You betray your ignorance of how parasocial OnlyFans and their ilk get. Yes, people get real connection out of it, whether its with who they think they're talking to or not. I think that connecting those people into a chat bot instead of a real human is depressing, and a bad thing for society, but you're welcome to disagree with that

Talking to a real human seems more depressing to me, especially when they're making less than $2/hour doing it, have multiple chats going all trying to hit sales targets, and they feel bad for you in the interaction. Paying for female attention is pretty bad, but not even getting the attention you paid for is just bleak. At that point go with the machine. At least it's not thinking "what the hell am I doing here?" while it's generating messages.

I'll admit. I' too old to 'get' OF.

What's the difference? The users think they talk to some specific person and form a connection with them, and they don't.

Whether they get strung along by a human, a chatbot, or a simple cronjob - does it matter?

It’s not a real connection. It’s completely invented in their mind. Probably more accurate to call it a delusion.