators who sell a connection make the most money. It's the same reason why guys will donate to male Twitch streamers - they want to feel like they're best friends. The streamers feed this fantasy to keep the dollars rolling.

People are lonelier these days.

<comment><USER27> I think it's likely also some amount of wanting to support people. I know I've added subscriptions to some streamers I've always watched because I'm watching more of their content now that I'm at home all the time. It only seems fair to pay them for their work if they're entertaining me for an hour or two each day.

I don't care if they think I'm their friend. They're providing a service that I enjoy and I should pay for it, especially now when I have the money to do so and other people may not. If you could pay $5 a month for weekly episodes of your favorite TV show, I'm guessing most folks would?

<comment><USER26> That's true. I should've clarified that I was referring to whales. People who are donating five figures are much more likely to fall into the "I want them to be my best friend" category.

I used to subscribe to Twitch streams of pros that would play the game with their subscribers. 5 bucks a month to play a game I love with a professional? Heck yes. Playing soccer with Messi would cost a ton more.

Slightly shameful plug: I wrote about Bella/OF in my most recent newsletter issue.

[https://mailchi.mp/242882f3b5db/synthesis- emergence-17](https://mailchi.mp/242882f3b5db/synthesis-emergence-17)

<comment><USER28> Are newsletters the onlyfans for people selling their words instead of their looks and moves?

<comment><USER26> I've heard that comparison before, and it's apt. I'm not selling anything though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder why Instagram is not doing this; free tier are your profile photos premium are paid ones. But there should be a line between non adult and adult, YouTube chose not to host porn and I think they did the right thing.

<comment><USER24> Because AFAIK Instagram and Facebook's apps rely on them not being adult platforms due to the App Store and Play Store guidelines.

<comment><USER30> Even outside of app stores, adult content in general is a massive hole that no large company wants to touch. There's a ton of overhead due to scams/chargebacks, harm to the brand, content moderation and lots more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> When somebody like Bella Thorne wants to "destigmatize" sex work, what exactly is he she talking about? Does she just want more people to respect the profession outright? Because I think there are a number of hurdles to this, even if we completely ignore traditional views on sex/relationships that a huge fraction of the country holds. Sex workers are luxury service workers. The job is transient and alienating. I feel like there are legitimate reasons to be wary of sex work, even if you don't subscribe to "all sex for all people must be in dedicated long term relationships".

<comment><USER32> Sex workers are workers. But they don't have the same labor protections as any other blue collar or white collar job. The stigma from a cultural side is pretty small, especially given the millions of dollars flowing into online sex work.

The stigma from sex work being in a legal grey zone affects those who rely on the income to support themselves and their family.

Also I would be interested to know what other professions you consider "luxury service work" since I can't seem to find a proper definition readily.

<comment><USER33> Is the stigma not on both sides of sex transactions? In my circles I don't think anyone would boldly profess to being a regular at a brothel. Parent post asked a legitimate question, it's not clear how she intends to remove stigma on sex work.

<comment><USER34> You remove stigma by desensitizing the broader population through repeated exposure. She's just one drop in a very large bucket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> thirsty dudes are big business.

<comment><USER36> This is the perfect TL:DR.

Lots of talk here by confused techbros thinking about how they can cash in on this goldmine.

They should read your comment.

<comment> globular-toast So how do you cater to thirsty dudes? If you can harness women, then you are rich. Simple as that. Notice how anything like this will always be male owned. It might seem like women are profiting in the short run, but ultimately they have nothing unique to offer and as supply increases they'll see diminished returns. Meanwhile the male owned business will only grow as demand won't shrink and they're creaming off all of it.

<comment><USER37> >So how do you cater to thirsty dudes?

Self improvement and self help (real or just promised) are big ways to make money in this area.

>Notice how anything like this will always be male owned.

I don't think it makes a difference to the individual creators whether the middle-man profiting from this is male or female. The creators don't get any better outcome either way.

<comment> globular-toast Yes. But it's all about dangling the carrot of promised sex in front of men, no matter how you dress it up. Self help is like selling a cookery book while porn is like selling a takeaway. Most people will go the route of instant gratification rather than a slow and difficult path.

<comment><USER37> Lot of self help content can also be more about feeling good while you're consuming it, than actual lasting change. Even if it's generally good advice. This guy made a video about it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLTLkCBSN8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLTLkCBSN8).

And it's natural to blame the consumers for any failure rather than the material ("you're just doing it wrong", "it's your fault you didn't apply it correctly", etc.), which makes selling mediocre and just plain weak content very easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> And here I though that the outrage was going to be over onlyfans charging 20%!

</comment><comment><USER39> I honestly don't know what to think about the whole situation.

In some ways, it feels like current content creators on OnlyFans are making the same complaints about Bella Thorne that certain communities were making about content creators on OnlyFans before.

And there ain't no shame in their game. If people want to give OnlyFans creators money for any reason, as long as the money is theirs to give, etc, that's between them. What I think of the transaction is immaterial. It's about as useful as the closet full of Lego sets I have.

And if people want to buy that content, why complain about the people providing it. No, it's not typically hard work. And let's all not pretend that it is. But. So what. Some people were just born wealthy. Some people just win the lottery. Or have some other windfall. Not all wealth is earned through hard work. That's just the way it is. I mean, look at all the people featured in the article. They're all attractive women.

And more power to them if they've found a way they don't have to work hard to earn themselves some money.

But it really feels like the current creators are complaining about Throne because she doesn't have to work as hard. Or that she's had automatic reach due to her celebrity status. That she doesn't even have to get nude to get this money.

And that's the complaints made about the majority of creators by the people who cannot leverage the platform like they can.

And it's not like the money sent to Thorne was going to affect the money sent to other creators. It's not like OnlyFans has $X a month to split between creators based on subscriptions. No, individuals choose to subscribe to specific creators. The people signed up to subscribe to Thorne weren't subscribing to OnlyFans because they like OnlyFans, they were signing up to OnlyFans to subscribe to Thorne. Take her away and they don't even sign up.

