The Adult Industry Is Changing As Social Media Is Reshaping Sex Work

The Vision behind Sharesome.com

Social Media has reshaped the way brands are being built and how they advertise. Social Media gives everyone the opportunity to build a brand, or even become a brand. Some do this very successfully. For example Kylie Jenner: Due to the staggering success of the youngest Kardashian-Jenner sibling’s cosmetics line, she just became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. Kylie Jenner built her brands Kylie Cosmetics and Kylie Skin on top of her 136 million Instagram followers. Other influencers don’t build brands, but promote brands on Social Media. With 1 million followers and up, you’re getting into territory where they can charge $100,000. Some can even get $250,000 for a post!

“Open Instagram and scroll, and you likely can’t go more than a few seconds without seeing someone you follow promoting a brand, whether it’s a celebrity, a wannabe celebrity, or that random girl you went to college with who’s somehow managed to become a famous fashion blogger.” — Quote from Vox.com

How to Find Instagram Influencers | Influencer Marketing

This trend also shaped the adult industry. Romi Rain, 2018 XBIZ Performer of the Year (with 2.6 million followers on Instagram) summarized the changes in an article on XBIZ called “Indie Revolution: Meet Adult’s New Commanders in Chief”:

Social media is what really changed the game for so many of us. We are all realizing that we are truly the product and our fans will support us and often genuinely want us to succeed because that means they will likely see more and better of us. It’s never been easier and more worthwhile to take control of our image, brands, and products and because of that we get to enjoy it more and thrive longer!

I think we are already in the middle of the most important changes in the past decade for creators in adult entertainment. Our fan base reach and earning potential has been proven to be unlimited. True fans support their favorite stars now more than ever in so many ways and I think it’s only going to continue growing.

I think it’s some of the people behind the scenes who need to adapt and evolve. There’s a bit of role reversal in power and earning potential, finally in favor of entertainers and creators. I am not going backwards: we will continue to fight for our creative and financial rights in adult entertainment.

A new generation of NSFW content creators are now running their own businesses. They are reaching out to their fan base on Social Media and turning this fan base into revenue — just like any other influencer does.

“Sex workers have to be hyper, hyper social-media-literate,” says PJ Sage, a cam model and sex work researcher. “At least 50 percent of your time is spent promoting and marketing.”

But the problem is: “Sex sells” on Social Media as long as you don’t sell sex!

Sex Sells, or Does it?

Almost every mainstream social media site is banning NSFW content creators in one way or another. Tumblr just banned NSFW content totally in December 2018 and lost 30% of it’s traffic afterwards. Just a few days after Tumblr announced that it would ban all pornography, Facebook has pulled the proverbial hold my beer and started to “restrict sexually explicit language" which bans erotic art, talk of shared sexual interests, kink groups, and anything that “encourages sexual encounters between adults”.

Reddit changed its Advertising Policy to disallow NSFW ads and targeting on Reddit one month ago. “Ads for adult-oriented products and services on Reddit are no longer permissible, and Not Safe For Work (typically referred to as NSFW) subreddits will no longer be eligible for ads or targeting.”

Instagram started at the same time to crack down on “inappropriate content”. The app will no longer recommend content that’s “inappropriate” in its app, even if it doesn’t explicitly break Instagram’s rules.

Porn superstar Riley Reid had already lost her Instagram account with 1.7 million followers at that time.

Up until today hundreds of NSFW content creators lost their Instagram accounts, sometimes with 1M+ followers. But sex workers started to organize against Facebook and Instagram for removing their accounts without explanation.

The Adult Performers Actors Guild (APAG), a union that advocates for adult industry professionals’ rights, wrote in an April 22 letter to Facebook:

Over the course of the last several months, almost 200 adult performers have had their Instagrams accounts terminated without explanation. In fact, every day, additional performers reach out to us with their termination stories. In the large majority of instances, her was no nudity shown in the pictures. However, it appears that the accounts were terminated merely because of their status as an adult performer.

Effort to learn the reasons behind the termination have been futile. Performers are asked to send pictures of their names to try to verify that the accounts are actually theirs and not put up by frauds. Emails are sent and there is no reply.

The letter was never answered. But, Facebook/Instagram officials agreed on meeting with APAG leaders to discuss these issues.

The meeting took place at Jun 19, 2019 at the Facebook HQ in Menlo Park in the presence of XBIZ journalist Gustavo Turner who reported about the meeting afterwards in an article on xbiz.com.

