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How to compete with Patreon

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Re: How to compete with Patreon

#21

Post by padjo »

hknmtt wrote: post #14
nikic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot do business and be anonymous. The tax man would eat you alive. At least outside of USA. You also need a license as sole proprietor or be incorporated as a company in order to make repetitive sales and not one-offs. So again, no anonymity whatsoever. There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. I don't see any…

> There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. that is exactly the problem. You have two relationships here: author -> patreon and author -> patrons. The first one is irrelevant, the second on is the problematic one. You cannot be anonymous in one case and not in another. That is not how business, law or taxes work - anywh…

Anonymous artists have made money for years in all sorts of jurisdictions, it’s definitely possible to do. e.g. banksy, the residents, the rubber bandits, TISM

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#22

Post by eichin »

hknmtt wrote: post #14
nikic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot do business and be anonymous. The tax man would eat you alive. At least outside of USA. You also need a license as sole proprietor or be incorporated as a company in order to make repetitive sales and not one-offs. So again, no anonymity whatsoever. There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. I don't see any…

> There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. that is exactly the problem. You have two relationships here: author -> patreon and author -> patrons. The first one is irrelevant, the second on is the problematic one. You cannot be anonymous in one case and not in another. That is not how business, law or taxes work - anywh…

Perhaps it would be clearer to "follow the money" - from my perspective (as a patron) the relationships are "patron → patreon" (I pay a single bill from them, once a month or slightly more, but not once per artist) and then "patreon → artist". (Banks/CC/paypal are more interested in the first one, IRS is more interested in the second one...)

I already don't know any direct "wallet" information about the artist, and that's kind of the point - every direct micropayments approach since at least the mid-1990s has failed, so we have aggregation instead, otherwise we'd be spending more on the transaction than on the artist.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#23

Post by ok_dad »

hknmtt wrote: post #14
nikic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot do business and be anonymous. The tax man would eat you alive. At least outside of USA. You also need a license as sole proprietor or be incorporated as a company in order to make repetitive sales and not one-offs. So again, no anonymity whatsoever. There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. I don't see any…

> There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. that is exactly the problem. You have two relationships here: author -> patreon and author -> patrons. The first one is irrelevant, the second on is the problematic one. You cannot be anonymous in one case and not in another. That is not how business, law or taxes work - anywh…

Buddy are you for real? It’s perfectly legal to sell under a fake name (or for instance, as an LLC) as long as you pay your taxes as your real identity!

You need to maybe not try to replace patreon if you’re this clueless.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#24

Post by dmak »

hknmtt wrote: post #14
nikic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot do business and be anonymous. The tax man would eat you alive. At least outside of USA. You also need a license as sole proprietor or be incorporated as a company in order to make repetitive sales and not one-offs. So again, no anonymity whatsoever. There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. I don't see any…

> There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. that is exactly the problem. You have two relationships here: author -> patreon and author -> patrons. The first one is irrelevant, the second on is the problematic one. You cannot be anonymous in one case and not in another. That is not how business, law or taxes work - anywh…

Isn't Patreon the merchant of record?

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#25

Post by hknmtt »

eichin wrote: post #22
hknmtt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. that is exactly the problem. You have two relationships here: author -> patreon and author -> patrons. The first one is irrelevant, the second on is the problematic one. You cannot be anonymous in one case and not in another. That is not how business, law or taxes work - anywh…

Perhaps it would be clearer to "follow the money" - from my perspective (as a patron) the relationships are "patron → patreon" (I pay a single bill from them, once a month or slightly more, but not once per artist) and then "patreon → artist". (Banks/CC/paypal are more interested in the first one, IRS is more interested in the second one...) I already don't know any direct "wallet" information about the artist, and t…

Well, that presupposes that patreon itself is the publisher and you as patron/payee are doing business with them and not with the author. Which is the same model that youtube uses. I have never been author on patreon, so i have no idea about their setup. If this is the case then obviously that is perfectly legal. The problem then becomes censorship because patreon then is the owner of the license for your work that they are selling themselves and giving you your cut. Quite a different business model but one that "protects" the identity of the author because they are essentially sub-contracotrs.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#26

