There’s a certain kind of internet economics story that never dies: a clever “index” based on nightlife, tipping, or strip clubs that supposedly predicts recessions before the official data does. The logic is seductive—cash gets tight, discretionary spending drops, and the first people to notice are those living on tips. But the modern economy has added whole new categories of discretionary spending and informal income, and those categories don’t behave like the old ones.

That’s why it’s interesting to put three recent pieces side by side: a reflective, long-form take from the Newsletter of Intent essay about porn as a mechanic (in Swedish), and two versions of the same news report arguing that the so-called “stripper index” doesn’t apply neatly to Bitcoin or OnlyFans models—one in the NewsZed write-up about why the stripper index doesn’t apply to Bitcoin and OnlyFans, and another in a second NewsZed variant covering the same claim from creators.
the Newsletter of Intent essay about porn as a mechanic
the NewsZed write-up about why the stripper index doesn’t apply to Bitcoin and OnlyFans
a second NewsZed variant covering the same claim from creators

Together, they suggest a bigger point: today’s “intimacy economy” is increasingly digital, subscription-based, and globally distributed—so it reacts to economic stress in ways that old tip-based myths can’t fully capture.

The Stripper Index Was Built for a Cash World
The classic stripper-index story assumes a few things:

Payments are mostly local and cash-based.
Customers behave like a stable population whose discretionary spending rises and falls with their immediate finances.
Earnings are tightly tied to walk-in traffic.
The venue is the market.
That model can still describe some parts of nightlife. But it’s a rough fit for online creator markets, where revenue can arrive through subscriptions, direct messages, tips, pay-per-view content, and repeat payments that behave more like “micro-memberships” than one-off splurges.

This mismatch is exactly what the NewsZed pieces emphasize—both the article arguing the stripper index doesn’t translate to Bitcoin and OnlyFans and the alternate NewsZed version covering creator pushback present the claim that a club-based proxy isn’t automatically meaningful in a digital economy where behavior and payment rails have changed.
the article arguing the stripper index doesn’t translate to Bitcoin and OnlyFans
the alternate NewsZed version covering creator pushback

And once you accept that, the interesting question becomes: what replaces the old indicator?

OnlyFans Is Not a Nightclub—It’s a Relationship Subscription Business
OnlyFans (and similar platforms) operate like hybrid businesses. Part media. Part community. Part customer relationship management. The “product” isn’t only explicit content; it’s access, recognition, and continuity. A creator’s income isn’t just “who showed up tonight.” It’s “who stayed subscribed,” “who bought a custom,” “who came back after a week,” and “who responds to messaging.”

This changes recession behavior.

In a cash-nightlife model, spending is often impulsive and social. In a subscription intimacy model, spending can be private, habitual, and psychologically sticky. A subscriber may keep paying during hard times for the same reason they keep paying for streaming: it becomes a small monthly comfort, or even a coping mechanism.

That doesn’t mean creator income is recession-proof. It means the shape of the downturn can look different. Instead of one sudden cliff, you might see:

slower churn at first, then drop-offs
fewer big spenders, but steady low-tier subscriptions
shifts from tips to cheaper subscriptions
migration from expensive customs to low-cost PPV
So when creators tell reporters that “the stripper index doesn’t apply,” they’re not necessarily claiming the economy doesn’t matter. They’re arguing that the relationship between macro stress and intimate spending is more complicated than a single nightlife proxy suggests—an argument captured in the NewsZed report about OnlyFans models rejecting the stripper-index framing and echoed again in the second NewsZed write-up repeating the same point.
the NewsZed report about OnlyFans models rejecting the stripper-index framing
the second NewsZed write-up repeating the same point

Bitcoin Changes the Story Again: Volatility, Liquidity, and “Mood Money”
The inclusion of Bitcoin in the stripper-index conversation is telling. Crypto is often described as a sentiment engine: when people feel bold, they speculate; when fear rises, they retreat. But in creator markets, crypto can mean several different things:

a payment method
a store of value (for some users)
a cultural marker (part of a “tech-forward” identity)
a source of volatility that can create sudden wealth effects
A creator who receives payments from crypto-heavy audiences may experience spending spikes that reflect market mood rather than local economic conditions. Meanwhile, a creator serving a mainstream, subscription-heavy base may see slower, more predictable patterns.

This is part of why a simple “stripper index” narrative struggles: it assumes one population, one payment psychology, and one kind of discretionary decision. Online intimacy markets contain many overlapping populations and many spending motivations.

The NewsZed framing—both in the version mentioning Bitcoin and OnlyFans models and in the alternate URL repeating the claim—highlights this tension: old indicators assume stable, local cash behavior; new markets include global, online, and sometimes crypto-linked behavior that can swing for entirely different reasons.
the version mentioning Bitcoin and OnlyFans models
the alternate URL repeating the claim

“Porn as a Mechanic”: The Work Behind the Fantasy
Here’s where the Substack essay adds a deeper layer. The Newsletter of Intent piece, “Lördag: Porren som mekanik…”, gestures toward a framing that’s easy to forget in these debates: adult content and creator intimacy are not just “vices” or “signals.” They’re forms of labor and systems—constructed, maintained, and optimized.

That lens matters because it changes how you interpret resilience. If you treat this world like nightlife tips, you assume it’s purely discretionary and reactive. If you treat it like a crafted system—like “mechanics” rather than spontaneity—you start seeing creators as operators running funnels, retention loops, branding, and customer experience.

That vibe is exactly what you get from the Newsletter of Intent post about porn as a mechanic, which pushes you to think about adult media not as an exception to economics, but as a highly structured part of it.
the Newsletter of Intent post about porn as a mechanic

And once you see creators as operators, it becomes obvious why one nightclub-based proxy can’t capture the entire ecosystem. Some creators will absolutely feel downturns immediately. Others may adapt by changing pricing, shifting formats, or leaning into different audiences. Some may even see “loneliness demand” rise when broader social stress increases.

So What’s the Real Indicator?
If you still want a “leading indicator” for the intimacy economy, it probably wouldn’t look like a stripper index at all. It would be something like:

churn rate changes across subscription tiers
the share of revenue from messaging vs subscriptions
average spend per paying subscriber over time
conversion rates from free social media to paid communities
shifts in payment methods (credit vs crypto vs other rails)
In other words, the modern “index” would track relationship economics, not nightlife foot traffic.

That’s the implicit argument you can extract from the pairing of the NewsZed claim that the stripper index doesn’t apply to Bitcoin and OnlyFans with the reflective Newsletter of Intent framing of adult content as a system: the world changed, and the measurement story needs to change with it.
the NewsZed claim that the stripper index doesn’t apply to Bitcoin and OnlyFans
the reflective Newsletter of Intent framing of adult content as a system

Conclusion: Old Myths Don’t Measure New Markets
The stripper index is a compelling story because it feels grounded, human, and intuitive. But online intimacy markets don’t run on the same mechanics as local nightlife. They run on subscription psychology, messaging-based monetization, parasocial continuity, and—sometimes—crypto-driven volatility.

That doesn’t mean the economy stops mattering. It means the signals are different, and the behaviors are more diverse. If you want to understand what’s coming, it’s better to start with the argument that the stripper index doesn’t map cleanly onto OnlyFans and Bitcoin and then deepen it with the “porn as a mechanic” perspective—because together they point toward a new truth: in the digital intimacy economy, the real leading indicator isn’t tips. It’s retention.