And the cap limits are another thing in this debacle. They're trying to put the blame for that on Thorne, but really, that's a move that was going to come sooner or later. OnlyFans needs the subscribers more than the creators. The content is pretty fungible in all honesty. So OnlyFans will take measures to make sure the bleed is as slow as possible.

On the other hand, I get why they're frustrated by all this. It can be difficult to watch someone waltz in and crush something you've been chipping away at for a while. It can be difficult to have the terms of a platform suddenly change under you and impact your income. Those are valid frustrations. I'm just not sure if it's a frustration that's actionable on their part. I think they just may have to suck this one up.

<comment><USER40> The alternative is also to stake out on their own and create their own platforms. OnlyFans is not quite the only game in town putting videos and posts behind a paywall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41>
        "She charges up to $40 for lingerie pictures and videos or for content that implies nudity; $165 for topless photos and $200 for nude images and videos."

I don't get it. Who has the income to drop hundreds of dollars on pictures like this?!?!

The internet is filled with tons of free images and videos. I can't see the point. I guess the "item" being sold isn't just the image/video but rather the "interaction" and maybe personalization.

<comment><USER42> > I don't get it. Who has the income to drop hundreds of dollars on pictures > like this?!?!

People drop hundreds and thousands of dollars on in-game coins. There is a lot more money floating around than you realize.

<comment><USER43> Didn't one of the android guys get into trouble for paying attractive girls a full time salary in exchange for them doing what he tells them to do? How's that any different from paying a girl on OnlyFans to produce a custom nude photo? I presume both is more about demonstrating power than about the value of the end result.

<comment><USER44> Anyone have more details on this?

<comment><USER45> [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google- sexual-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual- harassment-andy-rubin.html)

> The suit included a screenshot of an August 2015 email Mr. Rubin sent to one > woman. "You will be happy being taken care of," he wrote. "Being owned is > kinda like you are my property, and I can loan you to other people."

<comment><USER43> Great quote. And yes, that certainly highlights that he wasn't paying her for sex directly, but rather for the power derived from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > Ms Corbridge offers services ranging from $7-$25 "personalised penis > ratings"

What on earth! I guess I'm so out of touch with what some people are after on the internet.

<comment><USER47> Can you imagine getting a "F" for a penis rating you requested and paid for under the assumption that she'd be giving complacent ratings only?

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Strange response by OF, to cap the fees. They're actively limiting their own take (20% cut btw, kind of disgusting).

I think the right thing to do would have been to refund those whom she defrauded with false advertising. If I understand the situation, she sold photos as one kind of content, but delivered something else in the end?

If I bought a bag of potatoes but it turned out to be charcoal when I opened it, I'd bring it back to the store for a refund or exchange.

</comment><comment><USER49> What happened is that the actual head showed up and squeezed everyone else into a tail. Previous tail has been pushed out into a long tail.

If you have had a chance to work with the companies in the content scene, you would recognize the pattern. A couple of top tier accounts (head) account for the lion's share of hot content and hence monetization, the next level of accounts (tail) - dozens to hundreds - has some hot content and hence monetization but at a fraction of the previous tier. Finally the rest of the accounts have nearly no hot content and hence no monetization (long tail).

From an outside perspective based strictly on the content itself it is very difficult to determine the difference between tail and long tail. It is even unclear the difference between some of the long-tail and the head.

</comment><comment><USER50> Not unlike the Spotify controversy where the middleman is happy to make it up in volume, even if the seller can't.

</comment><comment><USER51> So she already makes 8k a month from her subscriptions and thats scraping by ? Sorry if I dont feel any sympathy.

<comment><USER52> Quote

>Ms Michelle has 550 fans and makes $8,000 a month, charging a $30 subscription fee to users. She also relies on tips ranging from $5-$200 for pay-per-view photos, videos and text messages.

>She says her OnlyFans work is the only way she can support her family due to the pandemic, and fears many __other __content creators will struggle to make ends meet going forward.

<comment><USER25> >She says her OnlyFans work is the only way she can support her family due to the pandemic, and fears many other content creators will struggle to make ends meet going forward.

Really? There's always working at Walmart, Target or even collecting an income from Patreon?

<comment><USER53> Can you really support a family working at Walmart? I can't even imagine trying to do that. Rent in a modest apartment in my town would be like 2/3 of your income.

<comment><USER54> If your only option available is a Walmart job, you definately should NOT be having kids. Society used to judge things like irresponsible pregnancies, and everybody were way better off because of that.

<comment><USER55> Fertility rate scales with poverty. Those earning middle-class wages or higher tend to have fewer kids, or none. Much is linked to education and access to contraceptives. People will have sex, period. Shaming people for having kids helps at nothing.

> Society used to judge things like irresponsible pregnancies, and everybody > were way better off because of that.

Revisionist delusional fantasy. In Western society people had far more children a couple of generations ago, regardless of wealth. The Church pressured this as well.

<comment><USER54> Yes, people tended to have way more children. And pregnancies out of wedlock were way less prevalent too. Having two Walmart paychecks instead of one per household will make it way easier to raise a family. But nowadays single moms are heralded as heroes... so-much-progress. Such progressive times.

<comment><USER55> That's one of the dumbest things I've ever read.

People laud single moms not because there's a virtue in being single while raising kids, but because it's a hardship, particularly to do well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> It's funny to see this people complaining about losing their cash cow.

In all honesty, Kudos to them for milking those crazy amount of money off the platform (and the people).

But in all seriousness: 1. one can't seriously believe that easy money will always be this easy and abundant 2. competition drives the prices down and fighting the stigma on sex workers drives the competition up.

I'm not being judgemental or anything, it's just that the whole argument does not make sense, at all.

And btw as soon as something stops being a subculture, people like Bella Thorne will start showing up. It's sad, but happens in every space/environment.

<comment><USER8> sex workers - in this case there was no sex and very little work.

<comment><USER57> Maybe you should familiarize yourself with the modern definition of a sex worker.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_worker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_worker)

<comment><USER58> I feel like this sort of definition doesn't serve any purpose beyond some political correctness. In the sense of the definition, I have been a sex worker (I programmed dildos once). But it doesn't feel that way at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Anyone know of any aggregate accounts? could be good business.

