Beyond winner-take-all Examining market competition on and between webcam sex platforms

The webcam sex work industry remains an elusive and understudied domain despite its significant role in the digital economy. On webcamming platforms, performers livestream sexual content to an audience that tips them or to individual customers who pay per minute. Such adult livestreamers are not employees receiving a fixed salary but “independent contractors” that vie for a finite pool of user attention and, ultimately, earnings. Platform operators organize this competitive process algorithmically by ranking the performers on the homepage, offering highly visible spots to a few and thus pitching them against each other. Unlike many other platformized creative industries, however, webcamming is marked by competition not only among performers but also between platforms, as multiple large actors try to attract both paying clients and performers who would cater to their tastes.
This dissertation examines these two intertwined levels of competition in the webcam sex industry, asking how competition is organized on and between webcam sex platforms. The thesis provides an extensive examination of the sector, drawing from platform studies and sex work literature and utilizing a mixed-methods approach. Altogether, the dissertation presents webcamming platforms as particular designed marketplaces, where competition is shaped by pitting performers against one another for visibility and, ultimately, a finite pool of user attention and spending. To carve out their position in a saturated non-monopoly market, platforms forge strategic third-party partnerships and structure the competitive environment in distinct ways, seeking to attract performers and users they can match productively.