Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets • Hacker News Board

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#321

Post by unity1001 » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #44

jdwithit wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this article[0], product and engineering was ~150 people at the end of 2021 and they hope to scale to 400. Which...seems like a lot for what the company is? Although the hiring landscape has changed drastically in the last month so who knows how accurate that plan is today. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/21/patreon-cpo-interview-doub...

Yes that's absolutely a lot considering the code to solve Patreon's business problem has been written long ago and works just as well. The core business problem can be boiled down to a set of spreadsheets - based on payments going in and creators subscription timeframes you work out the payout for each creator. If it takes you 150 engineers to do the aforementioned I'd look at you in a funny way or start suspecting u…

"Hackernews member could do the same thing with only 5 people"

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#322

Post by unity1001 » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #40

jelling wrote: post #22

TFW when white collar professionals complain about the prices businesses charge in order to pay the white collar salaries necessary to make the products they use. And so many of these companies aren't even profitable, either. It's like carnivores being judgmental of hunters.

Patreon is a CRUD app and something you could build in a few months and consider it done if you wanted to. The core value proposition of Patreon hasn't changed since they launched, and the business problem is still "take $$$ from people, figure out how much to pay each creator, pay out $$$ to creators". > And so many of these companies aren't even profitable, either. It's not profitable because it's an engineering pl…

> Patreon is a CRUD app and something you could build in a few months and consider it done if you wanted to.

Yeah. EVERYBODY says that for EVERY single app or service that is posted on Hackernews. They could do it with even less people and funding. Yet, there doesn't seem to be anyone who actually did any such thing in a few months with 4-5 people.

Apparently, real world works differently.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#323

Post by unity1001 » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:10 PM UTC

markstos wrote: post #30

jelling wrote: post #22

TFW when white collar professionals complain about the prices businesses charge in order to pay the white collar salaries necessary to make the products they use. And so many of these companies aren't even profitable, either. It's like carnivores being judgmental of hunters.

Ghost provides similar features for bloggers but does not mark up subscription payments from subscribers. The cut of payments is about 3%.

Except they don't collect, process and pay international tax like EU VAT. Or California sales tax etc. You have to correctly collect it and file it one by one.

So Ghost is not a creator platform. Its a payment platform.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#324

Post by vorpalhex » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #292

vorpalhex wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does crypto solve shoplifting? Banks do credit worthiness checks as part of business. Movie theaters actually do keep a banned list and enforce it.

My comment was just meant to show the absurd of "not making business if you don't trust the customer"

But that is literally what your examples are doing! Either not doing business because of lost trust or establishing trust before giving money.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#325

Post by vorpalhex » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #239

vorpalhex wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Last time I got a mortgage I had to turn over financial history and have credit checks run. I have definitely had to pass background checks as a customer before.

Your landlord asks you to post a security deposit.

We literally have an entire credit worthiness sector.

You can also invert this and take trust as a default and only ban misbehaving customers.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#326

Post by karpierz » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

cowtools wrote: post #195

karpierz wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If credentials are stolen, crypto or otherwise, a scammer can then use those stolen credentials to make a payment. All non-reversible transactions do is put the risk of fraud on the consumer. IE, if you buy anything with crypto and it turns out to be defective, or just not arrive, you have no recourse. You're just out the money.

>If credentials are stolen, crypto or otherwise, a scammer can then use those stolen credentials to make a payment. Crypto credentials are not comparable to bank credentials. Crypto credentials are a public key; you still need the secret key in order to authorize a payment. Credentials are insufficient to make a crypto payment. Bank credentials are usually just open-source information that anyone can get a hold of, a…

1) Yes, much like if someone finds your credit card number, they can't use it without your name, CVC code, and zip code.

2) It doesn't matter how secure you make it, because if your payment system is impenetrable, I'll just steal your account on some site where you've already enabled payments.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#327

Post by vorpalhex » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

scatters wrote: post #247

vorpalhex wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So people with low social capital should do what, starve?

Grocery stores are pretty low trust environments.

If you literally are getting banned from grocery stores and starving the answer is probably "the prison warden has a legal duty to feed you".

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#328

Post by markstos » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #323

markstos wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ghost provides similar features for bloggers but does not mark up subscription payments from subscribers. The cut of payments is about 3%.

Except they don't collect, process and pay international tax like EU VAT. Or California sales tax etc. You have to correctly collect it and file it one by one. So Ghost is not a creator platform. Its a payment platform.

Ghost is a platform for creating content. Ghost partners with Stripe to handle the payments.

For a customer who runs a small town Indiana newspaper, who may be a somewhat typical customer, it's not that complicated: They won't have international subscribers and they would pay state and federal taxes-- standard income staff stuff.

And doing so with Ghost vs Patreon could save thousands of dollars per year!

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#329

Post by rollcat » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #312

lalopalota wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this a "BS excuse of an argument"? Is proof of work being used?? Hmmm, yes it is. Thus, the argument stands.

Environmental cost is a BS argument because nobody talks about the environmental cost of the already existing technologies that they are using. Everything we plug into power in our houses comes from the same power sources which the crypto miners also use. They dont come from elsewhere. So there is no difference in between using an electric car and crypto in that regard - you are still using carbon-producing energy. A…

> Environmental cost is a BS argument because nobody talks about the environmental cost of the already existing technologies that they are using.

Have you been living under a rock for the past several decades? Or is this only a thing in EU? Every single fridge or TV sold has an energy class rating. Apple's new processors are all the rage because of their performance per watt. We use 230v (rather than 110v) AC because it's more efficient over medium-distance power lines.

> So there is no difference in between using an electric car and crypto in that regard - you are still using carbon-producing energy.

The car uses energy to move mass, it's almost the textbook definition of work in physics. Cryptocurrency is based on proof of waste - you must provide a mathematical proof of pointlessly wasted CPU cycles to conduct transactions.

> All energy needs to be green.

"All lives matter."

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#330

Post by rglullis » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #324

rglullis wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was just meant to show the absurd of "not making business if you don't trust the customer"

But that is literally what your examples are doing! Either not doing business because of lost trust or establishing trust before giving money.

No. What I am saying is that for the majority of cases, there is no "trust" involved. There is a protocol that ensures that the exchange occurs properly, regardless of any trust relationship between customer and seller.