Given the purging of creators for arbitrary and political reasons, I can't say I feel sympathy for this company's collapse. Ideally it'd go out of business entirely. Creators should be cutting out the middleman anyway.
Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
31–40 of 277 posts
Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
#32Given the purging of creators for arbitrary and political reasons, I can't say I feel sympathy for this company's collapse. Ideally it'd go out of business entirely. Creators should be cutting out the middleman anyway.
I don't really understand pateron when I have a donate button..but I imagine people who use pateron are doing better..
Gamification?
Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
#33This company never made sense to me from a “venture scale” perspective. It’s big, sure, but are the financials really ever going to be strong enough to go public? I guess I don’t see it. Also annoying to basically admit that layoffs were basically avoidable given the “strong cash position” but made anyway to give the company a little more runway. Doesn’t look too great.
I also think there's a fundamental conflict in their business model. Their nominal goal is to deliver maximum financial support to independent artists, etc. But especially as they go for IPO, their interest is using platform leverage to extract maximum cash from those same independent artists.
Personally, I've been using them to support creators for more than 5 years now, so I really believe in the model. But neither the software nor the UX has ever been great, and I'm amazed they've needed $165 million to get this far. If the people I'm supporting moved elsewhere, I'd quickly follow them and not look back. So I suspect they're going to have a very hard time giving their investors any major return.
Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
#34Given the purging of creators for arbitrary and political reasons, I can't say I feel sympathy for this company's collapse. Ideally it'd go out of business entirely. Creators should be cutting out the middleman anyway.
I don't really understand pateron when I have a donate button..but I imagine people who use pateron are doing better.. Gamification?
Single place, consistent UI, my credit card details are already there. I can change my card / address for everything in one go. It removes a lot of friction.
Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why unfortunately? This all seems like ultimately a good thing, although it may be unfortunate for some individuals in the short term.
It's a good thing that millions of people have lost their jobs at what were otherwise well functioning businesses because of a global pandemic that also, by the way, is going to end up killing hundreds of thousands of people? Uh huh.
Patreon has millions of employees? Oh, your sarcasm is referring to the pandemic as a whole. Which I wasn't.
Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
#36This is interesting given that, like the article suggests, patron contributions were still growing last month. Seems like they either wanted an excuse to "right-size" and this is a great opportunity, or they're expecting a significant hit to patron contributions on the back of mass unemployment, which would make the rest of the year rather painful.
You’re probably right about “right-sizing.” I’m close with another company in this space, and they’re seeing their biggest growth ever right now. But they do have slight variances in business models, and maybe that’s making all the difference.
Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't really understand pateron when I have a donate button..but I imagine people who use pateron are doing better.. Gamification?
Single place, consistent UI, my credit card details are already there. I can change my card / address for everything in one go. It removes a lot of friction.
and that right their is what usually keeps all these companies afloat with the convince they bring to the table..
Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
$2400/month is less than $30k/year. I highly doubt any of the people getting laid of from Patreon are getting a raise by going on unemployment.
$2400/month is the amount on top of your unemployment pay. Maximum in WA state puts you at $55k/year with the bonus amount.
that's...that's like a 2/3 reduction at best
Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
#39Given the purging of creators for arbitrary and political reasons, I can't say I feel sympathy for this company's collapse. Ideally it'd go out of business entirely. Creators should be cutting out the middleman anyway.
I have had “donate” buttons on my work and I have had Patreon and I have gotten several orders of magnitude more money out of Patreon than any other method. Patreon has more than earned their 5% cut of what my fans are willing to give me for drawing weird comics that make no attempt to fit into what corporations are interested in marketing.
Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce
#40Given the purging of creators for arbitrary and political reasons, I can't say I feel sympathy for this company's collapse. Ideally it'd go out of business entirely. Creators should be cutting out the middleman anyway.
I don't really understand pateron when I have a donate button..but I imagine people who use pateron are doing better.. Gamification?
In addition to what lmm mentioned, giving to patreon usually comes with some sort of perk or special content, and it's also a subscription by default which I imagine isn't the case with a donate button.