</comment><comment><USER60> Time and time again we see the danger of letting an outside entity manage things for you.

They make things easy for you but when you disagree with the way they run things you're often left sol. And the cost to exit the platform is much higher now.

</comment><comment><USER61> SIMP culture existed way before this trend of onlyfans, you would know rhat

</comment><comment><USER62> "Content"

</comment><comment><USER63> An important reminder to all "content creators" on someone else's platform:

 _What any monetisation platform can also give to them, they are more than able to take it away._

Since it's their platform, they can do what they like. Best to just build your following there and move out and run your own show while you can.

<comment><USER64> With some of the numbers shown, I'm amazed they're still using a party that takes 20% of their innings instead of hiring a web company to set up their own site. I wonder if they're trapped in exclusivity contracts (and get thrown out if they fire up their own site), or just afraid of losing followers if they migrate away from onlyfans.

<comment><USER65> OnlyFans is doing most of the sales and marketing work here, which is 99% of the value (nude pictures of hot "models" are a commodity). Charging only 20% seems like a steal.

<comment><USER66> Actually, onlyfans does almost zero marketing work. There is almost no discovery on the site. The only ones making any substantial money are those with a built-in audience from other platforms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> When I was younger, I supported full legalisation of sex work because I thought that to disallow it would be to remove the agency of sex workers who had chosen that path as their profession.

Then I got older and read accounts of sex workers trafficked to European countries where prostitution is legal I realised that some (but not all) sex workers are actually participating in "legal" transactions under duress. In my mind that invalidates the necessary consent required when the activity involves sex work of some kind, making it unethical from the buyer to acquire such a service despite it being legal locally. While trafficking is of course still illegal, I am unclear about the laws protecting trafficking victims from their "buyers" in non-consenting transactions.

Since it is practically impossible to confirm if a given sex worker is participating under duress or not, especially when it occurs "remotely" as in this OnlyFans situation, I would say it is always unethical to purchase such services.

In addition, what I would consider "under duress" is fairly broad, not only under threat of violence from traffickers, but also including economic duress where an individual feels that it is the only way to earn an income to put food on the table. In this vein, I would consider sex tourism to poorer countries a form of exploitation and thus unethical, even though one could argue the individuals from the poorer countries selling such services do so "willingly".

This article writes that one of these women feels that she must engage in sex work through OnlyFans because it is "the only way she can support her family...". It leaves a bad taste as I would not consider that she is participating in the transaction without duress, and thus actually consenting in the transaction. Would you be okay with it if you knew that the woman you were buying lingerie pictures "had" to do it? How would that not be a form of exploitation?

However, one can extend this argument to any type of work. "She says her _____ work is the only way she can support her family...", replace with an arbitrary line of work and activity (woodcutting/marketing/basketweaving). Is there any thing that makes sex work special (apart from some puritanical opinion which are not actually applicable), that would make such a transaction inherently more unethical than say being forced to work at McDonalds because it's the only way to make ends meet? Why would the latter more "ethical" than the former, when an individual is still "forced" to sell their labor to survive, what ever form that labor is?

<comment><USER68> > Since it is practically impossible to confirm if a given sex worker is > participating under duress or not, especially when it occurs "remotely" as > in this OnlyFans situation, I would say it is always unethical to purchase > such services.

Applying this kind of blanket rule leads to all sorts of ridiculous conclusions. Can you verify that the people assembling the very device you wrote this post on aren't under similar amounts of duress as you clutch your pearls over in this comment?

<comment><USER69> This really highlights the underlying problem. People don't have an unhealthy attachment to sex. Who cares if Chinese children are being over worked and under paid to make your iPhone, but God forbid there be even one sex worker who is possibly working in unethical conditions. Let's just kill the entire platform and livelihoods of every other sex worker!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> The outrage at Bella Thorne seems misguided... After all, she did not change the policies, only fans did. Did her actions increase only fans timelines for these changes? Maybe. But at the end of the day, I don't think that justifies the outrage Bella Thorne is receiving over this. Am I missing some action that she took that should justify the outrage: for instance, Bella meeting with only fans to demand that the maximum allowed tip be reduced?

<comment><USER48> I thought the issue was fraud: she charged for nudes but delivered non-nude photos.

<comment><USER71> That was certainly fraud and a bad thing, yes.

But some reports say OnlyFans has been planning these changes for some time - and by rolling them out now, they can make Bella Thorne take the heat instead of taking it themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Many people massively underestimate the effects of tech voyeurism. Even relatively tame fans can be frighteningly deep in delusions of having a connection with someone who they have little to no interaction with.

I encourage anyone perplexed by how Bella supports herself when there is no scarcity on the Internet to pornography to check out Twitch's Just Chatting category. Find a thumb of an attractive woman and click into her stream.

You will find many viewers who act as though they have a personal relationship with a streamer. People respond in chat as though they are having a conversation with the streamer. People donate (sometimes $10+) just to have their message read on stream.

Most disconcerting, you will find a non-negligible amount of people who are watching the stream + insulting the streamer in chat. These are people taking time out of their day to participate in targeted, anonymous hate.

<comment><USER26> [https://i.redd.it/jl8phukm3pf11.jpg](https://i.redd.it/jl8phukm3pf11.jpg)

Probably the most famous example.

<comment><USER73> I don't know who to feel sad for.

He seems genuinely upset.

<comment><USER74> I think it's pretty clear you should feel sad for the guy, who is obviously, I try to say without cruelty, pathetic and misled. It's like people who are very dumb falling for obvious scams - e.g. send me your money and I'll double it.

I don't mean that everyone watching these streamers is like this guy, but some portion of them, probably a higher percentage of the donating "whales", likely think that they somehow do have some kind of chance or relationship with the steamer. These people, it seems to me, are essentially exploited for profit.

I realize it's not the same as a scam. Not the same exactly - because the streamer never says or suggests she'll be your girlfriend for X dollars or something, but knowingly or unknowingly the streamer is creating that suggestion for some and profiting off of it.

