OnlyFans was established in 2016 as a platform for content creators to post images and videos or host live streams in exchange for money. But what began as a small and relatively quiet niche startup suddenly exploded.
Global traffic to the site increased by over 90% between November 2019 and October 2020. At the height of the COVID pandemic, when governments all over the world issued stay-at-home orders, OnlyFans was one of the few marketplaces to experience major growth, from 7.5 million registered users to 85 million. In mid-2021, the platform was estimated to be worth over a billion dollars and, by 2026, over three times that.