Doing the aftermath: It is a big win for performers to be invited because they organized and fought their way to this meeting table. On the other side, Instagram’s policies regarding “nude content” are still not clear. What I understood from the outcome of the discussion is: Too much skin on a picture might lead to the removal of the content or deletion of the account through a machine learning program. This can be appealed and then it’s checked by a human. So, what is the definition of nude, or “too much skin”? Besides the fact that showing female nipples is a red-line for Instagram, the secret is still not reviled. But the discussion gave a hint where to find the answers. Obviously the “humans” in charge of the appeal process are “trained” with the help of “training material” — obviously written manuals. At one point a Instagram official said: “With the Omid case we looked at 300 accounts, so we found that there was a higher amount of removals than expected. Then we looked at the training material and we found that there was a language there that was nonspecific. Unclear language in the training was resulting in overenforcing.” Pushing for answers, I am sure they will be found in these documents. But they are kept a secret.

But one thing is certain now: Instagram won’t allow sex workers to identify as such. You won’t be allow to add any links to your commercial activities.

Twitter still allows porn, but it has to be marked as “sensitive media” which basically means to be shadow-banned. Currently, 97 percent of Twitter’s users have the sensitive content filter on. The platform’s advertising guidelines, however, do ban pornographic and sexual material in paid posts.

Basically Social Media becomes, or already is, a no man’s land for NSFW content creators. These are the challenges sex workers are facing:

• NSFW content creators today are the CEO’s of their own business. But they have no or limited access to Social Media to build a brand, a fan base and monetize it. Their accounts are getting constantly deleted. It’s frustrating to build an audience on social media (like Instagram or Twitter) and then your account gets blocked or shadow-banned, over, and over, and over again.
• Even if NSFW content creators play by the book on Social Media, they can not run paid ads to boost their profiles or generate additional sales. All platforms forbid NSFW content in paid ads.
• The only way to grow a brand on Social Media as a sex worker is to grow it organically, so they play by the rules. On Instagram for example, they can only post SFW content (as long as Instagram doesn’t see it as “inappropriate” of course). Now the problem is “how to sell a product without showing the product”? It’s like being Pizza Hut, but Instagram would ban all pictures that contain tomatoes, cheese and onions. Their Instagram would look like anything, but not like someone who is selling pizza, and therefore it wouldn’t help their brand too much. Same applies to sex workers who might get away with posting bikini pictures, while the product is sex, not sexy. Therefore it simply doesn’t help the brand too much. Looking at the big adult industry accounts that are active on Instagram by “playing by the rules”, like Brazzers or Pornhub, shows the dilemma. Both are porn companies, but there is no porn on their Instagram, not even a link to their sites (as these would lead to a take down of their accounts). This might be OK for already known brands like Pornhub, but imagine you want to build a brand with a tool-set like this. It’s mission impossible. On Twitter, sex workers can post “their” product by posting NSFW content, if the content is marked as “sensitive media” which means you only reach out to 3% of all Twitter users. Either way, playing by the rules, sex workers always end up in a dead end street.
• Because sex workers aren’t exactly the users Social Media companies have in mind, some build-in features are even putting sex workers at risk. Geo-location features can reveal the location of a sex worker, and Facebook’s well known “People You May Know” recommendations can easily mix up a “real identity” with a sex work identity.

Instagram, meet with Rebecca Crow to discuss sex worker rights on Insta!

Sara Willis, a UK-based camgirl, has a clear stance on this: “It’s 2019 and a lot of people do sex work in some form or another. As long as we follow the rules, we should be allowed to promote ourselves in the same way as any other business.” UK-based sex worker Rebecca Crow says: “Sex is used as marketing in every industry. If the people who are using sex to sell sexual services are the only ones being penalised then that is discrimination.”

Both is true, so why are literally all Social Media Platforms still pushing sex workers off their platforms? There are three reasons for it, and it’s hard to fight them:

1. Sex workers can’t be monetized by Social Media platforms. None of these platforms will ever show an ad for a porn clip next to an ad for Coca Cola in a SFW feed. This is true also the other way around: They won’t show an ad for Coca Cola in a NSFW feed full of sexually explicit content. They call this kind of content “not-brand-safe” content, because no mainstream brand wants to see their ads next to sexual explicit pictures and video clips.
2. All big Social Media sites are in legal trouble. Especially Facebook, as they are getting into the focus of politics due to their growing influence on society (and elections). To avoid being further investigated by the ACCC for potential misuse of market power (and shut down or broken down in smaller units by the Antitrust Division), their strategy is to simply shift responsibility to lawmakers by seeking for regulation. In a blog post from May 10, Mark Zuckerberg said: “But there are nuanced decisions to make here, such as how we should handle content that isn’t illegal but might cause harm. This is an area where I believe companies should not make these decisions by themselves and there should be a public process with democratically elected governments.” I guess it’s obvious why they don’t want to be known as friendly hosts for sex workers going down that road in the USA.
3. The general “public opinion” in the USA matters. All these companies are US-based. And a Vice President Mike Pence represents the ongoing “War on Porn” better than anyone else. As this anti-sex, religiously motivated lobbies don’t have any shame in playing dirty by harassing people, they seem to gain power.
4. All these big Social Media giants are publicly listed companies. Their valuation depends on constitutional investors. But these funds will never invest in a company that makes money in the adult industry. The latest development at Tumblr is the best example for it. First, the company throws off sex workers and NSFW content from their platform, now Tumblr is up for sale. Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Three things need to happen right now that would make Social Media companies change their policies:

