America Makes OnlyFans Look Like a Childcare Plan

Today we're talking about why Apple TV's hottest dramedy is fiction…

And the thing it's reacting to is not.

Coffee at the ready.

(You'll need it).

OnlyFans creator earnings shouldn't be anyone's plan for raising a child.

Apple TV's Margo's Got Money Troubles hands us a 19-year-old single mum who turns to the platform because she can't see another way. Off-screen, American childcare eats 35% of a single parent's income. The show is fiction. The 35% bill isn't.

Watch what happens when the next prestige drama keeps treating sex work as a system's last option.

At some point, it stops being entertainment.

Start with what the show is about.

Margo, 19, gets pregnant by her married community college professor. He vanishes. Her mum is scraping by.

So Margo opens an OnlyFans account, builds an alien alter ego called Hungry Ghost, and starts making rent.

Critics adored it.

Variety called it bubblegum. A24 made it for Apple TV. We're not arguing with the reviews.

We're arguing with the country needing Margo to invent her way out.

Now, the platform she lands on.

The median creator earns about $180 a month. The top 0.1% take 76% of revenue. The bottom 80% share around 5%.

The average account has 21 subscribers.

So when commentators sigh about young women "choosing" sex work — they're watching a country push them off a cliff.

Then sell them a parachute opening for one in a thousand.

Childcare is the wound.

The national average price hit $13,128 in 2024 — 35% of a single parent's median income, gone before food, before rent. In 41 states plus DC, infant care now costs more than in-state university tuition. Federal "affordable" is set at 7%. Real families pay 20%.

There is no version of this that isn't a policy choice.

Margo's an alien costume on Apple TV.

Off-screen, she's a generation of women filing taxes as self-employed sex workers. The world's largest economy can't fund a daycare seat. Apple's show is reacting to that, not creating it.

The moment we treat the art as the problem, the actual culprit — half a century of policy choices — slips out the back.

Pro: The show contains its own critique. Shame, regret and legal trouble all land on Margo.

Con: A glossy lottery-ticket arc still risks teaching viewers the lottery is winnable.

Our read: Punching the show is easy and wrong. Punching the system is harder and overdue. Childcare is the policy fight; OnlyFans is the symptom.

[Report] Child Care Aware of America — "Child Care in America: 2024 Price and Supply"

The national average childcare price hit $13,128 in 2024. That's 35% of a single parent's median income, eaten before they buy bread.

Why it matters: Every conversation about why young women turn to OnlyFans starts here, or it isn't honest.

Read it here.

95.8% of OnlyFans subscribers never spend a cent.

Variety — Elle Fanning isn't a Convincing OnlyFans Star — A critic noticing the show isn't quite buying its own happy ending.

Axios — Cost of child care rising faster than inflation — $28,168 a year for two kids. The number explaining every Margo before there is one.

Bank of America Institute — The many costs of childcare — Daycare inflation runs 1.5x the headline rate. Mums priced out of the workforce.

If American childcare cost the same as French childcare, would Margo exist?

You can read all our back issue newsletters for free here.

For the love of coffee, see you tomorrow!

Enjoy your Wednesday, keep it caffeinated.

That's your Wednesday.

Stay angry.

Read yesterday’s newsletter about you don’t own what you build here.

Thanks for reading!

Are you subscribing?

Join your crew of caffeinated sceptics today.

Be sure to get your daily Curse and Coffee fix by hitting the button below.

Open Monday to Friday.