Sorry, we're talking about Instagram, an app we know puts huge targets on women, especially young women! I have no idea what you're talking about here about nicheness. Fashion products alone are worth way more than the entire porn industry. Not including beauty, skincare, cosmetic surgery, wellness/cleansing, etc...
Whereas men are simpler creatures attracted to any woman that is visually hot.
The former is a lot harder to implement than the latter.
For the huge demand among men - it's best to think about an AI girlfriend as an alternative to going to the strip club.
Sure, some guys go to strip clubs for just staring at naked women. But a huge (mostly unacknowledged) part of the appeal is the short-term companionship mixed in. The flirting, the ego stroking, all of it, just an attractive woman taking an interest in you and talking with you. Lots of guys I have talked to have had the experience of one of their buddies getting too drunk and "spilling their guts" to a stripper. That's not a thing that happens if you're just there to stare at bewbs.
In Asia, hostess clubs operate much more along the lines of this idea of emotional fulfillment. Strip clubs are part of the overall entertainment service sector, but really focus more on the bewbs aspect. In the West it's much more mixed in together instead of in two separate types of businesses.
Also, even if we were to call it a "relationship", I'd say it's a lot easier to cater to the typical male wants of a "relationship" through the current (and near future) state of AI than the typical female wants.
Disclaimer: The usual stuff about "not all men/women etc. etc."
I wouldn't be surprised if the overall market size (in users, not dollars) for all types of "relationship substitutes" for men is simply far, far larger than the market for women, even though Twilight and 50 Shades are themselves huge. For every 1 female erotica fan out there, I bet there are 10 or maybe 100 male users of porn or OnlyFans. I would also guess that the amount of money spent by men is at least a multiple of the amount spent by women. If I was an entrepreneur going into a market where, say, there were 100x potential male users and maybe 3x potential male dollars, I'd be a fool not to at least initially target men.
It's a lot easier to implement an AI version of a strip club or hostess club than an AI version of Twilight or 50SoG.
> Are said she believes that reflects a gender-based slant — social media platforms freely allow sex-related ads only if the intended audience is men.
So when you've got a huge hungry audience, willing to pay money, the platforms are incentivized to enforce their rules about ads unequally. Content and apps geared towards women, or gay men, are such a small piece of the pie by comparison that there's less incentive to look the other way.
The companies being accused of this unequal enforcement, of course, have a long history of doing things for no other reason than they can make a little extra money on it by not respecting their users. It's entirely believable.