1. Their main customers, the big brands, the advertising partners, need to open their minds up and feel comfortable to advertise in the same ecosystem as the adult industry. And as much as I see big brands becoming more open to ideas like sustainability, gender equality or the LGBTQ+ community (like Gillette who challenges masculinity in their new ads), it’s still a long way to go.
2. Legislation has to change and decriminalize sex work. While New Zealand became the first country to decriminalize prostitution in June 2003, in the United States (and all these Social Media companies are US-based), with a Vice President Mike Pence who thinks that “gay couples signal societal collapse”, there is no hope of that happening quick.
3. Abraham Polonsky said once: “Money has no moral opinions”. But it has. As long as public listed companies can’t make money in the adult industry, because their stakeholders have partnerships and agreements that prevent them from investing in porn or sex-related companies — nothing will change.

Sex workers are organizing all over the world and pushing for decriminalization. But while being silenced on Social Media, this fight is not becoming easier.

This is why we are working on Sharesome, a NSFW Social Media service, designed with sex workers in our mind.

In an article on Medium, I already laid out why we are building a Social Media platform for NSFW content creators:

Why Do We Build a Social Media Platform For NSFW content creators

We want to give sex workers a voice, and a place where they can freely promote their services. We also believe that this is the right thing to do: To build an alternative to Facebook, Twitter & Co., that is welcoming to diverse communities like sex workers, NSFW artists or the LGBTQ+ community. And we need to build it now — before there is nothing left to organize.

The main arguments that we very often hear why this isn’t such a great idea are the following ones:

Means first, that you can’t build it because it’s to expensive, and second, it will end up being just another red light district. Fair enough, especially because Gustavo Turner is, as a news editor for XBIZ, a well known and respected advocate for sex worker interests. And it’s true, asking sex workers, who are already in a vicious circle of re-creating social media accounts over and over again, to open another account for an anyway-failing project is just not useful for them. And, yes, yet another red light district platform doesn’t help the cause at all.

Spoiler alert: I think three other issues are more challenging for building a “Facebook for porn”: how to deal with copyright issues regarding user generated content, and the most pressing one, how to monetize such a platform, while aiming for a win-win situation for everyone involved, and how to deal with the fact that the app stores will block an “adult themed” app. This will be answered a bit later in this article.

We know that the potential size for a platform like Sharesome is somewhere between 450–600 million users. That being the amount of people consuming NSFW content in one way or another online on a regular basis. That would land Sharesome somewhere between Twitter (with 336 million users) and Instagram (with 1 billion users) — when we reach full potential.

After one year of running Sharesome in public beta, we already reached 500.000 users, over 200 million post views in feeds, 1.9 million quarterly impressions on Google, 250 TB data served every month, and more than 10.000 topics opened by our users (topics are like subreddits or micro-communities around specific kinks). (Fun fact: It took Reddit 3 years from 2005 to 2008 to grow from zero to 10.000 topics, it took Sharesome less than a year.) The average Sharesome visitor spends 9 minutes on the site (2 minutes more than the average user spends on Instagram). We are spending zero money on ads and all our growth is organic. A social network is perfectly suited for being crawled by search engines due to how interconnected the content is. This generates a “network effect” while growing. Due to the architecture of Sharesome, and our growth hacking efforts, traffic grows while the community grows — and this generates even more traffic by being more visible in search engines.

It’s not about budget when it comes to growth. It’s about being at the right time, with the right product, at the right place. Today, Sharesome already has the numbers, traction, and standing as a brand to take over.

It is also undeniable that NSFW content helped all existing Social Media players to grow: Tumblr was once the place for exploring all kind of NSFW content. After they banned it, they lost 30% of their traffic. Reddit still is known for it’s sexually diverse subreddits — but not for too long, I would guess. Instagram isn’t famous for cat videos, it’s their models who became “influencers” by following the rule that “sex sells”. Patreon built their success on the back of NSFW content creators, and abandoned them later. And let’s be real: Facebooks early “poke” feature wasn’t intended to poke someone you wouldn’t have a crush on. But today Facebook became Mike Pence’s dry dream of a 100% sex free zone.

So, why do we have any doubt that, if many NSFW content creators come together to post their content on Sharesome, this wouldn’t lead to being one of the fastest growing social networks the world has ever seen? NSFW content is one of the most wanted content categories online and all other Social Media platforms abandon it.

But why would Sharesome not be like all the others? Build a success on the back of sex workers and later abandon them… This is also a concern we hear a lot.

