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Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

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Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#31
post #17
post #11

I don't understand why people are acting like this is ridiculous and will obviously fail. 30% is the same cut that Apple and Google take for everything that goes through their app stores, including all in-app purchases. It's the same cut that Steam takes. It's the same cut that YouTube takes for channel membership. Twitch takes an even larger cut: 50% from subscriptions. It's extremely well-established that people ar…

Yes, but Apple and Google have monopolies. Not a "gamer", so I don't really know what "Steam" is/does, but I suspect they must have some kind of moat. I'm not sure that people are comfortable with Patreon taking a 10% cut. I'm not happy about eBay taking a 10% cut, but they have a monopoly. Jack Ma, please bring Taobao to USA!

Steam is, despite there being a lot of competition, the de facto one stop shop for digitally distributed PC video games (and is in itself a kind of DRM protection). I think that a large proportion of gamers would be happy for almost all of the competition to disappear in favor of getting everything on the Steam platform.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This boilerplate exists in literally every site that hosts user-created content in some form and displays it to other people. If it didn't exist, the site would immediately be violating your copyright if they showed your content to anyone other than you

That doesn’t explain why it needs to stay in effect after you terminate your relationship with them.

Backups. Why commit to reliable destruction of data when you don't have to?

Google has a guarantee on when your deleted data disappears from tapes in vaults, and it was something that every engineer at the company had to think about (not to mention a ton of work in actually implementing it). You may wish for Some New Startup with 2 engineers to do it for you, but it's hard, takes time, and nobody actually cares. Look at how many people use Patreon despite that policy. Why spend years of engineering work when your lawyer can get the problem fixed in 5 minutes? It's just economics.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#33
post #17
post #11

I don't understand why people are acting like this is ridiculous and will obviously fail. 30% is the same cut that Apple and Google take for everything that goes through their app stores, including all in-app purchases. It's the same cut that Steam takes. It's the same cut that YouTube takes for channel membership. Twitch takes an even larger cut: 50% from subscriptions. It's extremely well-established that people ar…

Yes, but Apple and Google have monopolies. Not a "gamer", so I don't really know what "Steam" is/does, but I suspect they must have some kind of moat. I'm not sure that people are comfortable with Patreon taking a 10% cut. I'm not happy about eBay taking a 10% cut, but they have a monopoly. Jack Ma, please bring Taobao to USA!

eBay takes 15% plus some listing fees and that doesn't include the PayPal fees.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#34
post #17
post #11

I don't understand why people are acting like this is ridiculous and will obviously fail. 30% is the same cut that Apple and Google take for everything that goes through their app stores, including all in-app purchases. It's the same cut that Steam takes. It's the same cut that YouTube takes for channel membership. Twitch takes an even larger cut: 50% from subscriptions. It's extremely well-established that people ar…

Yes, but Apple and Google have monopolies. Not a "gamer", so I don't really know what "Steam" is/does, but I suspect they must have some kind of moat. I'm not sure that people are comfortable with Patreon taking a 10% cut. I'm not happy about eBay taking a 10% cut, but they have a monopoly. Jack Ma, please bring Taobao to USA!

The alternative is always to offer your content from your own website, and take 100%.

The game developers who were around before Steam, know how much that costs (promotion wise), and know they get a lot for that 30% cut. The same is true for those other platforms.

You seem to be a person that expects all internet platforms offer their stuff for free.

And another thing: all of those platforms mentioned have competitors, so calling them monopolies is quite strange. It's not because they are market leaders that there is no alternative (which monopolies don't offer)

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#35

Patreon is selling a service, Facebook is selling access to an audience. Two seemingly similar but vastly different offerings. That's why Facebook can have a lot of crappier versions of other products that are still successful (e.g. Facebook events vs. Meetup.) I doubt they'll be able to get away with the terms as is, but it wouldn't surprise me if they manage to successfully charge significantly more than Patreon an…

Absolutely correct and the best comment here imo. It’s very different to provide an audience vs. providing a service.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#36
post #17
post #11

I don't understand why people are acting like this is ridiculous and will obviously fail. 30% is the same cut that Apple and Google take for everything that goes through their app stores, including all in-app purchases. It's the same cut that Steam takes. It's the same cut that YouTube takes for channel membership. Twitch takes an even larger cut: 50% from subscriptions. It's extremely well-established that people ar…

Yes, but Apple and Google have monopolies. Not a "gamer", so I don't really know what "Steam" is/does, but I suspect they must have some kind of moat. I'm not sure that people are comfortable with Patreon taking a 10% cut. I'm not happy about eBay taking a 10% cut, but they have a monopoly. Jack Ma, please bring Taobao to USA!

Valve cut their fees to 15% recently for games that sell well, and reduced the normal fee from 30% iirc. Epic Games has brought serious competition to the industry, offering a broadly used game distribution channel for a low price.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#37
post #14
post #11

I don't understand why people are acting like this is ridiculous and will obviously fail. 30% is the same cut that Apple and Google take for everything that goes through their app stores, including all in-app purchases. It's the same cut that Steam takes. It's the same cut that YouTube takes for channel membership. Twitch takes an even larger cut: 50% from subscriptions. It's extremely well-established that people ar…

Those cuts are egregiously large, IMHO. Those platforms should be hacked into pieces until competition forces them to fall (or have their pricing regulated like a utility's).

Their billion users seem pretty content to use them in spite of the numerous alternatives.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#38

How is this a "Patreon killer" at all? In addition to the extra 25% cut, they will also apparently demand IP rights that would continue even after you stop using their service. Are they thinking that people will sign up for this because it gives them instant access to lots of people on FB, and that justifies the higher percentage? I'm guessing that creators will end up having to pay to get exposure, just like brands,…

> By posting content to Patreon you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display or prepare derivative works of your content.

"Perpetual and irrevocable" means that it continues even after you stop using their service.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t explain why it needs to stay in effect after you terminate your relationship with them.

Backups. Why commit to reliable destruction of data when you don't have to? Google has a guarantee on when your deleted data disappears from tapes in vaults, and it was something that every engineer at the company had to think about (not to mention a ton of work in actually implementing it). You may wish for Some New Startup with 2 engineers to do it for you, but it's hard, takes time, and nobody actually cares. Look…

The issue with facebook is not that they simply hold a copy of your data after your relationship ends, but that they have permission to continue using it. Few content creators would object to Facebook keeping a random copy of their content on a tape drive. It's like a book publisher keeping your a copy of a rejected manuscript in a warehouse somewhere.

The real problem is when Facebook uses that content to further their business interests. Likewise, the publisher shouldn't be sending that rejected manuscript around for others to mine for ideas.

(that said, to avoid the temptation that gives rise to this precise problem, it's common practice for publishers to return rejected manuscripts)

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