It strikes me as a really complicated moral issue, because some people do seem exploited by it, others like it, and the streamers benefit by it. I don't know what to think about the enterprise, but I think it's at least clear we can feel bad for that guy, even recognizing that he's being a jerk.

<comment><USER75> >These people, it seems to me, are essentially exploited for profit.

This has always been true of the online sex worker/camgirl/streamer world. There have always been some that feel that way and are emotionally led on by the actress, who knows exactly what's going on. It moved into Kik and then Snapchat, Twitch, and OnlyFans. There are also some that will profit off of manipulating emotionally questionable viewers and then calling them a simp when they're out with their own friends. It's kind of a vicious world.

This will also be going on with the next big thing too. And the one after that. I worry that it's actually causing MGTOW and intel culture to grow more widespread.

<comment><USER74> It's a good point that just as the actress bears some moral responsibility for exploiting the pathetic, the company bears responsibility for that too. Maybe easier to justify if you work for kik, but OnlyFans seems like it has a higher ratio of exploitation to non-exploitation than kik.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Another Book on Data Science – Learn R and Python in Parallel - <AUTHOR> https://www.anotherbookondatascience.com/ <comment><USER2> I skimmed through the book, and think it does a very poor job at showcasing how R and Python are juxtaposed in industry.

To be fair, the book advertises showing R and Python code side-by-side. And that's what it does. But it does it unlike how the languages are most often used in industry.

As a quick example, I saw no tidyverse code, which is essentially the only thing keeping R in the game. Learning R from this book won't prepare you for writing R in most R shops.

I don't see the utility in knowing how to do the same thing in both python and R if you're a beginner. This is even more true if you're not taking advantage of the strengths/weaknesses of either language.

Instead, just learn one of the languages well, and then learn the other well. Shallow dives in both will make you weak in both.

Unfortunately, 90% of data science content seems to be geared at beginners.

<comment><USER3> I agree for the most part, but R does have a few things beyond the tidyverse: built-in dataframe support, lots of domain-specific packages, more consistent interfaces for basic statistics and machine learning models, etc. Python is definitely better for matrices (because of NumPy) and anything involving custom gradient descent methods (because of TensorFlow).

I think 90% of data science content is for beginners because anything more advanced isn't best described as data science. As soon as you get beyond the initial stages of data analysis (cleaning and processing data), you're doing something best described as some other word (statistics, machine learning, etc.) - although, granted, there isn't much content in these areas if you don't know _exactly_ what you're looking for.

<comment><USER4> > built-in dataframe support

Not an advantage if you ask me - exactly because data.frame is built in, people have been building their own versions (tibble, data.table) instead of improving it. That's how R ended up with 3 different structures that are similar but have inconsistent apis and behaviour.

> lots of domain-specific packages

That's true.

> more consistent interfaces for basic statistics and machine learning models

Can't disagree more - there is no one go-to library for ML in R (like sklearn in Python) and each package has it's own strange interface and implementation.

<comment><USER5> You mean like keras? or tensorflow? Or base random forest. You know, like the original Breiman implementation.

Python has utility. But R is ___far_ __superior in its the quality of the packages, their documentation, their ability to behave predictably on a given data type.

I run a machine learning shop. Right now all of the training, application, and data management is handled via R. R is simply superior in too many ways for us to be bothered with python for the scale of work we are doing.

Since we're moving some big applications to keras/ TF we do use python and will be using more in the future. However, for almost all data management, munging, movement visualization, reporting, its an R world.

<comment><USER4> > You mean like keras? or tensorflow? Or base random forest. You know, like > the original Breiman implementation.

> ...

> Since we're moving some big applications to keras/ TF we do use python and > will be using more in the future.

Not sure if I misunderstood, or you're contradicting yourself there.

> R is far superior in its the quality of the packages, their documentation, > their ability to behave predictably on a given data type.

I not only disagree but I think that the exact opposite is true for each one of these points. But if things are working well in our shop, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise.

<comment><USER5> My point behind the keras/ TF comment is that the libraries have front ends in both python and R, so its mix mox/ dealers choice on what you like to work in (since the backends of both are identical).

The primary reason to moving these to python is due to convenience/ the community. Most new work is published in python. If we find a new/ interesting model we want to implement, its probably written in python. Rather than reskin the thing in its entirety, its easier here to work in python.

A couple disclaimers: my group works primarily in geospatial data, and principally in LiDAR and multispectral imagery.

The coarse division I see between R/ Python, is that if you come from a research/ academic background (non-engineering), you probably learned to program in R. If you were an engineer, you probably learned matlab. If you are self taught/ coursera/ youtube, you probably learned in python.

R libraries are generally more geared towards academic research, and specifically, working within existing frameworks (handling geospatial data as geospatial data rather then turning them into a numpy arrays). Working in python, there is far more re-invention of the wheel, and its always a pain the ass to get things back into the structures they came in as.

Python has huge utility and is an important tool for certain work. But its really really not faster than R (it def used to be, this isnt the case any more).

R has better support for more scientific programming than python.

<comment><USER6> > My point behind the keras/ TF comment is that the libraries have front ends > in both python and R, so its mix mox/ dealers choice on what you like to > work in (since the backends of both are identical).

Not as a point of argument, just additional information: R's support for keras and TF is a wrapper around the Python interface to those libraries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This just doesn't seem to have a place.

1\. It's aimed at beginners.

2\. If you're a beginner, you're best off picking one language and sticking with it for a while.

3\. There are so many other beginner resources that are much better.

<comment><USER7> Can you please list a few?

I'm currently following ISLR book & course

<comment><USER4> Depends on what you're interested in, your goals and your starting point. You have two main learning lanes:

1\. Theory.

Math, calculus, linear algebra, probability, statistics, ML algorithms. ISLR is a very good beginner-ish resource that helps you understand the algorithms but doesn't go too deep into the math. As you go deeper, you may realise that you have gaps in your math knowledge and you need to cover a lot more probability, calculus and linear algebra.

2\. Programming.

