Inside India’s thriving NSFW livestream black market

On a humid evening in Pune, a 21-year-old commerce student toggles between two screens. On one, a topless woman dances to muffled reggaeton on a Tango Live stream. On the other, a Telegram bot spits out UPI QR codes, payment confirmations, and links to invite-only resale groups. Within seconds, he saves a screen recording, zips it with a password, and uploads it to a private Discord server with over 1,700 members. By midnight, he’s sold access to 38 people—each paying Rs 99.

“I made more in one night than I did working a month at my cousin’s cafe,” he told The CapTable on condition of anonymity. “It’s a simple hustle. People want the content, and I just make it easier to get.”

This quiet digital flip—an increasingly normalised practice among Indian youth—has evolved into a parallel content economy. At the centre of it is NSFW livestreaming content from apps like Tango Live, Bigo, and a growing host of adult-friendly platforms.

When Tango was briefly removed from app stores in India, informal resale markets filled the void. Telegram, Reddit, Instagram, and Discord stepped in as unofficial distributors.