MC.93: Can Sex Sells Tokens?

Hello,

The adult industry is about to enter the OpenAI ecosystem, and it is the biggest deal we can think of.

The Industry That Validates Technology

Here's something most people don't know: when Mistral launched, their biggest token consumers weren't enterprises or developers. They were sex AI applications. Why? Because Mistral's models were largely uncensored, making them perfect for adult content platforms.

The adult industry has always been technology's canary in the coal mine. It's hyper-competitive, forcing constant innovation and differentiation. When adult entertainment adopts a technology, you know it's ready for mainstream, and profitable.

OpenAI's Calculated Risk

By opening the door to adult apps, OpenAI is making several strategic bets:

1. Age Verification as Infrastructure: To allow adult content, OpenAI must solve a massive problem, reliably determining if users are 18+. This isn't just about compliance; it's about building guardrails that have enormous business implications across content moderation, advertising, and legal frameworks.

2. Confidence and Support Use Cases: OpenAI has clearly identified that many ChatGPT interactions are about emotional support and confidence. After the PR disasters of users making poor medical decisions or worse, they're acknowledging these intimate use cases exist, and trying to channel them properly.

3. The Transaction Problem: Adult entertainment lives on conversion. Users must pay, and fast. But OpenAI's app ecosystem currently offers minimal transactional capabilities. How will an industry built on immediate monetization function in a documentation-heavy, transaction-light environment?

The French Irony

For French tech observers, there's delicious irony here. We're essentially returning to Minitel Rose, the prehistoric technology that launched France's internet economy. The same business model that built Free and made Xavier Niel (and early investor in Mistral) a billionaire is now being reimagined for the AI age.

Sex sells. Always has. Always will.

What This Really Means

OpenAI's move reveals their economic desperation as much as their pragmatism. If adult apps can build viable business models on ChatGPT's platform, it validates the entire ecosystem. If they can't, if the constraints are too tight, the transaction friction too high, it exposes fundamental flaws in OpenAI's app strategy.

The adult industry will stress-test every assumption OpenAI has made about their platform. Age verification, content moderation, payment processing, user privacy, regulatory compliance, all at scale, all under intense competitive pressure.

If OpenAI's apps can satisfy this industry, they can satisfy anyone.

Sex might sell tokens. But can tokens sell sex?

Cheers,
Olivier

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