2.1. Good software engineering practices - writing maintainable code, design patters, version control, unit testing etc.

2.2. Tooling - knowing the language-specific ecosystem of libraries (the OP is an attempt to teach you this in two languages at the same time). This is what most beginner resources focus on; your knowledge here has the least transferability and tends to go out of date quickly. Still, using the right tools and knowing them well goes a long way.

<comment><USER7> I'm sorry in advance if I'm taking too much of your time.

#2: coding is my hobby and have been writing well designed apps for a long time, so thats not an issue

#3: ISLR is teaching how to do ML algo in R, so there goes that point

#1 is what I'd like more information. Good important is the maths to work as a data scientist? I'm planning ISLR and then maybe ESL or some advance course

A few of my friends work on Data science and they said that maths isn't that important as in, one needs to know the formulas and why things work the way they do as in not rote learning the math.

It'd be great if you can list down intermediate courses, the learning market has drowned good tutorials and books with not so good guides!

<comment><USER4> > then maybe ESL or some advance course

> A few of my friends work on Data science and they said that maths isn't that > important

Without the math you won't understand anything in ESL.

Which might be okay if the job doesn't require you to go into that much depth - some data science jobs are more focused on research (very math-heavy), some on ETL and/or engineering, others on business understanding and communication; it's a really broad title.

<comment><USER7> Thank you. That's what I was thinking. The jobs I'll apply won't be math oriented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What does the HN community think about Python for statistical computing?

Core Python is fine. But pandas is an atrocious mess of object orientedness and other weird stuff.

</comment><comment><USER9> I also skimmed through the book and it does very poor work in case of python I think they have to change this concept

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd be interested in a version that included SAS. Is SAS ever used outside of academia?

<comment><USER4> SAS is still used by companies who don't want to use open source tools and would rather pay a lot of money for an established product name and have a support line that they can call if anything goes wrong. Understandably, it's slowly dying out.

<comment><USER11> Support, and also indemnification.

SAS lives on borrowed time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think it's a good first impression of either languague

</comment><comment><USER13> i only read the chapter on optimization/linear programming - its far too brief and misses key concepts for it to be useful. there are no real applications of the concepts covered in the section.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it is very brief. I tried to give some useful reference books/papers/links for each subject appeared in the book. Hope that is useful if the readers are willing to dive deeper. But the concept of linear programming itself is not complex, the users are generally not required to understand simplex/interior point algorithm. If they are able to translate the actual problem into the code then it is basically done. It is not like constrained optimization for which customized treatment based on mathematical theories is more important than writing the code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What are the good intermediate level data science books?

</comment><comment><USER14> Julia is hands down much better than either of these languages. Don't waste your time.

<comment><USER15> I whole heartedly agree. Python is garbage for data science. If an industrial grade NN library was written for it, plus some quant libraries, I think most people would switch.

I work in finance doing data science-y things and have yet to meet anyone who doesn't think that Python is a pile of garbage.

People used to make the easy to learn argument, but Julia is even easier. And more elegant, extensible, and faster.

<comment><USER16> You, uh, don't like PyTorch and TensorFlow? I can't tell if this is sarcastic.

<comment><USER17> They are written in C++.

<comment><USER4> Not sure how that's relevant. Everything is written in something else.

Python itself is written in C. The Julia github repo shows Julia 68.2%, C 16.3%, C++ 10.4%, Scheme 3.2%. R is a mix of C, C++, R and some Fortran I think...

<comment><USER17> It is relevant from the point of view of what a developer is able to achieve without being forced to drop down to a 2nd programming language, aka "2 language syndrome".

And how many Python libraries are just plain wrappers, not really written in Python.

I use TensorFlow from .NET ML and C++ API.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I also skimmed through the book and it does very poor work in the case of python I think that they should change R bcoz 90% are the beginners</comment>


Ask HN: What are credible bootcamps for a career change? - <AUTHOR> I'm a 25 year old neuroscience grad seeking to change careers to become a software engineer. My concern is a lack of focus on strong fundamentals in coding bootcamps. Which bootcamps do you recommend and are they worthwhile to truly build a career in CS? Thanks. <comment><USER2> Udemy or other online courses are great. Also check out MIT OpenCourseWare. MIT level courses in CS for free.....

[https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- compu...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/)

With Udemy, for ~$10 a course you can get 20+ hours of video tutorials. Take a course on the frontend and another on the backend. Try different languages. Super cheap and flexible so you can do it at night.

I learnt JavaScript (React.js) and Golang this way. I self-taught myself TypeScript and Node.js. The courses are a great way to get off the ground.

Andrew Mead on Udemy is solid. I took his 2nd edition React course and it was the best I've done. Way better than my intro to programming course at university. [https://www.udemy.com/user/andrewmead/](https://www.udemy.com/user/andrewmead/)

Once you've learnt how to code then try and find good online CS theory courses from places like MIT or read books on it.

<comment><USER2> For starters check out:

MIT's Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python.

It's free or you can pay $49 to get a certificate.

[https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science- mit...](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science- mitx-6-00-1x-11?utm_source=OCW&utm_medium=CHP&utm_campaign=OCW)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Bootcamps can be viable if you want to be a computer programmer, but if you want to learn CS then a bootcamp will leave you ill prepared.</comment>


Ask HN: Photo cataloging programs - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a program to catalog my midsize photo collection (about 25K photos spanning the last decade). I'm at the point where I have so many photos that I'm starting to lose track of the context each photo was taken in, this is quite important to me so I'm looking for some software help.
These are the kind of features I'm looking for:
1) ability to maintain an index of photos searchable on tags like location, year, and custom ones like "landscapes", "to print", etc.
2) ability to batch add new photos to the index, all with the same tags/description.
3) ability to add a small description to an individual photo (ex. sunset view from Haleakala volcano, Maui) and have the photo be accessible by searching for "sunset" or "Maui"
4) catalog is transferrable between computers. I have my entire collection on Dropbox so it's synced on my laptop, desktop and my parent's desktop. I want the catalog to be available on all of these computers at best, and at the minimum I want there to be a way to easily transfer the index if I upgrade one of my computers.
What are some programs with these features? If there isn't one that meets all desired criteria, are there some that come close and what are they missing? I don't mind paying a small amount (ideally a one-time purchase rather than subscription) but obviously free is better.
One of the obvious choices is Adobe Lightroom, but I haven't found a detailed enough walkthrough of the cataloging/tagging/search/indexing features to commit to paying ~$100/year. I'm also not really interested in the batch editing capabilities of Lightroom at the moment because I have a standalone copy of Photoshop Elements that I use for <1% of the pictures. Is Lightroom still the best option?
Thanks for the advice. <comment><USER2> Have upu considered Google Photos? It meets pretty much all of your criteria with machine vision help there to help search and tag too. I'm invested in the Apple ecosystem and have all my pictures in iCloud, but have recently set Google Photos to sync all my 37K photos for free (if you allow compression) and am very happy with its features.

