From Adult Content to the Mainstream: Tim Stokely's 'Subs' Platform Targets the Entire Creator Economy

When Tim Stokely officially stepped down as CEO of OnlyFans in 2021, three years after selling the company he founded to billionaire computer programmer Leo Radvinsky, he took time off to figure out his next move. Yet, even during this hiatus, “conversations with creators never really stopped,” he says.

By the time of his departure, the creator-driven platform he built had become synonymous with mainstreaming influencer porn, effectively transforming the sex worker economy into a robust, digitally-native business. The platform’s rise was meteoric, particularly during the global pandemic, which fundamentally rewired our relationship to work and self-pleasure. OnlyFans didn't just grow; it exploded into the cultural zeitgeist, becoming a household name and a significant force in the burgeoning creator economy.

Despite no longer being formally affiliated with OnlyFans, Stokely remained engaged with the creator community. He listened as they shared their experiences, both positive and negative. Some expressed frustrations that OnlyFans, despite its success, felt “limited” in its offerings, particularly for creators who relied heavily on external platforms like X (formerly Twitter) to drive subscriptions to their OnlyFans pages. Others voiced a clear desire for a new platform – one that was not only versatile but also more “brand-friendly,” allowing them to diversify their content and audience without the stigma often associated with OnlyFans.

These ongoing discussions served as the catalyst for Stokely’s next venture: Subs. Launched in May, Subs is envisioned as an all-in-one creator platform. At first glance, it might appear to be a polished, repackaged version of OnlyFans, trading the latter's utilitarian white-and-blue interface for a bolder design and more refined user experience. However, Stokely insists the philosophical differences run deep.

The Philosophy Behind Subs: Freedom, Visibility, and Diverse Earnings

Philosophically, Stokely says the two platforms are worlds apart. Subs, which launched in May, was built on core principles—“freedom,” “visibility,” and “more ways to earn”—grounded in a belief that creators should have “true ownership over their audience and growth.”

“Subs is about building real careers, not chasing trends,” Stokely says, drawing a clear distinction between the potentially fleeting nature of viral fame and the sustainable income streams he aims to facilitate.

The platform is designed, according to Stokely, to simplify the transition for creators looking to move from free content models to paid subscriptions. It aims to make audience building more intuitive and the platform experience more streamlined. Subs boasts several features it positions as “original” or necessary improvements for the modern creator.

• Shows: A long-form video feature intended for “deep storytelling.” While Stokely presents this as a unique offering, its function is strikingly similar to platforms like YouTube, providing a space for creators to produce and share longer, more narrative-driven video content.
• Explore Feed: A curated feed mixing photos and videos, designed for content discovery. This feature will feel instantly familiar to anyone accustomed to the visually-driven feeds of platforms like Instagram.
• One-on-One Video Calls: A direct interaction feature allowing creators to connect with their audience on a more personal level. While valuable, this functionality is already a staple on platforms like Cameo and various coaching or consultation services.
• Collaborator Revenue Splits: A practical feature allowing creators working together to easily divide earnings from collaborative content.
• Referral Earnings: Incentivizing creators to bring new users or creators to the platform.
• Future AI Offerings: Planned features include auto-captioning for videos, growth insights to help creators understand their audience and scale faster, and personalized content recommendations to improve discovery.

Stokely emphasizes a commitment to ethical AI use, stating that AI tools on Subs will help creators “enhance their creativity, not replace it.” This is a crucial point in an era where AI-generated content is blurring lines and raising questions about authenticity and labor.

Subs declined to share specific user numbers at the time of the article, making it difficult to gauge its initial traction.

Navigating the Peak Influencer Era: Saturation and Burnout

While Stokely is optimistic about Subs' potential, it's impossible to ignore the current landscape. The creator economy today is vastly different from the one OnlyFans entered in 2016. It's a market teeming with platforms and creators, leading many to question if the era of “Peak Influencer” has already arrived.

The sheer volume of aspiring creators is staggering. According to a report by CNBC, a significant majority – fifty-seven percent – of Gen Z express a desire to become an influencer. This ambition has contributed to a global market already saturated with over 50 million individuals identifying as influencers, as noted by The Economist. In such a crowded space, gaining genuine influence and building a sustainable career is becoming increasingly challenging.

This intense competition and the constant pressure to produce content and engage with audiences have also led to a significant issue: creator burnout. The relentless demands of the job – maintaining multiple platforms, engaging with comments, dealing with online negativity, and the pressure to constantly be “on” – take a heavy toll on mental health. Can a new platform like Subs truly cut through this noise and offer a path to sustainable growth without contributing to the burnout cycle?

Stokely, however, remains unfazed by these challenges. He reiterates that Subs is focused on “sustainable growth rather than fleeting fame,” a strategy he believes is essential given the market's trajectory. He is right about the market's potential; the creator economy is projected to continue its rapid expansion, with Goldman Sachs projecting it could approach half a trillion dollars globally by 2027. This massive market size suggests there is still room for growth, but success will depend on offering a truly differentiated value proposition.

