The politics of algorithmic rank systems in the Brazilian erotic webcam industry

Winner-Take-All? Visibility, Availability, and Heterogeneity on Webcam Sex Platforms

“…On other platforms, the likelihood of being sorted at the top is very low, but the viewership rewards can be immense. Even though previous research shows that performers connect better ranking with greater financial gains (Caminhas, 2022;van Doorn & Velthuis, 2018), a larger audience is not always a tipping audience. In fact, Chaturbate's creator and owner has claimed that only about 1 in 200 viewers tip (Velthuis & van Doorn, 2020), which potentially leaves the majority of performers with negligible income, especially after the platform takes its cut.…”

“…Second, we analyze the relationship between performer availability and ranking. Our research thus differs from studies focusing on performer identities concerning gender, ethnicity, or age (Caminhas, 2022;Jones, 2015Jones, , 2021, which are difficult to collect at scale. Instead, following Caminhas' (2022) findings about Brazilian webcam platforms, we foreground the time invested by performers to understand how specific labor practices intersect with algorithmic visibility.…”

“…This work is distinctly similar to other types of “platform-mediated labor” (Jarrett, 2022) like care work, delivery driving, content creation, or game streaming. However, it has been largely omitted from gig work discourse (Nayar, 2021; Rand, 2019; Vlase & Preoteasa, 2021), even if some of the same issues have been identified, for example, economic precarity (Vlase & Preoteasa, 2021) and algorithmic control (Caminhas, 2022; van Doorn & Velthuis, 2018). More specifically, webcam sex platforms are said to develop unpredictable and unequal winner-take-all effects, with ranking systems positioning “those who are already earning well to earn even more” (Velthuis & van Doorn, 2020, p. 168).…”

“…More specifically, webcam sex platforms are said to develop unpredictable and unequal winner-take-all effects, with ranking systems positioning “those who are already earning well to earn even more” (Velthuis & van Doorn, 2020, p. 168). In addition, performers have called attention to the pressure to be “available” (Caminhas, 2022) or “patient” (van Doorn & Velthuis, 2018) on the platform to sway the ranking system in their favor. These working conditions shape the lives of a significant number of people: while exact figures are unknown, MyFreeCams reports having over 200,000 performers, and the Romanian fiscal administration claims that there are over 400,000 people working in this field in their country alone (Bellu, 2023).…”

“…Similar to other areas of platform labor (e.g., Möhlmann et al, 2021; Schor et al, 2020), research on the impact of algorithmic ranking in webcamming (e.g., Caminhas, 2022; Jones, 2020; Nayar, 2017; van Doorn & Velthuis, 2018; Vlase & Preoteasa, 2021) primarily relies on feedback provided by performers. While these findings yield important and informed insights, webcam streamers face ranking systems that are complex, fluid, and opaque, resisting efforts at sense-making.…”