Patreon lays off 13% of workforce • Hacker News Board

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#261

Post by fareesh » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 10:44 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #227

fareesh wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also banned Carl Benjamin, leading to a mass exodus. They justified this by citing his use of a racial slur in a YouTube video, although the word was not used in the context of a racial slur. In the USA there is some kind of Voldemort status given to this word where you cannot even use it out of context - it reminds me of that Jehovah sketch in Monty Python where that parody has now manifested itself into a real…

It was only a "mass exodus" in the minds of Carl Benjamin fans. In reality he was a notable individual but ultimately a drop in the bucket relative to all the other activity on Patreon.

Sam Harris and others left the platform when he was banned - this is the exodus I am referring to

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#262

Post by danans » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #150

danans wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is some serious systemic risk in the surreal number of people working whose jobs do not matter at all. There is perhaps greater systematic risk in not having backups. Too much efficiency can equal a lot of fragility.

I've once read a HN comment that said that Aboriginees are economically useless and should work in a major city so that they can be useful. This completely ignores systematic risk posed by nuclear weapons or viruses like covid-19. Those Aboriginees have much better survival skills than the average NYC resident and they are far away so they are more likely to survive global disasters.

My comment was about the fragility created by running organizations too lean from # of employees perspective.

I have no issue with Aborigines' life choices and don't consider them economically useless at all, so I'm not sure what that has to do with the subject.

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#263

Post by stjohnswarts » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 11:39 PM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #186

asiachick wrote: post #104

I have no idea about the financials of Patreon but their site leaves so much room for improvement. It's actually pretty awful. There are lots of independent artists running Pateron accounts with 200-5000 patrons. Fans sign up to support them but also to get access to their library of content. Patreon provides a piss-poor UX for getting to this content. There is no list of content. There just "here's the stream of pos…

I don't think most consumers of content use patreon to get at the creators content eg I use YouTube to watch forgotten weapons.

Of course they don't. Most people are willing to spend their valuable time watching said content, however only superfans pay the monthly subscriber fee to be "the first ones" or get at content that is never going to be distributed anywhere but the patreon channel and on piratebay.

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#264

Post by readhn » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #135

readhn wrote: post #3

unfortunately this is just the beginning

Not the beginning. There has been a steady stream of layoffs happening for a couple months now.

2months is nothing. dark times ahead unfortunately.

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#265

Post by paxys » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:27 AM UTC

ric2b wrote: post #236

_-0-_ wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how would you go about implementing insurances for the fraud-free part?

Just use crypto-currency and you don't need to worry about any chargebacks.

You also don't need to worry about customers since there won't be any.

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#266

Post by jariel » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:27 AM UTC

detaro wrote: post #153

jariel wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the credit issue, nobody wants to be associated with a porn site. Would you launch your new line of e-books on a site that is 95% porn and well known for porn? No. If you're a porn site, then you're pretty much going to be just that, it's its own content vertical, fairly distinguished from everything else.

Patreon is relatively safe in that regard: They don't have much focus on discovery, no ad-placement to worry about, ... People interact with it primarily through deep links to invididual creators pages, so the "neighborhood" is less relevant. They've always been far from being a "porn site".

The answer to all 3 responses is 'perception' less so 'what happens on the site' although they are related.

Amazon is not known for porn. I didn't even know you could get porn there. Certainly, it's not 'online porn' which I would imagine would be the primary issue.

Tumblr became a place known for adult content so it was a problem. If Amazon started to do a lot of digital porn, like PornHub, it would be a problem.

If there is no 'search' on Patreon ... maybe they could keep it hidden. But it's a big risk.

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#267

Post by mrnobody_67 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 1:18 AM UTC

Trasmatta wrote: post #15

Nextgrid wrote: post #9

I don't really understand why Patreon needs so many employees. We're talking about almost 300 people to just supervise a fully automated process. The tech has already been built almost a decade ago and hasn't changed much, so it can't require that much engineering work. It's also an easy problem (take X amount of money, divide it between Y people, pay them out) and they ironed out any potential issues over the years.…

* Product is successful * Hire lots of people because that's what successful companies do * Product development slows way down, because you hired too fast (Mythical Man Month stuff kicks in, where adding more people to a team can slow development down, if not done carefully and thoughtfully) * Notice that development is slow, so you hire even more people to try and speed it up At least that's been my experience at 3…

100% correct.

I love the Carta philosophy on hiring - every person you need means you've failed to execute: https://carta.com/blog/how-to-hire/

Unfortunately they didn't heed their own philosophy given their layoffs with simultaneous massive fundraise.

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#268

Post by perl4ever » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 4:34 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #150

danans wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is some serious systemic risk in the surreal number of people working whose jobs do not matter at all. There is perhaps greater systematic risk in not having backups. Too much efficiency can equal a lot of fragility.

I've once read a HN comment that said that Aboriginees are economically useless and should work in a major city so that they can be useful. This completely ignores systematic risk posed by nuclear weapons or viruses like covid-19. Those Aboriginees have much better survival skills than the average NYC resident and they are far away so they are more likely to survive global disasters.

"they are far away so they are more likely to survive global disasters"

Far away from the globe?

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#269

Post by icelancer » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #249

icelancer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the initial pay. Not everyone on the Internet is making $150k.

sure, but it's a decrease for anybody working at Patreon.

Not sure how you can know that. Lot of support roles probably make less than that.

Re: Patreon lays off 13% of workforce

#270

Post by Hydraulix989 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 5:50 AM UTC

mrunkel wrote: post #169

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patreon has always had its hands dirty in enforcing their definition of "morality" -- while I almost completely agreed with their decisions, banning "anime" was the last straw for me. https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ba... Each choice they made to ban an "influencer" in the name of morality was a massive hit to their business because by definition, not only was said influencer banned, but als…

Except that they didn't ban anime. Not even close. From your link a little further down: https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ba... > They're not banning anime. They're banning the fetishization of young girls, which has been against the community guidelines for quite a while: > However, we have zero tolerance when it comes to the glorification of sexual violence which includes bestiality, rape,…

Do you not realize the false equivalence they are making here to justify actually banning it? Banning first person shooter video games can also be done under the guise of having zero tolerance for glorifying mass shootings. And then any heavy handed enforcement actions can be justified by saying that only violent games are banned. Look at which patrons have actually been affected by their policy and how they are choosing to enforce it. Wake up!

(Lastly, hentai is obviously a very different thing than anime. It is clear that Patreon is targeting anime, as well as hentai.)