Chingari is pivoting to become OnlyFans and is a top grossing app now
What's the problem in this?
The Web3 *poster boy* app from India, Chingari is now pivoting into an adult entertainment app - more on the lines of OnlyFans.
That is, Chingari app now lets you have 1:1 ‘adult’ conversation with female creators, where you can pay via tokens/coins.
Of course, a huge departure from its earlier avatar – i.e. web3.0 push and importantly, to fill the void left by TikTok.
Enraged*? How can an Indian startup pivot to do soft porn?
It’s natural that we’d expect Indian startups to do more sanskari stuff :)
But here is the real deal 👇
The other side of the story is that Chingari is now among the top 30 grossing apps in India (in Google play store).
This probably goes on to prove that there was a demand for such (digital) adult services and people are ready to pay for it.
FYI: Till 2021, India was among the top 3 porn-watching countries in the world (via).
With ~47mn$ funding, Chingari, after its not-so-successful (revenue wise) web3 push is probably left with no option but to cater to this huge industry which hasn’t been digitised or even democratised in India (not even 0.001% of scale of what OnlyFans has done).
If OnlyFans can exist (with a lot of dignity), why can’t Chingari do that in India?
Is there a problem? Why is the tech ecosystem going all against them, and nothing against several other founders who are openly defrauding the companies and the investors?
Is being sanskari an important trait? I am curious to know what do you think.
As far as the pivot to soft porn is concerned, unless you are an investor or invested in the company (as an employee/ advisor), why does your opinion (or infact, even mine) matter anymore?
The way I look at it is that as long as the company isn’t doing any illegal activity (including running an EdTech scam) - shouldn’t we talk about bold pivots in a more unemotional manner? More from a position of curiosity?
Thoughts?
*: saw a lot of people tweeting about it, which pretty much amounts to being enraged in the startup echochamber.
Hey, I'm not a big fan of how you refer to 'sanskari'. I thought our sanskari was actually pro erotica - we worship a phallus and our temples have naked women with bossoms stickin' out.
On another note, porn addiction is seriously damaging and this trend could encourage more minors to start delivering sexual content, with or without their consent. Does Chingaari check the Aadhar cards of the performers before allowing them to stream to verify their age? How do they know that a girl/woman is not being forced into doing it by say an alcoholic husband?
Even if Chingaari claims to have only soft porno, it's on the borderline and may end up getting banned if a journo like Arnab finds out about it and raises a brouhaha. The government will react knee-jerk with a ban. I can't believe the investors have such an appetite for risk with this app? Is it even worth it?
Ashish, after a very long time I've read your post and now it seems you're losing the objectivity in your content which is getting filled with more words than substance. I hope you'll improve it further! As mere copy the headline and some stuff from Inc42's article will not bring the readers, you've to provide more objectivity and exclusivity in your content. Period