1. Our co-founder Tam Tam is a former sex worker. Damn, she makes sure that we stay on track. Also our CEO Tudor Bold and myself (being co-founders) have a record in building disruptive projects that aren’t necessarily mainstream. Right now we are also working on institutionalizing “sex work” deeper into our companies DNA by putting together a advisory board of active sex workers that can veto our decisions. Power to the people that matter!
2. Sharesome has a built-in monetization model that makes sure that we need sex workers, and don’t end up like all the others. Remember, it’s all about the money in the end. Ahead of time (Facebook is now planning it as well), we already deeply implemented a cryptocurrency called Flame Token (XFL) into our platform. What we basically do is to bring social media to porn, and crypto to social media. That leads to the fact that our main customers are sex workers, who will be the main token holders in this game. Nobody abandons their main customers. Ever. (Later more about this.)

We don’t have any doubt that Sharesome can be a international Social Media player with 450–600 million users, making it a world wide Top 20 site. This will help sex workers to make a living, giving them a voice, and it would be a “in your face” statement for the rest of the Social Media industry to not underestimate the commercial power of the adult industry. In a world where profit matters (at the end of the day), that commercial power has weight. We are gonna see that playing out, once there will be an industry around legal marijuana that pays taxes, creates jobs and multi-billion dollar companies. Legislation will get better and social acceptance will grow. The same will happen with the adult industry, in the moment a unicorn challenger rises who unfolds the commercial power of millions of NSFW content creators. But, this will only happen if that project is not just another pornsite.

We knew from the beginning that we would fail, if we would only allow NSFW content creators to post and their fans to follow. That is how you build a single themed “red light district” website. And no matter how big this becomes, it’s gonna be a target for discrimination and it always will be just another pornsite. So we followed up with the idea to be open and inviting for literally everyone, especially for diverse communities like sex workers, NSFW artists or the LGBTQ+ community, and we implemented topics — which are basically communities that can be started and managed by everyone on Sharesome. And we hit the nerve with it: Up until today more then 10.000 topics are open on Sharesome. Every day, more are added. Some of them have 400.000+ community members, some only 10. Some are mainstream, some are niche, some are straight, some are gay, trans, or lesbian, some are NSFW, some are SFW, some are just for sharing porn, some for art, some for discussions only. It’s very diverse. We even have the inevitable food porn topic ;-).

https://sharesome.com/topic/sfwfood/

Topics are one of the reasons why content creators on Sharesome can grow their audience faster than on any other social network. As a content creator you can kick-off your profile by posting relevant content (including the link to your pay-site) to already existing communities that will like, share and tip your content. This is how we created a win-win situation for content creators and communities. We already see a trend that Sharesome is not only used for sharing porn (that’s just how it started), it’s a place where people also organize self-moderated communities and discussions. Our current organic growth shows that there is a “market” for a social media platform that is open for diverse communities like sex workers, the LGBTQ+ community, artists, creators, performers, or just everyone who wants to sexually express themselves.

Sure, Sharesome will always be a place where NSFW content is driving growth, and sex workers are the main influencers, but we are not worried that this will not lead to a inclusive and welcoming ecosystem for hundreds of millions of people. That being said, inclusive and welcoming doesn’t mean that we tolerate Nazis, white supremacists and other people with hate in their heart. Hate is the one thing we just won’t promote. We gonna leave these assholes to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, and Twitter. On Sharesome, they are simply not welcome.

The challenges of building an application like Sharesome are huge. One of the challenges is that you cannot build an app that would be distributed through the Google and Apple app stores.

Bad news is, this is indeed censorship. Good news is, there is a way to “fuck the system” since we no longer need to be in the app stores. Thanks to a new technology, that wasn’t available a couple of years ago, we can now build a progressive web app that can be installed on the start screen of every mobile device and “look and feel” like any other app with no difference. Today, there is no need of being “approved” by any app store. A simple web browser is enough. You can already try it out with Sharesome:

We are technically not there yet, but we are close. Sharesome already feels OK, as we already progressed to be a SPA (single page application), and we are working towards the end goal, to provide our users a real app experience outside the app stores. Sharesome will be the first mass adopted progressive web app that circumvents the app stores completely. That means also being “censorship resistant”.

Other challenges are: You have to manage growth (check) and you have to be careful not to build just another pornsite (check). But the real challenges come with the architecture we chose for Sharesome and here is what they are and how we intend to face them.

