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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%

#61

Post by koonsolo »

hevi_jos wrote: post #50
koonsolo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 competitor…

You will be taking 100% of nothing… Because no traffic will visit your page versus Google's or Apple's traffic. In the same way you can put a store in a rural place, or you could put in in New York 5th Avenue with warrantied traffic. And of course that 100% does not take into account your cost of hosting, creating or adapting the necessary infrastructure and maintenance.

Exactly! And then people complain that the prices of real estate on 5th Avenue are outrageous.

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

#62

Post by fgonzag »

girzel wrote: post #27
Deimorz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patreon requires you to grant them an extremely similar license: > You keep full ownership of all content that you post on Patreon, but to operate we need licenses from you. > 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. The purpose…

but... sublicensable?

I think it makes sense if the business relationship is actually artist patreon consumer. The client pays patreon, so patreon must sublicense the content to him. Otherwise I'm lost.

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

#63

Post by TeMPOraL »

tapland wrote: post #31
pravda wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Yup. Competition is good for the market in general, and for consumers in a more indirect way, but balkanization of content space and having to deal with the crappy apps of me-too competitors is a real pain.

(There's probably some economical theory around this that I don't know, but my gut-feel classification is this: competition is good for consumer when competitors are providing the same, or at least directly substitutable, goods and services. Individual video games - and music, movies, books - are not substitutable goods, so the competition is useful only to the extent you can get the same game/movie from any of the competitors. Exclusive publishing deals make competition harmful to the consumer.)

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

#64

Post by maksimum »

chillacy wrote: post #41
ardy42 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I have a mac app which is exclusively available on the App Store, so I pay 30% of my revenue to Apple. I could spin up my own system but then I have to build out payments (credit card processing fees), distribution, updates, beta testing, and figure out discoverability. In the end, my app isn't big enough to build these things out myself, but at least if I wanted to I could. Different story on iOS.

> beta testing, and figure out discoverability

I feel like these two are much harder than the others. How does the app store help you with beta testing? Isn't discoverability basically a lottery?

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

#65

Post by speedplane »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #63
tapland wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Yup. Competition is good for the market in general, and for consumers in a more indirect way, but balkanization of content space and having to deal with the crappy apps of me-too competitors is a real pain. (There's probably some economical theory around this…

> There's probably some economical theory around this that I don't know ... competition is good for the consumer when ...

Yes, there is a pretty standard economic proof that much of capitalism is based on. It says that an economy is most "efficient" (you can take a class on that word), when three pre-requisites are met:

1. Perfect information: Everyone knows the value of everything.

2. Commodities: Products created by competitors are equivalent. This works well for oil and bananas, but not so well for much else.

3. Access to Capital: This means new competitors can start competitors and enter markets easily. This isn't so easy when there is regulation, monopolies, or network effects.

In short, there is a set of circumstances when things work really well. However, in the real world, those circumstances rarely arise.

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

#66

Post by zone411 »

gnicholas wrote: post #3

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,…

I think it would make the most sense for creators to have accounts on both Patreon and Facebook.

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

#67

Post by pravda »

koonsolo wrote: post #59
pravda wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You seem to be a person that expects all internet platforms offer their stuff for free. Oh gosh, no! I expect them to offer their stuff at the profit-maximizing percentage. That's the whole point of having a monopoly, so you can charge monopoly rents. Now I am curious about this "Steam" thing. Looks like there is an about page: https://store.steampowered.com/about/

Please tell me which one of those things you named are a monopoly, and I will name the closest competitor. I'm thinking about Craigslist, Snapchat, Vimeo, Mixer, etc. Don't confuse market leader with monopoly. Before Steam, you had several casual portals (all competing with each other). Do you know which cut they took? 70%. Do you know why platforms nowadays take 30%? Because it's well worth the 30%, that's why. And…

> Do you know why platforms nowadays take 30%? Because it's well worth the 30%, that's why.

That is not the way things work.

Why does Apple take 30% of sales? Because Apple prices at the profit-maximizing percentage and because Apple figures that the profit-maximizing percentage is 30%.

Lower, and they leave money on the table. Higher, and sales volume goes down.

Ever hear of something called "consumer surplus"? A gallon of gasoline would well be worth $10 to me, but I pay a lot less then that! Why? Because of competition.

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

#68

Post by thucydidesofusa »

RileyJames wrote: post #23

> But whatever cut it takes will be after processing fees and the 15 to 30 percent tax Apple and Google levy on iOS and Android in-app purchases. We’ll see if Facebook tries a workaround that pushes users to their mobile browser where it can take their subscription money tax-free. That makes it kinda ridiculous. $5 subscription. 30% to Apple: $1.5 30% to Facebook: $1.05 (of the remaining $3.50) Leaving the creator wi…

Heh, now assume the creator makes $80k/yr and lives in California.

Marginal tax rate - ~38%?

$5 subscription.

30% to Apple: $1.5

30% to Facebook: $1.05 (of the remaining $3.50)

38% to the Government: $.93 (of the remaining $2.45)

Leaving the creator with: $1.52

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

#69

Post by kalleboo »

riffraff wrote: post #26
kalleboo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that helps justify it to creators for all these services (including Facebook) over Patreon is that they at least provide hosting, usually of bandwidth-heavy video files or live streaming. Patreon just hosts the equivalent of a Twitter feed linking to YouTube videos.

I don't use patreon but isn't there often 'patron-exclusive" content? I thought that content was hosted on patreon itself.

All the patreon-exclusive videos I've seen (5+ channels) have been unlisted YouTube videos. I've never seen a video hosted on patreon.
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