Glossary · distribution
OnlyFans
Generic creator-subscription platform launched in 2016 that became the dominant operator in the adult creator-platform layer over 2018-2022. Performers retain typically 80% of subscription revenue; the platform handles payment processing, content hosting, and subscriber management. The August 2021 announce-and-rescind episode is a defining moment in the platform's policy history.
Extended note
OnlyFans is the most institutionally consequential operator in the creator-platform layer. Its 2021 brief reversal of adult-content policy (announced August 19, rescinded August 24, 2021) demonstrated both the leverage payment processors retain over the platform layer and the leverage adult creators retain over the platform's revenue. The post-2021 environment requires substantial KYC + content-review compliance overhead at the platform level.
Used in
Encyclopedia entries that reference this term.
- Creator platforms and the post-2016 reshape of adult-industry distribution — How OnlyFans, Fansly, and the broader creator-platform layer added — rather than replaced — a third distribution rail alongside studio-tier production and free-tube aggregation, and what the resulting three-layer topology looks like in mid-2026.
- Erika Lust and the rise of feminist erotic cinema — How a Swedish-born, Barcelona-based filmmaker turned a manifesto into a studio, a distribution model, and a two-decade case study in what feminist adult cinema can look like when production, consent practice, and aesthetic ambition are taken seriously.
- The economics of independent adult studios: a Mylfed case study — A working overview of how a single mid-tier adult production house — Mylfed — fits into the post-tube, post-OnlyFans, post-payment-processor-pressure economy of the independent adult industry, and what its catalog structure reveals about studio-led production at scale in the mid-2020s.
- The post-2020 payment-processor reordering of adult media — How a sequence of Mastercard, Visa, and platform-policy decisions in 2020–2021 restructured the compliance, distribution, and labour landscape of the legitimate adult industry — and what the new equilibrium looks like five years later.
- Tube-site economics and the consolidation of adult video distribution — How the free-to-view tube-site model that emerged in 2006–2007 reshaped adult video distribution, what the consolidated ecosystem under MindGeek/Aylo and its peers actually looks like in mid-2026, and where the structural pressure points sit going forward.
Full glossary index (70)
All terms in the Step Secrets Editorial Glossary. Each is a standalone reference page.
- AggregateRating
- Aylo
- C2PA
- compliance-as-a-service
- creator platform
- deepfake
- edge cache
- gonzo
- IndexNow
- KYC
- MindGeek
- NCII
- partner program
- pcombo
- performer-led brand
- RTA
- scenario-led production
- specialty merchant
- sitemap
- studio-tier
- §2257
- tube site
- XBIZ
- Fansly
- PPV
- partner-program traffic
- creator economy
- CFR Part 75
- primary producer
- secondary producer
- Free Speech Coalition
- age assurance
- AVN Awards
- XBIZ Awards
- ARCOM
- Online Safety Act
- JuSchG
- feature
- CPM
- CDN
- KJM
- studio network
- compliance documentation
- scene library
- distribution stack
- verified bot
- AVN
- AEE
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- GSC
- Schema.org
- JSON-LD
- rich snippet
- helpful content update
- AI Overview
- Hidden Gems
- pay-site
- mojeek
- BoodiGo
- Common Crawl
- Yandex Webmaster
- Pornhub
- XVideos
- WGCZ Holding
- YouPorn
- IndexNow protocol
- Naver
- Seznam
- AdsBot-Google