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Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

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Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#71

Post by laurieg »

pillowkusis wrote: post #7

I have seen so many content creators go full time and create awesome work because Patreon gives them a format to incentivize their followers to pay them. The economics are beautiful — turns out just 1,000 people (a pittance on internet mass media websites) donating $5 a month will totally change the way you run your life. And even better, these artists are independent in a way no artist has ever been before. You’re n…

I patreon, it allows me to support podcasts and youtube producers that really wouldn't get the light of day otherwise.

That said, patreon is centralised. What happens if you're a creator and that $2000 a month stops coming from patreon? I trust and believe in the now, but who knows where they'll be 5 or 10 years.

PS. Patreon, please make a Japanese version of your site!

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#72

Post by eropple »

jblow wrote: post #46
yedava wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There neither is any 'scandal' or 'censorship'. Patreon's decision was a textbook application of John Stuart Mill's "Harm Principle".

For this to be the case, they would have to be applying the principle to everyone equally, which they apparently don't. This has given pause to some people -- for example, Sam Harris, one of the top artists on Patreon, is evacuating the service (even though this is likely to cost him a fair bit of money) to avoid the future potential to be financially pressured over ideology.

Patreon's pretty down-the-line: don't advocate that people break the law and don't harass people. They've thrown antifa off their site. They throw alt-right shitheads off their site.

We've met a couple times, Jon, and I've heard you speak; despite your public persona being prickly, I kind of got the feeling you were wiser than this.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#74

Post by raesene9 »

dugditches wrote: post #5

I asked this before, but it wasn't really the place: 1. To those who donate to Patreons, how do you budget/think about/justify your donations? 2. Do you have a set budget? What if you really want to support someone suddenly, do you stop supporting someone else to do so, or reduce how much you give them? 3. When do you stop/reduce Patreon support? How long do you typically support someone? Until you feel they no longe…

I judge my donations as paying for content I enjoy. I donate to several web comics and some youtube channels. I enjoy the content but dislike web ads, so patreon is great for me.

I don't have a set budget but I don't tend to go for higher tiers.

I support someone as long as I'm enjoying the content they're creating. So for webcomics, if they're still creating and I'm still reading, I'm happy to keep paying.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#75

Post by eropple »

nostrebored wrote: post #66
paulgb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which blogger are you referring to?

Lauren Southern. She was banned after throwing flares and attempting to block a ship (with no refugees on board) from leaving port to pick up refugees who she believes are being trafficked into Italy with the government's assistance. She was arrested for participation in this act of protest and then Patreon made the claim that her activities could have caused loss of life (which is ridiculous).

The alt-right is not "middle-of-the-road conservative". The alt-right is literal-not-figurative fascism with memes and, occasionally, good dress sense. If you consider white supremacists (oh, sorry, white nationalists (oh, sorry, ethno-nationalists)) to be "middle of the road conservatives," there is a profoundly deeper problem in your calculus.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#76

Post by raesene9 »

Personally I like the patreon model, and think it works really well.

Bundling together payments for different creators into one place is handy and I'm guessing helps reduce fees, so smaller payments work better.

I only have to provide payment details to one site, so that's nice and easy too.

I get to support creators who's work I enjoy without having to endure web ads, which I dislike.

From the creators standpoint it seems to provide a nice even revenue stream. Whilst I don't know any personally, I'd guess it must be nice to have an idea of the base income you're going to get in a month, rather than relying on something more variable like advertising or ad-hoc tips.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#77

Post by StevePerkins »

patcon wrote: post #18
drewg123 wrote: post #16

Unless I'm missing something, they seem to only have a monthly contribution model. There are many times where I find a content creator helpful (for example a video tutorial on how to fix my broken washing machine), and I'd like to reward them. But I don't want to do it monthly, as I'll probably never watch another thing from them. So I'd like to be able to easily leave a one-time tip. Can Patreon do this, and it's ju…

Hate to sound pessimistic to your well-intentioned suggestion, but if someone prefers not to support a creator monthly/regularly, then they are unfortunately choosing not to support them sustainably. I feel strongly that to ask for one-off giving is to ask for a badly designed system. People can't dedicate their output to creating value for you when they're living off a tip-jar. Consistency is the key to backgroundin…

Everything is a trade-off. One-time "tips" may or may not provide an income flow as as predictable as monthly pledges. However, the flipside is that it broadens your donor base. I'm more than happy to make one-off "tips" all over the place, if you have a low-friction mechanism through which I may do so. However, I'm simply NOT going to sign up as a monthly subscriber. For pretty much anything, whenever I can help it.

Obviously, you lose money by not providing a mechanism for donors like me. However, I can see the argument that if you DID provide such an option, you might lose money from donors who otherwise would have pledged monthly. So which direction provides the best trade-off? I don't know, and this would probably call for some actual research to come up with real numbers rather than gut feelings. But it's definitely not an obvious no-brainer, regardless.

I wryly note that this community tends to look down upon salaried employment, and seems to think that everyone with any merit should be quick-gig consultants or startup entrepreneurs. Start talking about self-employed artists though, and suddenly people want a safe predictable salary again.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#78

Post by CaptSpify »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #53
CaptSpify wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a problem? Legit question, because I'm not sure why you bring it up

Causes havoc with societal cohesion. > Social cohesion is defined as the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3341872

I guess I'm not a big fan of too much social cohesion. I actually prefer societies that embrace differences. Though I would agree that can be taken to a dangerous extreme.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#79

Post by falcolas »

PKop wrote: post #42
pillowkusis wrote: post #7

I have seen so many content creators go full time and create awesome work because Patreon gives them a format to incentivize their followers to pay them. The economics are beautiful — turns out just 1,000 people (a pittance on internet mass media websites) donating $5 a month will totally change the way you run your life. And even better, these artists are independent in a way no artist has ever been before. You’re n…

I've seen Patreon kicking people off their platform for political reasons, so it is not decentralized, though certainly more so than alternatives existing before Patreon. The evolution will converge towards content creators being funded through decentralized crypto currency platforms so that the money cannot be prevented from getting to creators if someone wants to pay them. Something more along the lines of https://…

Until crypto currency can be regularly used to buy everyday essentials like food and housing, I don't see this being a reasonable way to pay creators.

And currently, Patreon can only stop you from using their platform; they can not stop you from being paid. I can see an argument eventually being able to be formed behind "people effectively only use Patreon, so not being on it is a death knell" (like YouTube), but it's nowhere near that point yet.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#80

Post by toomuchtodo »

CaptSpify wrote: post #78
toomuchtodo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Causes havoc with societal cohesion. > Social cohesion is defined as the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3341872

I guess I'm not a big fan of too much social cohesion. I actually prefer societies that embrace differences. Though I would agree that can be taken to a dangerous extreme.

I'd be curious how, in your model, you'd moderate personal behaviors to tune macro results between social harmony and everyone being a low level sociopath. Historically, peer pressure and social moores provided that functionality.

Isn't there a Black Mirror episode about this with social capital? [+]

[+] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive

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