I lived by myself on welfare in the last 12 months of university, and my rent was $175 per week, welfare was $175 per week, and I had $3,000 saved to last the year. So I lived on effectively $100 a week after rent and electricity.

There was a period of time my rent was more than my wage $725/month vs $700. I was subsisting off of unlocking phones for people (who those mostly didn't want to do it themselves or didn't trust themselves), dumpster[1] pizza, and the ~$200 a month extra I was able to make ($20 an unlock) was my utilities and non-dumpster-pizza food money.

[1] Literally, from a dumpster. Most local pizza places aren't run by douchebags and tend to put the leftovers in their own bag/box for the poor to consume. I truly appreciated it (much love to Hot Lips in particular), as Pizza was a luxury way beyond anything I could afford at the time.

Highly doubt any actual creator is doing that. The payoff of untargeted spam is so low! Only makes sense if it’s outsourced at scale like any garden variety spam ring.

The usual and profitable way people promote their onlyfans on reddit is by posting pictures and videos.

I happen to agree with formerly_proven . When my OF friend described how she submitted topical stuff to subreddits in the hopes that others would follow up on her profile, I was like, "what's wrong with that? Isn't that how people are supposed to promote themselves? Giving out free, relevant stuff in the hopes you'll want to know more about them?"

I mean, isn't that how ethical self-promotion is supposed to work? Join a community, obey their norms, contribute, and if they like you, they'll follow up? How do you expect it to work?

<insert caveat about how you have no reason to believe this experience, since the sensitivity of the issue requires me to use a throwaway and hide her identity as well>

Puns not intended (seriously).

I mean, from my experience on reddit, there are all kinds of unworthy submissions from all kinds of motivations that get upvoted more than they should be and removed too slowly (or not at all) by mods. Whether it's brand promotion, or karma harvesting, or (all too often) just not understanding what submissions are appropriate for the forum, it degrades the experience.[1] But targeting OF users for autobans seems tunnel-visioned at best and slut-shaming at worst.

[1] one of my favorites, /r/LeopardsAteMyFace, is intended for examples of people a) getting hurt by b) policies and politicians they advocated for. But well over the half the submissions ignore b) and are just cases of "break law they obviously didn't like, get prosecuted".

The reason has been specified and is to the point: "... contribution is usually shallow and easy to see through. This pollutes the place with a low-effort content ..." - these OF advertisers are only interested in getting people to see their profile (as you rightly pointed out), not their posted content, because their intention is to make money from such content ... obviously, in a place where content is more higly valued, such posters will be banned to ensure that it doesn't attract more of these kind of people. And yes, many sub-reddits do have poor quality content. Thanks to the ban on OF advertisers, it is much less.

It's a figure of speech, and I'm well aware of the ostensible justification, which is why the bulk of my comment is specifically addressing it, and you even recognize it as doing so.

Do try to be charitable, if for no other reason than my profile lacking a promotional link :-p

Since you've opened the door to lectures about "didn't you read this part of the comment", then I'll have to turn it around and ask why didn't you read this part:

>>Isn't that how people are supposed to promote themselves? Giving out free, relevant stuff in the hopes you'll want to know more about them?"

>>I mean, isn't that how ethical self-promotion is supposed to work? Join a community, obey their norms, contribute, and if they like you, they'll follow up? How do you expect it to work?

What is the ethical way to self-promote? In the best world, I imagine it would look exactly like I just described. If you don't have an answer to that, a better way, then I'm not sure what basis you have for objecting here; you should probably figure it out before claiming you have a defensible position.

FWIW, "just stay in your little box and never come out" is not what I would count as a defensible position.

>contribution is usually shallow and easy to see through. This pollutes the place with a low-effort content.

It absolutely can be, sure. But the point where you say "OF promoters can never contribute anything of value" is where you cross over from "prudent moderation" into slut-shaming. My regular account links my blog, as do numerous other HNers. If that blog makes them money, should they be pre-emptively banned?

>And yes, many sub-reddits do have poor quality content. Thanks to the ban on OF advertisers, it is much less.

0% of the off-topic LAMF submissions were from OF-linked accounts, and at the same time, reddit has lost out on quality submissions from OF users, while gleefully letting through ulterior-motive submissions from people who don't bother to announce themselves. Hence, "tunnel-visioned".

What is the ethical way to self-promote?

Exactly what you propose. But if they ask you to stop even that, you should. If they don’t have enough to judge case by case with hundreds of cases, you have to understand that and agree.

By using “I” and “you” above I mean example person, not one of us.

Another thing that you assume, which is not exactly correct imo, is what slut-shaming is. We may agree that explicit directed pointing-out and shaming is bad, because it attacks a person. But we can’t blame internal “don’t want it here” feelings, even if that is based on OF link. Shaming is a direct action, not location-based attitude. The same person may not want it in a linux-related group, but may visit a link and subscribe in OF-related one. E.g. I like strippers in my local stripclub and have good relationships with few of them, but I wouldn’t want them advertise it at my nephew’s birthday party or sysop meetings.

