Only Friends - Financial Autonomy At What Cost?

I usually don't use web2 social media, but occasionally I browse a bit of tik tok

I know it's not a great app to use, but there are the occasional hidden gems that I enjoy. With that being said, I came across this young woman who explained the reasons for being a content creator on Only Fans. It was interesting to watch as there was a lot to unpack here. She clearly still feels uncomfortable justifying her actions there. She spoke about selling (herself) too cheaply, but that this is better than charging too much and not being able to sell a lot of subscriptions. She didn't seem very proud of herself when she said these things. It seemed to me rather that she accepted this to be part of the business. After all, only the really successful people on OFs can charge a high price for stripping down.

She clarified that her main motivation for having an OFs is the financial incentive. She said that since she "works" there she has gained financial autonomy and plans to continue until she can be truly "free" from 9-5 jobs. She doesn't like the whole idea of being employed under someone. And I mean who can blame her? It is quite appealing to be autonomous in something that you are doing.

In other words, we have a young woman here (among so many others) that is just trying to live a more financially autonomous life. The internet is filled with advice for becoming rich or making money to retire early. It truly seems easy when one watches some of these videos. Just resell this on Amazon, get started on Upwork, upload these prints and sell them or just write an ebook etc. But if you have tried anything of that you will immediately see that this is just talk from a very select few that "made it". There are literally thousands upon thousands who are not successful and do not tell their stories. "Hey look, I tried 10 different ways of making "easy" money and none of them worked..." This is not such an appealing thing to say on social media.

Financial autonomy is very important in life as money is how the world rolls. But while just few want to work regular 9-5 jobs, it is very difficult to break out of the system using "traditional means". Even online sex work is not that easy as you will be competing with thousands of others selling their bodies at lower and lower prices while revealing more and more of yourself. The price? You will lose your innocence for a start. You can always justify doing this kind of job to yourself and others by arguing that you can use this money to make your life and the lives or your family better. But you won't be the same person at the end of this process. You will change. And probably not for the better.

Crypto could fix this on a fundamental level

I mean don't try to say that to all the people losing near to 100% of their value from LUNA or to the others who "bought the peak". But the point is that you will learn financial responsibility (in these cases very quickly). This is what everybody has to learn when using money. And I mean literally everyone. The best way of gaining financial autonomy is to learn about money and your behavior towards it.

While crypto generally isn't a get quick rich scheme anymore the secret now often lies in projects that give you a passive income. Take Hive as an example: we can blog here and earn rewards. You can also post in communities or play games and earn more tokens. Most of these can be "staked" or pooled into liquidity pools to give you more passive income. The more crypto projects that arise and you can involve yourself with (if the fundamentals are there) the better your chance at earning a passive return. If the project thrives your income will do good as well. We are seeing many such examples on Hive and there are many others still on other chains.

The point I am trying to make is that this can lead to a fundamental shift in how people operate. While many only "survive" in the world currently, crypto gives us a chance to also "thrive" in this world. Even if this might at first just be an additional (small) stream of income and you still have your normal job; having a couple of hundred dollars on the side can be a small or even a really big difference (depending on the country you are living in).

Would this woman have to use Only Friends if she had ~$500 of additional crypto monthly income? Perhaps, but perhaps she would also reconsider. Perhaps it would be enough for the time being and she could try to slowly expand this stream if income. I think what this truly does is give people more opportunities. And having more opportunities is a great way to becoming financially autonomous.

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