OnlyFans is up for sale. UFC fighter turned serial entrepreneur and infamous loudmouth bad boy Connor McGregor says he’s in “serious talks” as a potential buyer. With the sale valued at $8 billion and McGregor’s personal net worth valued at around $200 million, it’s clear he would need other investors.

Money aside, creator safety is an issue. McGregor’s public persona and history of violence undermine women’s safety. Content produced by women is the reason that OnlyFans is valued so highly. And we’re right to be concerned about the possibility of McGregor buying the platform. He was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury trial in Dublin and had to pay his victim, Nikita Hand, approximately €250,000 in damages.

The site’s current owner, Leonid Radvinsky, has a 75% stake in OnlyFans’ parent company, Fenix International Ltd. Radvinsky maintains a low profile, and the executive board are all attorneys. CEO Keily Blair has pointed out that interaction with women is the reason the site is so successful.

If someone with a high-profile history of sexual misconduct buys OnlyFans, will the women whose content makes the site profitable depart en masse? OnlyFans creators have proven before that they will walk away from decisions that don’t serve them. In August of 2021, OnlyFans said that it would not allow adult content any longer – a decision they had to reverse within a week, as creators and users were outraged.

At the time, OnlyFans was the most popular fan site. And it still is, but the independent adult content creator landscape looks different now. Creators have more options. OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely’s new venture, Subs, offers solutions to some of the problems that OnlyFans creators have dealt with for a long time. Today, users need to find creators through specialized search engines or social media. Subs makes it easier to find creators in situ; you don’t need to leave the app to find new models. Sites like Fancentro and Fansly have more lenient content guidelines and offer creators different ways to monetize.

Will the lock-in effect take hold if McGregor buys OnlyFans? Or will OnlyFans creators take their business elsewhere?