How to compete with Patreon • Hacker News Board

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#151

Post by jp57 » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:25 PM UTC

I think it's cute that he thinks someone could build and maintain well all the things he wants for less than 5% in commission and also not pass along processing fees, on what he admits is a micropayment processor.

That said, I don't understand the motivation for Patreon's decision to stop bundling payments, unless they're being forced to by issuing banks or payment processors for some reason.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, I suspect it has to do with fraud detection and prevention. A site like Patreon is at high risk to be a place to siphon money from stolen cards: Create some fake artists and have a bunch of fake patrons pledge to them using stolen cards. This kind of scam is likely much harder to detect and prevent with bundling, when multiple fake artists can be mixed in with some real ones in a single charge.

I think many people don't realize that when an online payment is charged back for fraud, the merchant (Patreon, in this case) is liable for the charges, not the issuing bank. (Well, there are some instances where liability can be shifted to the issuer, but they're not that common.) High chargeback rates can also result in higher fees for the merchant. And of course the effort to detect, prevent, and remediate the fraud has to be paid for out of Patreon's commissions, in addition to everything else.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#152

Post by culi » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

jp57 wrote: post #151

I think it's cute that he thinks someone could build and maintain well all the things he wants for less than 5% in commission and also not pass along processing fees, on what he admits is a micropayment processor. That said, I don't understand the motivation for Patreon's decision to stop bundling payments, unless they're being forced to by issuing banks or payment processors for some reason. EDIT: Thinking about it…

Liberapay is a popular FLOSS alternative that runs solely on people donating to them through their own platform. They make ~$790 a week currently

https://liberapay.com/Liberapay/

Ko-Fi is a proprietary example with 0% donation fees. They make money through a "Gold" offering and through a 5% fee on non-donation income. And they're successful enough to be hiring right now:

https://more.ko-fi.com/careers

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#153

Post by scantron4 » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

stinkytaco wrote: post #89

diggan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, none of the Patreons I'm subscribing to or been interested in, has been paywalls for Discord communities.

Half of them provide discord access and 75% a custom rss feed for a subscriber only podcast in my list. And frankly, I only take advantage of a couple of those. Mostly I just do it to throw a few dollars to stuff I like and don't use the perks. I can't be the only one.

This for me. I don't use patreon perks for the people I support on an ongoing basis. I have subscribed for perks (templates for some productivity tool) and then unsubscribed a couple of months later, but that wasn't an ongoing creator I watch all the time. I guess getting my SMBC comics by email is convenient but I already have an RSS feed reader and early access isn't important.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#154

Post by wlesieutre » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

mannyv wrote: post #148

There's a lot of talk about tipping, consumers, etc. Being a Patron (which is what Patreon was trying to do) traditionally meant supporting someone, no matter what their output. If your tortured genius put out one work a year, so be it. If they popped out Sunflowers then even better! There doesn't have to be any quid pro quo at all. It's what we now call Basic Income financed by someone's surplus. Don't overthink it.…

When Patreon is structured as “For $5/month you get X, for $10/month you get Y, for $15/month you get Z” can you really argue it’s a gift? It’s very transactional.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#155

Post by sebzim4500 » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:42 PM UTC

mannyv wrote: post #148

There's a lot of talk about tipping, consumers, etc. Being a Patron (which is what Patreon was trying to do) traditionally meant supporting someone, no matter what their output. If your tortured genius put out one work a year, so be it. If they popped out Sunflowers then even better! There doesn't have to be any quid pro quo at all. It's what we now call Basic Income financed by someone's surplus. Don't overthink it.…

Almost all succesful creators on Patreon give you benefits for subscribing (early access to content, behind the scenes, etc.), so I don't see how you could possibly convince the IRS that it's a gift.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#156

Post by culi » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:42 PM UTC

mannyv wrote: post #148

There's a lot of talk about tipping, consumers, etc. Being a Patron (which is what Patreon was trying to do) traditionally meant supporting someone, no matter what their output. If your tortured genius put out one work a year, so be it. If they popped out Sunflowers then even better! There doesn't have to be any quid pro quo at all. It's what we now call Basic Income financed by someone's surplus. Don't overthink it.…

If it's a gift, does that mean it goes towards your yearly gift tax limit?

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#157

Post by kmeisthax » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

There's one root cause for most, if not all of the things mentioned about Patreon in this post: Jack Conte took VC money.

Neophilia is a progressive and incurable disease of venture capital. VCs aren't looking to build sustainable, profitable businesses. They are looking to buy entire market segments for later enshittification. Your job as a founder of a company asking for VC money is to construct a parallel state around your target market so that you can charge taxes on everyone in that market and that the VCs can sell the entire market to someone else for a huge profit (the "exit").

Jack Conte is very firmly an artist, and not a walking pile of technofeudalist money, so I can't help but look at this as a deal-with-the-devil scenario. Or at the very least, someone desperately trying and failing to keep the money on track. The VCs bought a payment bundler and want to turn it into a merch vendor, website host, etc.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#158

Post by culi » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:46 PM UTC

manchmalscott wrote: post #121

wslh wrote: post #120

I am really interested in the space. A friend has launched https://www.imgrateful.io/ and I think crypto (beyond all criticism that we can do) is an interesting option for tipping and receiving donations without the annoying friction of Paypal(s).

Doesn’t crypto have a gas fee or something that would cost more than most micropayments to begin with?

Depends on the currency. For Bitcoin, that's what the lightning network is *trying* to fix

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#159

Post by dkarras » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:46 PM UTC

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…

patrons pay patreon, not the author. patreon pays the creator. how can it be illegal? patrons trust patreon to deliver their money to the authors, but that is irrelevant. the patrons pay directly to patreon.

Re: How to compete with Patreon

#160

Post by sebzim4500 » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

olah_1 wrote: post #149

teekert wrote: post #141

There are BTC lighting payments and the podcasting 2.0 movement to compete with Patreon. Mostly for podcasts and music atm but that will change.

The biggest proof to me that nobody uses Monero is that something as simple as proving payments is like pulling teeth. Yes, you can go into advanced settings and copy a payment proof. But then how do you get it to a retailer? What does the retailer do with it. It's not part of the normal consumer flow use case, and that tells me that people still think of it like a toy and not a serious tool.

Generally people use Monero just to hide the connection between two wallets on BTC/ETH. Either for money laundering or just privacy. I don't see why you'd need it here, where you are purchasing something legal but unpopular with payment processors.