Let's be clear here - OF creators are looking for unsolicited free advertising.

And that's at the crux of the issue - both free online communities and subscription based paid online communities are competitors because both are in the business of content generation.

Free online communities make money from advertisements. So it is in their obvious interest to discourage all attempts, by anyone, of "free" advertisement. Especially their competitor!

OF creators are in the business of making and selling their content. Obviously it is not in their best interest to make their quality content available freely. As free quality content is anathema to their business, obviously there is absolutely no reason for any community to tolerate their attempts at free self-promotion.

The solution? If you want to make money, you have to spend some money - Just pay for a suitable ad in the free online communities and support them.

The mods of these communities aren't getting the money from reddit ads, so that doesn't apply.

>The solution? If you want to make money, you have to spend some money - Just pay for a suitable ad in the free online communities and support them.

Okay, and when reddit ads are trivially blocked, and platforms won't do OF ads, what does that leave? Have you thought this through?

Note: before you say "their content sucks", yes, I agree, sucky content should be removed. But the question here is where a submission that otherwise qualifies for the sub should be removed merely on the basis that the profile of the submitter links an OF page. Again, that's even when the submission itself doesn't link it.

Sneaky, indirect, hidden advertising is worse than regular ads or 'spam'. Regardless of if a community is about gardening or guitars or cooking or basketball, most people don't want shills posting content that's secretly sponsored product placement related to their hobby or promotion of the poster for fame or profit.

Most subreddits have rules specifically against this, because otherwise the real, organic, genuine conversation and content gets drowned out by self-promoting shills trying to drive clicks to their website or views to their youtube or get free advertising/PR for their company. You're supposed to participate out of a genuine interest in the community, not to exploit them as an audience for making money.

I agree with you about the product placement stuff, and I despise the submarine shills. But that's the thing: that's rejecting the submission -- and banning the user -- on their content having failed to meet the forums standards, not simply the fact of their profile linking their OF, as the OP was referring to. That's a whole different league from "hey, here are some cool rabbits" and oh, if you look at their profile, you can find their OF page. (The OF friend in question was immediately banned for having a reddit account whose profile links OF even despite the mod accepting that it's otherwise a valid submission.)

I'm make the same challenge to you that the other respondent ignored: how should people ethically self-promote, if not that?

So, hinting that they're a woman on reddit?

Can you unpack this sentence and explain what it is about "people who are on average making less than $145 a month" that makes the abuse you are getting from them specifically unbelievable?

(edit: Wow, -3 after only 20 minutes?... I guess people on HN apparently really hate the idea that people who happen to be poorer than us deserve respect. I think that's the fastest downvoting I have gotten, even contrasted with when I say negative things about Apple, Signal, or Rust. I highly recommend thinking hard about what it means to believe that it is ever appropriate to speak with as much disdain about people who are struggling as Quequao just did... it was frankly downright shameful.)

"I've been getting abused by people promoting OF content. I assumed they were doing this because it made them thousands and thousands of dollars and they were making a living doing it, but if they're only making $145 per month from their OF account, then why do they care so much?"

(The obvious objection here is that nothing in the linked analysis suggests the people abusing Reddit mods are only making $145 a month from OF, and in fact, the analysis seems to be pretty clear that the median active creator on OF is making much more.)

As for your comment, I did not downvote you so can't explain why other's might, but I assume it's because you seemed to have misread the comment in an uncharitable way.

If a mod has to deal with repeated vitriol from people making money indirectly from the platform, it seems reasonable for them to assume that the amount of money at stake is more than a few dollars per day.

It was about “why is this small amount worth so much aggravation?!” not “why is this poor beggar bothering me?!”

> I guess people on HN apparently really hate the idea that people who happen to be poorer than us deserve respect.

They don't, they hate people who make that assumption.

I confirm that was precisely the reason why I downvoted that post. Not only does that post indicate the poster failed to read and understand OP's post but the poster's comment suggests the misunderstanding was disingenuous and intended to put up a strawman designed to gratuitously attack OP with pseudo-moralist arguments.

It's worse than that. 99% of people in MLMs lose money.

https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_com...

In this case, you have to look at the investment people make into getting that $145. Creators are very invested, and the $145 is often in itself a huge source of disappointment and frustration. Imagine being sold being superstardom and a life of luxury and getting $145 (which probably doesn't cover your costs) and having random people complement you in public on how you look naked. I think I'd be a little frustrated, too had I fell for that.

> It’s like those annoying relatives that are willing to throw away any authenticity in their relationship with you in order to hustle their shitty MLM product that is making them next to nothing.

The are being exploited by the MLM, who sold a dream of business success, self-realization and wealth. Usually at a time in their life where they were in a state of financial failure. Like the exploited creator, they often spend thousands to get hundreds and end up being socially humiliated by their attempts at lead generation.

The irony in all of it is that for some it works.

The other thing is that it the average abuser and average account have likely quite different profiles. Average account will have much higher amount of passive accounts that owner don't care about anymore.