I did this because our home laptop died and we are now tablet and phone only in the house other than work computers. So my Mac/time Capsule/Backblaze backup strategy was thwarted. I didn't trust iCloud to be the only canonical copy of my photos, so now I'm using Google Photos as a cloud backup for the cloud.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll check that out, thanks! I have an entry level DSLR (18MP) so I was hesitant to Google Photos due to the compression, but the features look great. I didn't realize the machine vision for search and tagging was all included in the price/free for compressed pictures It's probably cheaper to pay for Google Drive space than pay for Lightroom, so it's probably worth it.

One followup question, since the browser is cloud-based, have you experienced significant latency viewing your photos? For example, when I use the Dropbox webapp it takes a couple to load thumbnail previews for a folder of 200ish photos while Finder on my Mac does it basically instantaneously.

<comment><USER2> I've found no lag when using Google photos, however it is mostly on the iDevices. When I do log in from a laptop I have never noticed any lag. This is in contrast to logging into iCloud photos from a browser which often has significant lag.

As my photos have been syncing with Google it has been automatically creating slide shows and collages. Each day I'm getting something new as it goes back in time. Pretty neat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Being remarkably lazy, the idea of manually tagging so many images gives me hives. It'd be fun to try piping your collection through an image processing API, a la [https://cloud.google.com/vision/](https://cloud.google.com/vision/), and seeing what comes out the other end. Could save you a bunch of time re: the tagging of items like "landscapes".

<comment><AUTHOR> I would absolutely prefer to not have to individually tag photos with high- level tags, but my limited search of desktop programs didn't surface any that were capable of machine vision to do it for me. I should have considered cloud solutions too, thanks for the suggestion!

<comment><USER3> Cool! Would love to hear how it turns out. I haven't done much more than just play with it on one off photos. Good luck!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the use of a pedestrian couting system? - <AUTHOR> I came across this dataset for Melbourne city on data is plural http://www.pedestrian.melbourne.vic.gov.au/
What purpose does this serve? Some of the objectives are listed on the website but continuous monitoring doesn't make much sense to me - to assess and respond to current needs and forecast future demands to improve walking in the city - to assess and address risks associated with walking - to better understand the environmental impacts and benefits of walking - to inform emergency response planning
Are there any other major cities that are doing this? <comment><USER2> This seems obviously useful to me; I'm confused by your confusion. City planners want to know how people move around cities, it's fundamental to their efforts, it's primary source data. It's the same as a code profiler to programmers: "Oh, is THAT why it's slow?"

</comment><comment><USER3> * [http://www.govtech.com/data/People-Counting-Cameras-Are-Watc...](http://www.govtech.com/data/People-Counting-Cameras-Are-Watching-the-Streets-of-Durham-NC.html) * [https://www.fastcompany.com/3025926/one-company-is-trying-to...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3025926/one-company-is-trying-to-count-and-track-all-of-new-york-citys-pedestrians) * [https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/new-ways-of-counting-pedest...](https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/new-ways-of-counting-pedestrians-could-change-city-planning-forever) * [https://www.eco-compteur.com/en/solutions/pedestrian-monitor...](https://www.eco-compteur.com/en/solutions/pedestrian-monitoring)

Etc. It's either happening, or would like to happen, all over.

Why? You can't understand what you can't measure. From city planning to business locations to traffic signals to targeted law enforcement to... If you don't know where people are you can't do anything except guess what should be done.

</comment><comment><USER4> Potentially dumb questions: Is that for people crossing a street or just straight up seen on a street? Do they have dedicated cameras for this or is this using say red light or speed cameras?

Potential social use: As for the use, it should be pretty useful for urban planning. Which street would benefit most from a pedestrian bridge/walkway for example.

<comment><AUTHOR> From their website 'A sensor is installed under an awning or on a street pole to form a counting zone on the footpath below. It records multi-directional pedestrian movements through the zone, 24 hours, every day.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Daytime population estimates. How do you know how many people are in an area? What times of day has higher traffic flows. Etc</comment>


Supreme Court of the United States (new Version) - <AUTHOR> https://www.supremecourt.gov/ <comment><USER2> Unfortunately all the rulings still seem to be in PDF format. It would be nice if there was a searcheable database for all the rulings.

<comment><USER3> Cornell LII has one:

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/search/site/?f[0]=bundle%3Asupct...](https://www.law.cornell.edu/search/site/?f\[0\]=bundle%3Asupct_node&)

I'm not sure where to get bulk plaintext downloads of U.S. Reports; maybe Carl Malamud has some.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Screw Facebook and Go Incognito on it - <AUTHOR>

Dear HN readers, I was wondering if it would be possible to "stop" Facebook from tracking you by browsing all your webpages in Chrome with an "incognito" window. (on a mac you can create a new incognito window with: shift + command + n).<p>It seems like a potential option that requires no plugins or anything else. Let me know what you think. <comment><USER2> It should work since the cookies are destroyed upon closing that window and said cookies are removed, as well as not being available to other windows.

<comment><AUTHOR> Brilliant! So there is basically no need to add plugins like this one (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3035153>) - currently on the front page of HN - so long as you are ok with launching new incognito windows.

