This feels representative of our times: Using chatbots to power a gig economy of para-social relationships for lonely people short on real in-person interactions.
What are people doing instead of interacting? I've noticed this trend but i've kept my wits by ascribing it to "my peer group getting older and doing more things with their own families" - but every so often something makes my brain get hot, like this comment.
It can't all be ig/tiktok interactions, can it? I moved away from all my friends (they started it) and now it's hard to find people who have "free time" - even those that WFH! So i mostly hang out with retirees, they have free time.
1. people are working more than ever, especially in this economy. Some do lots of overtimes, some have multiple jobs (be it two literal part time jobs or full time job and doing dash services on the side). Some have other side hustles that they hope to convert into more income
Personal anecdotes: I work in games so it's never a surprise when I hear some of them need to crunch for a few months. A few others are actually trying to build up their band and do gigs every other weekend
2. non-surprisingly, people's down on money. Probably not much explanation here; not much time to hang out if they have to move (2 of my friends out of state) or job hunt after a layoff (pretty much all my friends at some point in 2023/4).
3. There's a lot of pandemic habits that never truly wore off. Some simply stay on social media, a few of my friends were always into MMOs and put more time than ever into that. They are interacting, just not necessarily with you.
4. Family. Very old knowledge, but when friends get serious partners and later spouses and especially kids, that's what they put almost all their time into. A single friend will fall off without some work.
You've got it upside down. Human contact is cheap. If you want to talk to another human being in real life, I bet you can do so within 5 minutes. What has actually happened is that the internet has created a close enough simulacrum of human contact that is as addicting as any drug. It provides a cheap hit of socialization, and you can fill every last inch of your life with it.
Listen to a podcast in the car, walk around while scrolling social media, watch Twitch streams while doing the dishes. It doesn't actually fulfill your needs but it feels like it does. Gen AI is just a way to generate more of that kind of content than is possible, removing any human element, making something supposedly just as tasty, but it's empty calories.
I'm fairly gregarious, and find it fairly easy to approach strangers (if I have to). Yes, a lot of human contact can be had for fairly cheap.
However, I'm also aware that this is far from "normal" -- the average person is not this way (at least, not today). How/why things have come to be this way, I cannot pinpoint, but our lives have gotten progressively busier to the point where many of us choose convenience over "richness/fullness of experience".
However, my point is still valid, in that if you are an average person today, the prevailing social gestalt in America is "mind your own business, and don't talk to (or approach) people in the street".
Yes, weird folks like me, who are willing to be more vulnerable (what if the person you just said "Good morning!" to cusses you out?) will be able to get human contact for cheap, but high-quality Human contact is definitely waning.
P.S. Also agree with you that GenAI (and other modern technologies) are providing a frictionless existence, while also removing the richness and meaning that comes with the friction. It's the "soma" from Huxley's "Brave New World".
Is there that much difference between this and a phone sex cubicle worker in the 70s or 80s? It's been a commoditized job for ages. Slightly higher tech now, but basically still the same thing.
The company owners did. But the phone operators were (to my understanding) reasonably well paid. However income dropped off with the introduction of video chat(first on sky TV, then internets).
One of my former colleagues bought a flat in london with the proceeds from their dancing in night clubs. Which I thought at the time, and still do, is might impressive. They keep that private, for a number of sadly obvious reasons, however they are not ashamed of it.
They refused video chat, because it was less protected, and less anonymous. In a (good) club, you are protected by bouncers, no phones, no intimidation. OF and the rest you have limited control on who shares your stuff, so its much harder to be a part time model.
"By the end of the 1980s, nearly all of the major local phone companies in the United States, plus the major long-distance carriers, were actively involved in the phone sex business[...] In 2002 profits from phone sex were estimated at one billion dollars a year"
And in relative terms in particular that seems pretty huge given how much smaller all the phone and online markets were compared to what they're now.
Well the comparative change is kinda the point. OF is huge and content producers have a chance of making big bucks, as opposed to what was there before
Globally probably - since now it is bigger. Have a look at Teleholding in the netherlands as an example, they printed money mostly with recordings not even people on the other side.
I think it's more common now. I don't know that phone sex was ever all that popular, but OnlyFans is huge. Also, there's just a lot more sollicitations. On twitch you have gamer girls in skimpy outfits using the platform as a funnel to drive people to OF, and most of their audience is underage. They're on twitter and reddit as well. Just in general porn is a lot more prevalent and it's kind of leaking into other platforms, harder to completely avoid it.
Also uh, I was on Facebook recently and they've added this reels feature, trying to be tiktok. Occasionally I browse my feed to see what my friends are up to, and in the reels (which can't be turned off) I see some underage girls doing really inappropriate things for views. I think this is really problematic. I don't want to be shown this, and I also feel upset that young girls are being encouraged by social media platforms to use their sexuality to get attention online (and make said platforms more money by doing so).
It is also in the interest of all those involved with OnlyFans to highly exaggerate all the $$$ figures.
The people I have known that have made OnlyFans content made as little money as you would expect.
There has always been money in porn though with a giant power law distribution. The only difference now is that instead of some sleazebag porn producer trying convince some woman they are the next Jenna Jameson, we have this sleazebag technology platform doing the same thing.
