Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5% • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by spinchange » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:18 PM UTC

ddalex wrote: post #115

rootlocus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is selling access to an audience. I remember their promo videos promising access to "millions of people" and "your imagination is the limit". Turns out it isn't feasible to spam all the people in your friends list with all your updates, so Facebook decides who sees which. Want more people to see your posts? Your wallet is the limit.

> access to "millions of people" and "your imagination is the limit". > Want more people to see your posts? Your wallet is the limit. I'm not seeing anything inconsistent in that position. They didn't promise free access to their audience. The imagination of how much you can spend is indeed the limit.

>They didn't promise free access to their audience

It was literally the default setting until they started making people and orgs pay to reach all _of their own, organically grown_ audience.

People were advertising their FB pages in advertising, on billboards and signage all over the country for a couple of years. I'm talking like Realtors and run-of-the-mill small businesses, etc. It all just turned out to be free advertising for Facebook because they changed their mind after reaching scale and needed to turn on some more profit.

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

#142

Post by sametmax » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:21 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #119

sametmax wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still have Charlie Hebdo putting drawings of Mahomet on the cover so there is a still a lot of margin. But it's good to stay vigilent.

It's not banned by law, but, especially after what happened to Charlie Hebdo (and it wasn't the first or the last incident like that, however probably most drastic), I'd say people are afraid to publicly say negative things about Islam, because the threat to their lives is very real. So, while we might have freedom of speech written into the laws and the state per se is not taking it away from us, it's also not prote…

That's pretty much the history of entire humanity. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you are free from the consequences of speaking, it means that the country you live in consider it a right.

And CH kept publishing on the same theme AFTER the murders, showing that they do, indeed, have freedom of speech, and are willing to use it.

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

#143

Post by bolzano » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #95

pravda wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ga…

Price is set by supply and demand, nothing else. 30% is the price, set on the non-monopoly market. I don't get what you are complaining about.

The point is Apple have a monopoly. Your supply/demand point is facile. For small indie developers 30% is an outrageous cut. That is what the complaint is about.

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

#144

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

ibeckermayer wrote: post #124

morganvachon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US does have freedom of speech at the federal government level; i.e. the government is not supposed to repress speech. However, it appears the parent is intentionally conflating freedom of speech and a private entity's right to censor their own platform. One has literally nothing to do with the other; private entities in the US and abroad are largely free to run their platforms as they choose, including censoring…

Are we really going to pretend that financial institutions are “private” enterprises? I recall the taxpayer being forced to bail them out for their incompetence. They are effectively government institutions and should be regulated as such.

If you're going to abuse the definition of public vs. private that much, receiving a child tax credit makes me a publicly owned entity, which means I can't tell my kids not to be rude to their mother.

TARP wound up making a small profit in the end, incidentally.

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

#145

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

bolzano wrote: post #143

koonsolo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price is set by supply and demand, nothing else. 30% is the price, set on the non-monopoly market. I don't get what you are complaining about.

The point is Apple have a monopoly. Your supply/demand point is facile. For small indie developers 30% is an outrageous cut. That is what the complaint is about.

Apple has a "monopoly" over the app store as much as Disney has a monopoly on Disney movies.

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

#146

Post by Tsubasachan » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

vetinari wrote: post #87

nspkr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very careful with this option, as it's based in the EU which means free speech is not considered; that makes it a very dangerous option for podcast and youtube creators, opinion bloggers, etc.

Do not worry; all these companies are private enterprises, so in US, freedom of speech doesn't apply anyway. Patreon/Paypal/Visa/Mastercard/Twitter/Facebook will drop you like a hot potato, once you publish something mildly controversial.

Different cultures different rules. Lynch all nggers may be protected by free speech but show a little skin and you're blacklisted.

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

#147

Post by _red » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

ibeckermayer wrote: post #124

morganvachon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US does have freedom of speech at the federal government level; i.e. the government is not supposed to repress speech. However, it appears the parent is intentionally conflating freedom of speech and a private entity's right to censor their own platform. One has literally nothing to do with the other; private entities in the US and abroad are largely free to run their platforms as they choose, including censoring…

Are we really going to pretend that financial institutions are “private” enterprises? I recall the taxpayer being forced to bail them out for their incompetence. They are effectively government institutions and should be regulated as such.

Its more than that, banking is a legally granted monopoly license (ie. Federal Reserve).

So they are enjoying all the perks of being government backed (protected monopoly + full bailout privileges), yet must endure none of the restrictions of a government agency. Best of both worlds.

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

#148

Post by andrestc » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

"The policy document attained by TechCrunch shows Facebook plans to take up to a 30 percent cut of subscription revenue minus fees, compared to 5 percent by Patreon, 30 percent by YouTube, which covers fees and 50 percent by Twitch."

Looks on par with other providers.

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

#149

Post by acolytic » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

Deimorz wrote: 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…

Disclaimer: I'm working on a platform that allows you to contribute to open source as a whole and which distributes your money proportionally to how much you care about various projects. I'm thinking of taking 30% as well.

I think people are just getting hung up on the number without thinking deeper on what it costs to make things sustainable.

5% of the 500 million Patreon claims to be able to process is 25 million. According to their team picture on their website (https://www.patreon.com/about), they have 74 employees. That amounts to $330000/employee. Halving that to account for benefits (chair, table, wifi, insurance, etc) leads to $165000/employee for salary which seems reasonable average for a senior employee in the Bay Area. Notice this doesn't account for infrastructure, taxes, outside counsel/contractors, etc. It's crazy that after working for 6 years and creating half a billion of value, a company can barely afford to keep the lights on, let alone make a profit. I agree 30% just makes sense for a platform - you need enough to hire properly, pay all expenses and make enough of a profit for this to make sense. The alternative is half a billion of value disappears to save on a few million which I think is incredibly myopic.

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

#150

Post by eropple » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

bolzano wrote: post #143

koonsolo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price is set by supply and demand, nothing else. 30% is the price, set on the non-monopoly market. I don't get what you are complaining about.

The point is Apple have a monopoly. Your supply/demand point is facile. For small indie developers 30% is an outrageous cut. That is what the complaint is about.

For Steam specifically, I can state with confidence that that's not true. On a phone at the moment so linking is difficult, but Jeff Vogel (the definitional "indie developer", there are very few people who have been doing it as long or as consistently) has a GDC talk on YouTube where he goes through his numbers--and he's a guy who went to Steam very late overall.

Steam's bigger marketplace and that it removes the uncertainty and risks around payment provider management (chargebacks etc.) easily make up for the bigger cut. Do less work, make more money. It's not unreasonable.