<comment><USER3> But then you have no history either. Also, you would be effectively logged out of every website.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, unless you only go to Facebook on Ingonito. In which case all of the Facebook cookies would be deleted once you close the window.

<comment><USER4> Or you could have single use browsers. There are so many browsers out there that it doesn't seem like a problem to me.

That's what I used Opera for before I deleted my FB account. Safari is currently the browser I use only for my real Google account activity (Gmail, Calendar and G+ only).

I know there are solutions like <http://br.mozdev.org/multifox/> , but they have never worked quite as I wished.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sadly, Incognito Mode also doesn't work with extensions like 1Password (indispensable for me)</comment>


Making Hybrid Images - <AUTHOR> http://jeremykun.com/2014/09/29/hybrid-images/

<comment><USER2> See also "Is it warm? Is it real? Or just low spatial frequency?", Margaret S. Livingstone Science 17 November 2000

[http://livingstone.med.harvard.edu/MSL%20publications/2000_N...](http://livingstone.med.harvard.edu/MSL%20publications/2000_November17.%20Livingstone.%20Is%20It%20Warm_%20Is%20it%20Real_%20Or%20Just%20Low%20Spatial%20Frequency_.pdf)

<comment><USER3> To be honest, I never understood what's so elusive in Mona Lisa's smile. Am I the only one who just sees a regular smile?

I can clearly see her smiling in the high frequency filtered image, even more than in the low freq ones, where she looks worried or embarrassed to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> He is talking about hybrid music. There are many examples of music with lots of tracks with low volume. The most famous examples got to be Phil Spector and later Michael Tretow's work as producer for Abba. Doing this automatic? I don't know.</comment>


Swedish Software Firm Acquires The Pirate Bay For $7.7 Million - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/30/swedish-software-firm-acquires-the-pirate-bay-for-77-million/

<comment><USER2> One of the guys from TPB shed some more light on the issue over at reddit:

"To clarify a bit..

TPB has been owned by a company for the last years since the raid so nothing there will really change except the names of the owners. The talk about TPB are going to be a pay site is wrong, the CEO that said that does not know what he is talking about.

Now, the BIG change is that the tracker is going to be outsourced to a new formed company that wont know what they track, just that they connect peers, and the torrent listings will be handed by an other new company that will have torrents but they will not know either content or who is using the torrents. This setup will be practically impossible to take down or find anyone liable to sue.

The 3d party company services will have APIs, so you can on your blog or whatever have your own small torrent listings just as you now pull in twitter feeds. remember how the twitter design totally havoced the iranian attempts to block it as ppl just used another side that pulled in the feeds and read it there instead? well that goes for torrents and TPB to.

All in all, this is not the end of the world as some are seeing it but a rather interesting technical improvement.

And dont worry, not a dime will go to the media industries spectrial prize money what i know of but a really nice fund for doing cool stuff.

/krs - co.founder of TPB and PB, not involved in TPB anymore and have no stake in any cash."

<comment><USER3> That does make it seem like it will be an improvement. At the very least, it will be more private.

Unfortunately, I don't see how any big media company is going to want to do any major deals with them. I doubt they would sign a contract with someone when they plan on suing the company or customers. But at least hopefully it will help out smaller companies and independent artists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently traders on the Stockholmsborsen exchange see this buy-out as a good thing. Their stock is sky-rocketing: [http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/charts/cha...](http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/charts/charts.asp?ric=GGF.ST) I wonder if this buy-out will effect how TPB conducts their operation though, I'm assuming it won't.

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems like the founders of TPB have had several projects fail because of lack of funding or support. Their effort to buy Sealand is a good example.

So the foundation could do a lot of good. It has a lot of money now, and the founders of the TPB probably will be able to give projects more attention.

I don't quite see how the Pirate Bay will stay in business then. Very few media companies are going to want to deal with it while it is still offering free downloads of drm free material. Just look at Hulu. While Hulu is a great site, they have limited the site's usefulness because of pressure from corporate partners. And I am sure that TPB will drastically change.

<comment><USER5> Hulu isn't the best example since the corporate 'partners' are really owners. Still, it's going to be interesting to see if this new organization will buckle to legal threats and pressure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, at least now they can pay the fine

<comment><USER7> "Unfortunately", no. Not a single SEK goes to The Pirate Bay. Peter Sunde and the rest of the crew has instructed the buyer to put all the money into a monetary fund overseas.

Source (in Swedish): <http://twitter.com/brokep/status/2400754726>

<comment><USER8> There is a translation of some of the feed on torrentfreak (emphasis added is mine - there may be more to this than meets the eye.)

[http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-sold-to-software- comp...](http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-sold-to-software-company-goes- legal-090630/#comment-574538)

Daniel Goldberg: @ brokep Is this correct? <http://bit.ly/1YR0m>

Peter S Kolmisoppi: @ danielg0ldberg Yes.

Daniel Goldberg: @ brokep What a thing! Who gets the money? Who owns the TPB?

Peter S Kolmisoppi: @ danielg0ldberg Foreign company, with demands from our side to finance a fund for internet projects. We get no money.

Daniel Goldberg: @ brokep Cool. What do you mean internet project? Will you not have to use the money to cover the damages?

Peter S Kolmisoppi: @ danielg0ldberg Internet Project in the form of political activism, etc. _TPB changed hands in 2006 already to not be sued._

Daniel Goldberg @ brokep Congratulations, the scoop! Who is the owner of TPB today?

Peter S Kolmisoppi: @ danielg0ldberg _It's partly why we've have been so sure that lawsuits against us is pointless in the end … :-)_

Peter S Kolmisoppi: @ danielg0ldberg _I do not think that I may say for legal reasons. But they are people we trust. And have conditioned things too.._

<comment><USER9> One must be a fool to believe that they don't get any money at all...

The foreign company certainly belongs to them, and they are trying to cash out twice (once by selling their company and by getting donations from their loyal supporters).

And even if the site belongs to a different party, they are running the site and are responsible doing the copyright violations. You can also not hide behind a company when you are commiting murder.