Post by hknmtt »

padjo wrote: post #21
hknmtt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. that is exactly the problem. You have two relationships here: author -> patreon and author -> patrons. The first one is irrelevant, the second on is the problematic one. You cannot be anonymous in one case and not in another. That is not how business, law or taxes work - anywh…

Anonymous artists have made money for years in all sorts of jurisdictions, it’s definitely possible to do. e.g. banksy, the residents, the rubber bandits, TISM

Yes, but these are true artists that make one-off sales. It is not a business for them(not legally). Where you have no legal obligation to become a "business". Author on Patreon on the other hand cannot claim to be "opportunistic" seller. They make repeated sales there, therefore it is taxable income and therefore they must become a legal entity of some sort and abide by the legal and tax laws of the consumer tax law in their country of origin.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#27

Post by hknmtt »

teraflop wrote: post #19
hknmtt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no anonymity between the creator and Patreon, or between Patreon and patrons. The anonymity is between the creator and the patrons. that is exactly the problem. You have two relationships here: author -> patreon and author -> patrons. The first one is irrelevant, the second on is the problematic one. You cannot be anonymous in one case and not in another. That is not how business, law or taxes work - anywh…

Do you think it was equally illegal for publishers and bookstores to sell novels written by Richard Bachman, without revealing that that was actually a pseudonym for Stephen King?

"publishers" is the keyword here. You have answered your own question.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#28

Post by kodra »

egypturnash wrote: post #18
KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #8

OP missed the elephant in the room. Patreon is the only platform that allows you to launder softcore (nothing explicit from in front of a camera) NSFW content with legitimate payments. There is an incredible amount of erotic artwork, drawings etc. that are sold through Patreon instead of having to resort to niche adult video site payment processors.

Subscribestar has successfully pivoted from "Patreon but you can post right-wing propaganda" to "Patreon but with less restrictions on horny stuff". Patreon is slowly but surely becoming more hostile to horny stuff; right now I'm in the middle of going around with their support over horny creators having to provide some additional identity verification through a third-party site that isn't working on my computer or m…

The issue is that "less restrictions on horny stuff" means "more restrictions from payment processors" nowadays. Doubly so if you're a Russian platform like Subscribestar is.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#29

Post by egypturnash »

hknmtt wrote: post #3

I am actually developing a platform to compete with pateon. And the author is quite naive in his complaints. You cannot do business and be anonymous. The tax man would eat you alive. At least outside of USA. You also need a license as sole proprietor or be incorporated as a company in order to make repetitive sales and not one-offs. So again, no anonymity whatsoever. "by works" payment model is illegal. You can recei…

"by works is illegal"

I've been using Patreon this way since it launched in 2013, and I am pretty sure they have grown to the point where it is impossible for the only reason they get away with it is that they are too small for anyone to say "hey this is illegal, you have x months to stop doing this before we come down on you".

"why would I give API access without being able to monetize it"

It is worth noting that Patreon was created by a musician with the intent of being a service for artists/musicians/etc, and still occasionally acts like this instead of a purely profit-driven corporate entity whose primary duty is making its shareholders rich. The CEO is still that musician, though I think his musical output has fallen off a lot as "running a system of money pipes" took over his life. Patreon makes a lot of choices that look weird from a purely monetary viewpoint because of this.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#30

Post by BlueTemplar »

hknmtt wrote: post #3

I am actually developing a platform to compete with pateon. And the author is quite naive in his complaints. You cannot do business and be anonymous. The tax man would eat you alive. At least outside of USA. You also need a license as sole proprietor or be incorporated as a company in order to make repetitive sales and not one-offs. So again, no anonymity whatsoever. "by works" payment model is illegal. You can recei…

You are confusing anonymity and pseudonymity. The author never mentioned anonymity, it wouldn't make any sense for a creator trying to develop a fanbase. (Which could be anonymous.)

Hosting video, even yourself, has been a solved problem for years now :

https://framablog.org/2022/12/13/peertube-v5-the-result-of-5...

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