Once we decided that Sharesome can’t be just another porn model website where stars post content and fans just consume it, we needed to open the site for user generated content as well. Also we needed to give people some power to open their own topics and the ability to self-moderate them. These comes with a set of problems, because we created build-in “conflicts of interest” between content creators (who are our heroes) and fans (who are the bread and butter for everyone, us and the content creators):

• User generated content is from the point of view of a content creator “stolen content”, from the point of view of a fan it is “fair use”. At the end whether or not (as an example) six seconds of a porn scene in a user-generated compilation constitutes fair use is something for a court to decide. On the other side, content creators need a Social Media platform with traction, they need an audience. And user generated content creates traction and thereby the audience. It’s not only a conflict, it’s interconnected.
  Right now, Sharesome functions like any other platform out there. We have a DMCA officer and content creators who find their content on Sharesome can request a take down and we will do that. But this is a flawed system. First of all, the whole work needs to be done by the content creator and at the end it’s a no-win deal. Other than the content being deleted, there is no real benefit.
  We think that technology is the solution to the problem. We are working on a Content-ID technology that will work like YouTube’s Content ID, combined with community efforts, biometric software and machine learning. Content creators get to decide what happens when content in a post on Sharesome matches a work they own. They can delete or claim/monetize the content by adding their own pay-site to it. That way the content “works” for them in three ways: It generates traffic for their pay-sites, it creates followers for their profile, and it creates the necessary network effect for Sharesome in general, which helps every content creator on the platform.
  We want that content works in the best interest of the original creator and we are working on a solution for that. Right now we are asking our verified stars to be patient with us and with the uploaders. Internet content right now is either “stolen content” or “ fair use content”, but it should be just one thing: Content! Content that promotes the work of the original creator. We just need to “tag” the creators to give them credit and the game will change forever.
  As the industry is changing, we also need a change of mind. To just say that all uploaders are pirates and freeloaders neglects the fact that the internet (and especially Social Media) is built on the freedom of sharing. It’s true that platforms that refuse to credit content creators, like many Tube-sites did in the past, are part of an evil empire that makes money with other people’s content. Knowing that we live in times where Content-ID technology can solve the problem, Sharesome has the back of content creators and is working on technical means to identify content. We are already testing a new system that will give content creators credit as we have already implemented a very basic tagging system for posts.

• Topics are a wonderful things for content creators. If a content creator has (for example) threesome content, it can be posted in the topic “Threesome” (with 262.000 followers) where you have a 100% “product to market fit”. The community there will most likely appreciate your content very much.
  And sometimes they don’t. And that creates tension. We saw it several times now that verified content creators got blocked by topic moderators.
  Topics on Sharesome are communities that are run and managed by the topic moderators itself, but they are often used like hashtags — and they are not hashtags. Sometimes these communities are very specific about the content that they allow. Tension can rise when a content creator with financial interests posts for example in an amateur topic and is denied to post there because the moderators don’t want any posters with financial interests. Or a picture is posted where only GIFs are allowed, or straight content is posted in a gay topic. Topics aren’t hashtags, or if they are, they are moderated hashtags: Not everyone can use them.
  On the long term, that will improve the quality of the content on Sharesome because we provide fully curated content. Content creators who find relevant topics (communities) for their content will benefit from a crowd that appreciates what they do 100%. But that means going through a learning curve of finding out where to post. That might be a challenge (and kind of annoying at the beginning), but it’s way better to have access to existing communities than to post only to an empty feed, and rely on re-shares from people with a huge follower-ship to gain new followers.

Right now, we are balancing the interests of different groups of people that all need each other: content creators, uploaders, curators and consumers. They all live in the same house, called the internet. If we want to build a social app around NSFW content, we can’t leave anyone out. It’s work in progress and here is where we are right now and what we roll out in future:

Verified stars are in the center of the Sharesome universe. Our team makes sure that we don’t have fake accounts and that the posted content is original content. Verified stars have automatically a link to their pay-site under each post and are the only usergroup who can add links to their posts when posting in topics. All posted content is marked OC (original content).

Verified brands are quite similar to stars, but they can’t add links to their topic posts (as they have already a link under each post that leads to their main site).

Verified users will will soon become “originals”: NSFW amateurs and artists (illustrators, storytellers etc). We want to make sure that people who don’t have financial interests (aka don’t want to sell their content) can also post OC (original content).

Regular users are pseudonymous fans. Their posts are usually fair-use content that is marked for being tagged and claimed. They can’t add links to topic posts.

The identification process for sex workers is also a measurement of “fighting human trafficking”. We are working right now on advanced technical processes for “User-IDs”, means in the short future, we will request a government issued ID plus a selfie with the usual “written sign” in your hand (=KYC). At the same time, we still encourage pseudonymous accounts, aka the use of stage names in public. This means decriminalizing sex work, SESTA/FOSTA means criminalizing sex work.

We are doing this also for two other reasons:

• By “sorting” our users in different groups, we can make sure to give them the right exposure on the platform. Verified content creators are already marked as stars on Sharesome and can be discovered in a different section on the site and all profiles have a “verified badge” that differs them from regular accounts. Like on mainstream social media, where celebrities stand out from the crowd with their blue verified badge, on Sharesome sex workers stand out with their verified star badge.
  Vision 1: We imagine a future where NSFW content creators are the main influencers in global social network.
• Knowing what kind of users post content, we started to roll out a system that internally divides content into OC (original content) and fair-use content. Original content will have in the future more weight in the feed, it already is able to receive tips, and it will have discounts when being promoted. Fair-use content is up for content identification, means we are manually and technically crediting the original content creator for it. This might take years to play out, but it is part of Sharesome’s DNA from day 1.
  Vision 2: We imagine a future where NSFW content creators get credit for what they do.