Beyond the Stigma: Stokely's Apparent Shift in Focus

For those who have followed Stokely's career, particularly his time at OnlyFans, there was often a sense that he wasn't entirely comfortable with the platform being primarily defined by its adult content. While he acknowledged its significance and the revenue it generated, it seemed he aspired for OnlyFans to be recognized for its broader potential as a creator platform across all niches. However, the platform's association with sex work proved indelible, a stigma it has never fully shaken and likely never will.

This history makes his gamble on Subs all the more compelling. When asked if he wants Subs to be associated with adult content, Stokely offers a carefully worded response: “Subs isn’t about one type of content, it’s about every creator’s potential.” While this might not fully convince skeptics, his consistent use of terms like “brand-friendly” and “balanced ecosystem” during discussions signals a clear intention to position Subs differently from OnlyFans. He clarifies that while Subs will feature both safe-for-work and adult content, the latter will be strictly paywalled behind subscriptions and direct messages to ensure user safety and compliance with regulations, aiming to create that “balanced ecosystem.”

Like OnlyFans, Subs offers creators an 80 percent cut of their earnings, a competitive rate in the industry. The platform's integrated features, such as the planned AI tools for growth insights and content recommendations, and the practical additions like collaborator revenue splits, do appear to be necessary improvements designed to address specific creator needs and streamline their business operations.

The Crowded Arena: Competing in the Subscription Ouroboros

The critical question remains: will any of this work? The creator ecosystem Stokely helped shape is now a formidable, multi-headed monster. It's saturated with platforms, each offering some variation of monetization tools and audience engagement features. The competitive landscape is fierce:

• Major Social Platforms: Instagram has introduced features like badges and subscriptions. X allows users to subscribe to their favorite accounts.
• Crowdfunding Leaders: Patreon remains a dominant force for creators seeking recurring support from their fans.
• Niche Platforms: Substack has carved out a significant space for writers.
• Adult Content Competitors: The space OnlyFans once dominated is now contested by numerous platforms like Fansly, FanBase, Fanvue, FanCentro, and many others, often playfully referred to as the “Fan-verse.”

This proliferation of platforms reflects a fundamental shift in the digital economy. As economist Jeremy Rifkin described in his 2001 book The Age of Access, the internet has re-engineered virtually everything into a commodity. Platforms are increasingly built on “access relationships,” where “virtually all of our time is commodified” and the lines between “communications, communion, and commerce [are] indistinguishable.” In this era of the subscription ouroboros, where platforms and services constantly consume and compete with each other for user attention and revenue, Subs is just one option among a million others vying for creators and their audiences.

Adding another layer of complexity, Stokely was recently involved in a bid to acquire TikTok's US operations. In April, Zoop, another creator platform cofounded by Stokely, along with a crypto foundation called HBAR, put in a bid to buy TikTok from ByteDance. However, Stokely stated he is now fully focused on Subs and declined to offer further details about the proposed TikTok deal, suggesting his primary energy is directed towards making Subs a success.

The Quest for Authenticity in an AI World

Where Subs might have a genuine opportunity to scale and potentially shift the landscape, much like OnlyFans did in its early days, is by addressing a growing crisis in the digital realm: the erosion of authenticity. Social media, for all its benefits in connecting people, has also fostered unhealthy dynamics, including sticky parasocial relationships and pervasive anxieties. The digital environment is increasingly characterized by “brain rot” – a term describing the mental fatigue and cognitive decline associated with excessive, low-quality online consumption. Meanwhile, loneliness is paradoxically on the rise despite hyper-connectivity.

The ways we connect and present ourselves online are often infused with a sense of artificiality, a problem exacerbated by the rapid advancement of AI. AI tools, while offering efficiency, also enable the creation of deepfakes, synthetic content, and automated engagement, making it harder to discern what is real. This has contributed to what some are calling a “credibility epidemic” among influencers. A report by Typeform highlighted this issue, revealing that a significant percentage of influencers – 33 percent – have admitted to engaging in practices like buying followers or artificial engagement to inflate their perceived influence.

This doesn't have to be the inevitable state of online interaction. If OnlyFans, in some ways, thrived on the illusion of access – offering subscribers a curated, often performative intimacy – Subs has the potential to pivot towards fostering more genuine connections. By providing tools that empower creators to build direct relationships with their audience through features like video calls and exclusive content, and by emphasizing sustainable growth over viral stunts, Subs could theoretically help restore some measure of authenticity to the creator-fan dynamic.

Stokely's vision for Subs seems to lean into this need for genuine connection and sustainable careers, moving away from the potentially transactional and often isolating nature of purely performance-driven platforms. Whether Subs can successfully navigate the crowded market, overcome the stigma associated with its founder's previous venture, and deliver on its promise of empowering creators for the long haul in an increasingly artificial digital world has yet to be seen. It's a significant gamble, but one rooted in the evolving needs and frustrations of the very creators who fueled the rise of his last, groundbreaking platform.