Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

thoughts.jatan.space

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 351 posts

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#231

Post by elif »

weberer wrote: post #92
jeroenhd wrote: post #36

What I think is something people easily overlook with Patreon and similar platforms is that it's quite hard to make a decent profit on $1 or $5 transactions that most of Patreon's income seems to come from. They're definitely overcharging for more profit, but your margins won't be much lower if you handle payment yourself. Your 3% bank cut to receive money doesn't always work because often there's a minimum fee per t…

This is something crypto was supposed to fix. And maybe smaller coins did, but transaction costs for BTC and ETH are even higher.

You can use a smart contract with a side-chain for fee-less transactions from donators -> creators, and only have to pay a single transaction fee every time a donator or creator adds or withdraws funds.

so each donator would have ~$0.75 fee every month, regardless of how many creators they support. or whales could just fill their account for the quarter/year for $0.75 if they so chose.

and each creator would only have a $0.75 fee every time they decided to withdraw.

just build $0.01 into the contract and its a profitable system.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#232

Post by xyzzy123 »

busterarm wrote: post #152
tpurves wrote: post #105

What many people don't realize is that the operational and customer service costs of payments don't scale with payment amount. Customers will cost almost just as frequently dispute, have questions, have problems, ask for help, attempt to defraud etc with a $1 transaction as they will a $100 or $1000 transaction. This is the real killer with micro payment schemes. Customer service costs scale more with number of payme…

Yeah, all of the other payment processors have settled on somewhere between 2-4% fees to handle fraud. See PayPal. So either Patreon has an order of magnitude more fraud going on or is massively wasteful in its business operations. Probably both.

Would you say the same of app stores?

I think there's a reasonable case to view Patreon as a platform, not a pure payment processor.

Patreon is much more exposed to competition than the app stores, which are "protected" by the device duopoly.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#233

Post by rollcat »

rglullis wrote: post #157
rollcat wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto is meant to be an alternative for the cases where the cost of existing processors make the transaction not viable. Allow me to quote myself: using proof of work in place of CC processor fees is just moving the problem around - and arguably, making it worse: you're essentially taking on environmental debt, which all of us will eventually have to pay down.

Ethereum is moving to PoS in less than two months. Can we please drop this BS excuse of an argument? (Before you reply with the usual "Ethereum devs have been promising PoS for years" line, I will tell you this: I pledge to drop all work on Hub20 if Ethereum doesn't complete the transition by the end of the year.)

Saved the date.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#234

Post by mensetmanusman »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #130
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charge backs should also be less of an issue if the purchase is $1. Same with fraud. The stakes are lower the lower the amount. Who cares? It's not worth disputing. Fire the customer if it crosses a threshold.

> stakes are lower the lower the amount. Who cares? OP mentioned customer service. Pretty much any American can create 50+ hours of customer support and legal work for no reason at all in payments. Even an irate, clueless customer will waste an hour of your support staffs’ time.

Just give them their money back and shadow ban them from using your store.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#235

Post by luma »

rglullis wrote: post #158
MattRix wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t using crypto lead to more fraud, not less?

I am talking from the perspective of the merchant . Imagine bogus chargebacks because of buyer's remorse or purchases done with stolen credit cards. None of this happens for a merchant that accepts crypto.

From the point of view of the merchant, crypto is riddled with fraud: https://www.pcgamer.com/50-of-transactions-were-fraudulent-w...

If crypto truly solved all the problems you claim it solves, I think it’s reasonable for the major online marketplaces and vendors to have already switched over. I’ll note that they haven’t, and the state of the overall crypto market in the past few weeks suggests one good reason why.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#236

Post by tatertots1234 »

tpurves wrote: post #105

What many people don't realize is that the operational and customer service costs of payments don't scale with payment amount. Customers will cost almost just as frequently dispute, have questions, have problems, ask for help, attempt to defraud etc with a $1 transaction as they will a $100 or $1000 transaction. This is the real killer with micro payment schemes. Customer service costs scale more with number of payme…

> The crypto bros totally miss the point in understanding this too.

The crypto folks are pretty cognizant of it, which is why they built an entire technology that isn’t reliant on intermediaries, banks, and payment processors to manage transactions.

A crypto Patreon in stablecoin like DAI on an L2 would basically be able to remove most of the high fees creators see in Patreon.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#237

Post by newbie2020 »

fartcannon wrote: post #213
deadbunny wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A static website that shows/hides content depending on your subscription level dynamically?

I don't know how to respond to that. That's not a complicated thing to do. Patreon gets to take the money they take because they've found a good niche, not because their website can do something that all websites have been able to do since the 1990s. I personally think they take too much for what they provide. That's all. I am very happy they exist, though, because otherwise everyone would just be chasing the algorit…

“Not because their website can do something that all websites have been able to do since the 1990s”.

That is describing most money-making websites in existence

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#238

Post by Jakawao »

tatertots1234 wrote: post #236
tpurves wrote: post #105

What many people don't realize is that the operational and customer service costs of payments don't scale with payment amount. Customers will cost almost just as frequently dispute, have questions, have problems, ask for help, attempt to defraud etc with a $1 transaction as they will a $100 or $1000 transaction. This is the real killer with micro payment schemes. Customer service costs scale more with number of payme…

> The crypto bros totally miss the point in understanding this too. The crypto folks are pretty cognizant of it, which is why they built an entire technology that isn’t reliant on intermediaries, banks, and payment processors to manage transactions. A crypto Patreon in stablecoin like DAI on an L2 would basically be able to remove most of the high fees creators see in Patreon.

That doesn’t address the criticism. If I pay for a good or service via crypto and it is not delivered satisfactorily, what is my remedy? Who even decides what “satisfaction” is?

Yes, the dispute/chargeback process for cards is cumbersome today, but it is a solution - albeit inefficient. What is the crypto answer?

I don’t mean to put you on the spot for this question, but I would love to understand how decentralized solutions might address this issue.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#239

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

vorpalhex wrote: post #219
rglullis wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the customer does not trust the merchant, they simply don't make the payment with crypto . Why, oh why is it so hard to understand the concept of multiple alternatives ?

If you don't trust the customer, don't take their business.

How are you supposed to know which customers are trustworty and which aren't?

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#240

Post by deanCommie »

finfinfin wrote: post #218
cowtools wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they also provide a service that imgur, catbox.moe, google drive, and others do for free?

Yes. Creators should upload content to Imgur and ask supporters to pay them directly through PayPal. That’s a fantastic alternative to Patreon.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
Post reply on HN