With this approach we want to find solutions to the problem of how to deal with copyright issues in an environment where content is user generated. We believe the strategy has to go beyond a rightful dealing with copyright takedown notices. We believe that a platform like ours has to play a active role in identifying content and let copyright owners decide what happens when content matches a work they own.

But this is just a first step to answer all questions about content. The fact “who is in the content” doesn’t automatically answer the question of “who owns the content” and most important “where to buy the full content”. As we implement the Content-ID technology in steps, we will be able to answer these questions as well.

Sharesome is more than just a “Facebook for porn”, we are less a social media site and more a social discovery platform where it’s all about following your kinks, discovering content and therefore content creators. This makes us also different in our approach not to keep users in our app at all costs. We encourage our users to leave Sharesome by clicking on pay-site links and buy actually the content that is promoted on Sharesome somewhere else. With this we are working towards the most optimized customer acquisition funnel you can find in any industry.

Let’s compare the funnels between Instagram and Sharesome that are in place right now for NSFW content creators. Let’s assume the account is a work account and serves only the purpose of promoting the sales of NSFW clips on a pay site (ManyVids, Clips4Sale, …):

Instagram: The account is under your stage name and represents your brand. You can’t add links to your clipstore and you can only post SFW content. Your followers have to guess that you are selling NSFW clips, go to a search engine and type in your username. Now you have to hope that your pay-site did a good SEO job and that the search engines shows your profile there on the first page. In this customer acquisition funnel your conversion rate is quite low because you “lose” potential customers at every step of the way. Plus, your Instagram followers might not even be potential customers as they don’t know that they are following a NSFW content creator.

Sharesome: The account is under your stage name and represents your brand. You can add links to your clipstore and you can post NSFW content. Your followers know (by your verified star badge) that you are selling NSFW clips. Your followers will find a link to your pay-site under each of your post (even if you post a picture of your morning coffee), or they can click on a link leading to a specific clip, in case you post a trailer. With only one click they can buy your content. In this customer acquisition funnel your conversion rate is higher because you can convert potential customers into paying customers at any step of the way. Plus, all your followers on Sharesome are there because you are a NSFW content creator and therefore potential customers.

But there are still flaws in the customer acquisition funnel, right in the moment that a user has to open a new account on a third party pay-site and has to pull out his credit card to pay. Two obstacles that have to be passed. And obstacles always increase drop out rates. That’s we invented the “Login with Sharesome” and the “Flame Credit Wallet”.

We want to make sure that the very same user that just clicked on your pay-site link on Sharesome can use his Sharesome account to login into the pay-site and simply buy your content with Flame Credits that are already stored in his wallet. All obstacles are gone. This is a seamless purchasing experience for all parties involved: The customer, the pay-site and the NSFW content creator!

Vision 3: We imagine a future where NSFW content creators have access to a seamless e-commerce ecosystem, using Flame, a new global utility token that will make money work better for every player in the adult industry.

The “Login with Sharesome” feature is already built and can be implemented by any site through an API. The Flame Token ecosystem is still work in progress, like a lot of other things, but here is where we stand and what will come in future:

Like any other cryptocurrency, Flame faces a lot of public push-back, one of them is the old accusation that cryptocurrencies are a scam. I already wrote an article about a discussion on Twitter we had in the last weeks.

Is Flame Token a Scam?

In this article, I want to talk more about the token economics and the bold vision behind Flame, while answering the most common questions about it.

Flame is built as the native currency on Sharesome. It will be stored off-chain in your Sharesome wallet as Flame Credits or on-chain in your ERC-20 wallet as Flame Tokens. Flame Credits and Flame Tokens can be exchanged 1:1 in future at any time.

All transactions on Sharesome happen in Flame Credits, so when you send, spend, or save your money, you will be using Flame Credits.

Sharesome is designed to connect the adult industry all together. Flame is designed to be a utility token that works better for all players in the adult industry.

Vision 4: We imagine a new global utility token on a global social network that connects the adult industry. We think this is how money should be. You send money as easy as you send a message or a photo to pay for goods and services. Easy, seamless, fast, and cheap.

Flame is governed by the Flame Technologies AG in Switzerland. The Flame Technologies AG is a subsidiary of Sharesome. The Flame Technologies AG operates independently from Sharesome.

Flame Credit is build as a Medium-of-Exchange utility token on Sharesome with the utility being:

• Sending tips and paying for messages to verified goods and service providers.
• Buying advertising on Sharesome from Sharesome.
• Buying goods and services from verified third party websites, using the “Sharesome Login & Wallet”.