<comment> bjelkeman-again They committed murder? Providing links to copyrighted material may be considered bad by a lower court in Sweden, but you really can't compare it with murder.

<comment><USER9> Please learn to read before you write (kleiner PB Lemming). I didn't say they commited murder. I did just say that it doesn't matter if what they did was under the umbrella of a company or not. It is illegal, as it is illegal to commit murder, to print money if you have not the autorization, or to haress somebody etc...

<comment><USER10> 2 things (just so you know why your getting downmodded :))

Firstly the flow of the original sentence referring to murder read as if you were suggesting they _were_ quilty of commiting murder.

Secondly, yes you can hide behinda company - to an extent. In actual fact no one seems ot know the real owners of the site. Brokep and co. maintain it but since 2006 the owner, and thus the person most likely liable, is unknown.

(I have bets on it being someones dog or something)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It had to happen eventually. I'd like to know how successful they'll be monetizing a site people visit specifically because they don't want to pay anything.

<comment><USER12> The other question is the legal ramifications if the continue TPB's current "illegal" activity and profit from them. I think even in Sweden the legal base there is questionable (after the judgment against the four founders of TPB)...

<comment><USER10> yes this is a bit of a win for the media companies - now there will be a paper trail to sniff around at and the company is leaps and bounds more open to legal action.

I suspect some media company execs are getting quite excited at this. I cant figure it out becuase TPB _MUST_ know that the original model will probably have to die - unless they havent told the whole story?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ah... check out the <http://www.globalgamingfactory.com/> site

 _and the technology company Peerialism, that has developed next generation file-sharing technology_

so their going to try and combine TPB traffic with whatever product it is Peeralism have "developed"?

<comment><USER13> From [http://digg.com/tech_news/The_Pirate_Bay_Sold_To_Software_Co...](http://digg.com/tech_news/The_Pirate_Bay_Sold_To_Software_Company_Goes_Legal?t=26632403#c26632403) :

 _Something is very fishy here. I live in Sweden and I checked out this company.

Global Gaming Factory X AB (Ltd, Co.) never registered for "F-skatt", which is a basic permit needed for companies in Sweden to operate under corporate tax laws instead of private laws. Not having this permit usually means that it's a company 1) run under a mother company or 2) that isn't active.

Furthermore, their website consists of this press release and NOTHING ELSE. Their turnover has not gone over $ 750,000 any of the past two years and their total loss for that same time is approx. - $ 2,677,000._

I think this is just TPB playing legal games.

<comment><USER14> Hmm, I just checked. Their website is there, it's just that the press release was important enough to serve as splash screen.

See, e.g., <http://www.globalgamingfactory.com/Organisation.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd never heard of Global Gaming Factory X before, but apparently they own both Smartlaunch and CyberCafePro, which are both major products for managing "cyber cafés".

</comment><comment><USER16> Global Gaming Factory X doesn't appear to be a real company. It seems to just be some legal maneuvering by TPB crew. The punks fight dirty. I approve. This is the real news. "TorrentFreak was informed by TPB's Peter Sunde that the site will soon decentralize and quit running a properietary BitTorrent tracker, instead encouraging its user base to use a yet to be launched third party tracker for their torrents."

</comment><comment><USER17> The title on oursignal included: "and goes legal". That worked so well for Napster..

<comment><USER18> So because one company failed, all companies will fail?

<comment><USER19> napster failed?

It got bought by best buy for over 100 million dollars. It is a great service, I'm listening to the new wilco album on it right now.

<comment><USER20> Brand necromancy had to be performed several times before it saw the success of the current incarnation, such as it is. (I don't know how successful it is.) At this point its only connection to the original Napster that established the name _is_ the name. My point? How you account any current success that the name may be experiencing is a very debatable point, depending largely on which of several valid definitions of the relevant terms you choose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nobody here finds it the least bit disturbing that these guys got a $7.7 million pay day for helping steal copyrighted works?

At a minimum, they've taken $7.7 million out of the pockets of programmers and artists.

These guys aren't heroes. They're selfish whores who discovered the secret to turning downloaders into their willing lemmings.

<comment><USER22> The same goes for Google

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dark+knight+filetyp...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dark+knight+filetype%3Atorrent&btnG=Search&meta=)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Now the court can finally raise the fine! :)</comment>


Covid19 browser plugin uses face detection to draw masks on faces - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/moklick/status/1234421465287680000 <comment><AUTHOR> If you want to try it you can find it on Github [https://github.com/moklick/face-mask-browser- extension](https://github.com/moklick/face-mask-browser-extension)</comment>


Amazon cloud revenue growth slows to 29% in Q2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/aws-earnings-q2-2020.html <comment><AUTHOR> > So on AWS, segment revenue, what we see are companies working really hard > right now to cut expenses, especially in the more challenged businesses like > hospitality and travel, but pretty much across the board. We're helping > them, we're actively, with our sales force, looking for ways that we can > help them save money.

Yes, of course, you want them to save money! How nice of you, Amazon!

I read this statement by Amazon's CFO as: lots of companies were spending a fortune on AWS, using it inefficiently. Because of the current crisis, they had to take a closer look at their spend, and realized they could quickly cut some of these AWS expenses easily.

Further down in the article, and referring to Google:

> And on Thursday Google parent Alphabet said its second-quarter cloud > revenue, including G Suite productivity software subscriptions, came to > $3.01 billion, which was up 43% and down from 52% in the first quarter.

Ah, the old practice of boosting your cloud revenues by adding a different, not relevant "consumer" business (Microsoft used to do this a lot in 2010-2011, and I'm sure they somehow do it now as well). I'm surprised analysts still believe this crap and don't revolt in unison.

I guess "we all have to eat".</comment>


Scapehouse a social sharing site that is a cross between Faceboook and Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://arabcrunch.com/2011/07/scapehouse-a-social-sharing-site-that-is-a-cross-between-faceboook-and-twitter.html <comment><USER2> What a coincidence! I was just about to post about Scapehouse too! I prepared this for it: <http://scapehouse.com/scape/3180>

LOL! Thanks anyways!</comment>