Countering digital labor platforms’ algorithmic management: OnlyFans and the emergence of neo-patronage

Abstract

Facilitating and mediating a sustained connection between themselves and their audiences is a continuous endeavor for most content creators operating within the online labor platforms characteristic of media and entertainment industries. For these creators, the adaptability and flexibility afforded by the expanded economic structures of platform intermediaries are both liberating and constrictive, as these changing marketplaces divest financial and regulatory responsibilities onto the creators themselves. Within these digital environments, media creators are significantly affected by intermediary platforms’ algorithmic management. Direct-to-consumer platforms – such as OnlyFans – have emerged as an answer to mainstream labor platforms’ algorithmic governance, and content creators’ embrace of direct-to-consumer platforms exemplifies a conscious counter to the affective influence of the platform economy. The patrons of direct-to-consumer platforms function as spatially dispersed benefactors, ushering in an era of ‘neo-patronage’ by financially supporting their chosen creators through sustained subscriptions and commissions.