As more goods and services are sold on Sharesome, it creates a demand for Flame because customers need to pay for goods and services in Flame. Therefore they will have to convert their local currency (or other cryptocurrencies) into Flame by selling their own currency to buy Flame to make the payment. This will give Flame value.

Sidenote for crypto geeks: We are aware of the discussion around the velocity of tokens is a key aspect that affects future token value as raised by Vitalik Buterin on his website. But we think that his analysis isn’t complete and we would like you to read Basic Attention Token’s (BAT) paper on “On Token Velocity” that states “Money is useful for buying things, after all. The idea that people will want to cash out immediately in a deationary or volatile environment just because we have a frictionless exchange somewhere is silly and self-contradictory. People are more inclined to hold money when it goes up in value”.

Right now Flame (XFL) has already a higher transaction volume per day as Bitcoin Cash (BCH) or Monero (XMR), but still a lower transaction volume per day as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH). We achieved this by giving away ~1.2 billion Flame Credits to ~1.5M people (on Sharesome and on Flametoken.io). Around 200M Flame Credits (XFL) are right now already in circulation on Sharesome, owned by ~500K user.

So, what we have been working on are two things:

• The demand-side for Flame: Basically we build Sharesome as a platform with now more than 500K users (and growing) to make sure that there are people who actually want to purchase Flame for real money because the utility is valuable to them.
• Build in dynamics that reduce velocity of Flame: Sharesome requires people to buy advertising on Sharesome over an extended period of time, and therefore we will lock up tokens in escrow on a non-redeemable advertising-account.

We will be implementing the necessary KYC/AML procedures to enable withdrawals and deposit of Flame Credits/Tokens on Sharesome:

• GSP’s (Goods and service providers) have to go through a full KYC check by providing a governmental issued ID and a proof of address. In case of being a business, appropriate business documents must be procured. In addition to the business records, the identity check of the ultimate beneficial owners of companies that actually hold 25% or more of the company must be carried out. A simple AML questionnaire is also required.
• Regular users can store up to CHF 3.000 worth of Flame Credits in their Sharesome wallets, and can spend up to CHF 5.000 a month, or CHF 25.000 a year, without having to verify their ID. Reaching those thresholds will then trigger different levels of KYC/AML events (verifying governmental issued ID, proof of address, proof of funds…).

Once the KYC/AML matrix is final, we will publish the information on our site. The technical integration will be finished in 3–4 month from now.

Meanwhile we will improve the usability of the Flame wallet on Sharesome and implement the two account types in your wallet that we will have on Sharesome:

• User account: This is your redeemable account from where you can also withdraw Flame Credits to Flame Tokens. The account is limited to the equivalent of CHF 3.000. You can use the stored Flame Credits to purchase goods and services (tips, messages, third-party-purchases) on Sharesome, or transfer Flame Credits to your advertiser account.
• Advertiser account: This is your non-redeemable account from where you can not withdraw Flame Credits to Flame Tokens. The account is unlimited, but might trigger KYC/AML procedures when your combined accounts reaching an amount over CHF 5.000. You can use the stored Flame Credits only to buy sponsored posts (advertising) on Sharesome.

We will transfer all Flame Credits that we gave away for free on Sharesome to your new advertiser accounts, once the account type will be available on Sharesome. That means that early adopters will have the benefit of basically purchasing ads on Sharesome for a long time for free.

Ongoing free airdrops of Flame Credits that are distributed through our Friends & Family program will also be paid directly into the advertiser account.

But we will make one exception, also in the light of the discussion around tipping on Sharesome: All Flame Credits received as tips or for messages will stay in the user account (coming from all XFL sold and all XFL distributed for free) and therefore be redeemable, once all KYC/AML procedures are in place and Flame Tokens are listed on exchanges.

This is also what we have discussed with APAG to make sure that all received tips over the course of all transactions (minus fees) are fully accessible for the receivers.

The current roadmap looks like this:

• We improve the usability of the Sharesome wallet, so users can easier understand the use of funds for send and receives tipps, messages, ads spending, and so on…
• We will relaunch flametoken.io and add FAQs & roadmap to make sure everyone is on track with what we are doing.
• We implement KYC/AML procedures. Verified stars will be the first user group going through the new process, making sure they can access and withdraw their Flame Tokens.
• We continue to extend the demand-side for Flame by improving the features for sponsored posts, or boosted profiles/topics. We also build a marketplace for an auction-based ad-system around the available ad-space.
• We work now towards an ICO/IEO for Flame Tokens to kick-start the ecosystem. We will be the first ICO/IEO of a startup in history where the product/demand-side for the token is already build.
• After trading of Flame Tokens on exchanges has started, we will enable withdrawals and deposit on Sharesome. We will also integrate “Sharesome Login & Wallet” with partners into the first third party pay-sites.

The whole process might take up to 6 month from now, but good things need time, as we are building the first fully regulated ecosystem by introducing a universal utility token for the adult industry that sits on top of a free and open social platform.

Remember: It took Reddit 3 years from 2005 to 2008 to grow from zero to 10.000 topics, it took Sharesome less than a year. We already a higher transaction Flame (XFL) volume per day as Bitcoin Cash (BCH) or Monero (XMR). We are moving really fast, but we are not Facebook who can spit out a new cryptocurrency in two years, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on it. We are a bootstrapped startup with 20 people who build everything we build so far in one and a half years:

• 500.000 users after 1 year.
• Over 200 million post views in feeds.
• 1.9 million quarterly impressions on Google.
• 250 TB data served every month.
• Equal in traffic to Minds.com (who raised $6M). More traffic and users than MeWe.com (when they raised $5.2M).
• More than 10.000 topics opened by our community. (From 2008 to 2017, Reddit grew from 10.000 subreddits to over 1M.)
• Established R&D and operating offices in the European Union, with a crypto-compliant subsidiary in Switzerland (same with Libra from Facebook, but a year before them).
• The Flame Token (XFL) airdrop was by far the biggest airdrop in history with over 1 million signups.
• The Flame Token (XFL) Telegram group is among the largest globally, larger than Bitcoin, Verge, NEO, Stellar, Monero.
• Every day there are more Flame Token (XFL) transactions on Sharesome.com as Bitcoin Cash (BCH) transactions on the blockchain.
• The average Sharesome visitor spends 9 minutes on the site (2 minutes more than the average user spends on Instagram).

We invite users and NSFW content creators to join Sharesome.com now and help us to build the future. A future where:

• …nobody will block or limit accounts because the content is to sexy or the account owner is a NSFW content creator.
• …harassment of sex workers is impossible by design. (A “case” like Omnid can’t happen on Sharesome. We already blocked dozens of these “Omnid” guys on Sharesome.)
• …early adopters benefit from joining early by getting Flame Credits for free.
• …sex workers are the main influencers of a global network that is open and already used by diverse communities like the LGBTQ+ community, artists, writers, and all kind of people who want their kink flag fly free.
• …sex workers can build a brand and monetize this brand.
• …content is king and content creators are credited by design.
• …payments are easy, seamless, fast, and cheap.

Innovation has a 10 year cycle.

In 1997, people were sharing porn on Usenet groups.

In 2007, Pornhub launched.

In 2017, we released the first smart feed for NSFW content.

Climb aboard. We‘re going places.

Ralf Kappe
Founder, Sharesome
https://sharesome.com/RalfKappe/
media@sharesome.com

(Some) FAQ:

Why did you not develop everything and launch it when it is ready?
First, if we would have developed everything in secret, it would still have taken us two years and then we would have risked to launch something that nobody wants. Now we get the feedback of our users on the way and can pivot at any time. Topics for example wouldn’t exist without this feedback.
Second, the value of a utility token like Flame is connected with the demand for this utility. Flame’s utility is a direct function of the size of its network (Sharesome). If we would have launched with zero users, the value of Flame would be zero.

Why generate a distinct token and not use Bitcoin?
Flame is a utility token. It can be used as a unit of account between advertisers and us, and between customers and goods and service providers on Sharesome. It will be utilized to create an auction-based ad marketplace on Sharesome where early adopters are incentivized to join Sharesome early. Bitcoin would not enable this in-platform problem solving. Also, using Flame Credits off-chain while having Flame Token on-chain allows for faster scalability and compliance than using Bitcoin.

So, when is everything ready?
We guess, never. There will be always something to be done. In the next 3–4 month we focus on implementing KYC/AML. In the next 6 month, we want to be ready for trading, withdrawals and deposits. Meanwhile we improve the platform and work on Content-ID and the ad marketplace. But don’t forget, Content-ID took YouTube years to build. And the Facebook ad marketplace took also years. We aim to have solid results on both in the next 1–2 years.

What do I need to get started?
Just a Sharesome account. It’s free and pseudonymous. Open your account today here.

Can Flame only be used on Sharesome?
Yes, Flame is used as a utility token on Sharesome (Flame Credits) to pay for goods and services.

Will you charge fees for transactions?
Transaction fees will be low-cost and transparent. Flame Technologies AG will cut fees as much as possible to help people keep more of their money. We aim to have the lowest fees in the adult industry.

Can I use my local currency on Sharesome?
Sharesome is designed for Flame, so when you send, spend, or save your money, you will be using Flame. You can convert your local currency (or cryptocurrencies) into Flame to add money to your wallet. We are working now on the possibility to convert it back when you want to withdraw. Therefore we need to implement KYC/AML procedures and need to be listed on exchanges. In that moment, the wallet will show you the exchange rate so you know exactly what you will get.