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The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

joanwestenberg.com

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Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#81

Post by lewismenelaws »

electroly wrote: post #7
lewismenelaws wrote: post #2

I’m a full-time content creator. I feel like patreon/newsletters/paid communities are more hassle than anything. When I look at the pros and cons of every single revenue strategy, sponsorships has the highest gain and least cons (for me). Sponsors pay at least 10x what ad revenue pays, I don’t have to ask my community for money and the audience are likely to skip the ad anyway if they didn’t want to watch it. Patreon…

I see the same few sponsorships constantly: Skillshare, Brilliant, Nebula, Hello Fresh, BetterHelp, Raid: Shadow Legends. I like to guess which one it's going to be when the creator starts telling a made-up story that leads into the sponsorship segment. The fact that it's the same ones, over and over again, across a wide spectrum of channels, makes me think that sponsorship is not yet a proven reliable source of inco…

It really depends. My niche is in software and lots of brands allocate budget towards advertisements towards influencers. You might be right, long term it might dry up, but it’s been 2 years for me now and hasn’t slowed down

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#82

Post by sgerenser »

electroly wrote: post #7
lewismenelaws wrote: post #2

I’m a full-time content creator. I feel like patreon/newsletters/paid communities are more hassle than anything. When I look at the pros and cons of every single revenue strategy, sponsorships has the highest gain and least cons (for me). Sponsors pay at least 10x what ad revenue pays, I don’t have to ask my community for money and the audience are likely to skip the ad anyway if they didn’t want to watch it. Patreon…

I see the same few sponsorships constantly: Skillshare, Brilliant, Nebula, Hello Fresh, BetterHelp, Raid: Shadow Legends. I like to guess which one it's going to be when the creator starts telling a made-up story that leads into the sponsorship segment. The fact that it's the same ones, over and over again, across a wide spectrum of channels, makes me think that sponsorship is not yet a proven reliable source of inco…

You forgot Factor frozen meals which I see all the time, but mainly on tools/building/woodworking channels.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#83

Post by Nursie »

pjc50 wrote: post #34
kalleboo wrote: post #26

This doesn't sound as dire to me as the author makes it out to be. I think it sounds totally reasonable that you need 20,000 or even 100,000 engaged followers to be able to make it full time off creating content. I don't see how, even with advertising or sponsors, a smaller number of followers could ever pay a livable salary (out of 20,000 people, how many of those mattresses are you really going to sell?). It used t…

Indeed. People need to look at the numerator and the denominator. How many millions of content creators are there out there? How much disposable income do fans really have? The advantage of Patreon-like systems is they let the creators "whale hunt", by taking much larger amounts of money from a small number of more engaged fans. > Eventually, her viewers were asking for more recipes, more elaborate productions, and f…

> How many millions of content creators are there out there?

So many that the scales of things have changed beyond recognition. The democratisation of tools and access to audiences has made things explode.

I read recently that there is more music recorded in a week these days than was recorded in the entire 1970s. With that amount of content being created, the vast, vast majority of creators aren't going to find a way to make themselves stand out and get paid.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#84

Post by throw7 »

Roark66 wrote: post #4

What creators need is a better youtube algorithm. Is it just me, or has youtube recommendations become almost unusable by now? Some years ago when I spent "an hour watching YouTube" I'd watch a huge majority of videos recommended by the algorithm based on my current subs. Today it is 1%. Why? I'll give you an example. I have varied interests, I sub and regularly watch a number if channels in each of my hobbies, but f…

It's not just algorithm and search. ux for grouping/viewing/hiding/watching later/getting rid of notification thumbs/etc/etc/etc of all your numerous subscriptions is nonexistent and it sucks.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#85

Post by rainbowzootsuit »

mvdtnz wrote: post #13
rainbowzootsuit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are one of today's 10,000. https://sponsor.ajay.app/ And if you have android: https://github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular

Extensions like sponsor block don't help when entire videos are centered around promoting a product. A very popular mountain bike channel I used to follow, GMBN, for example, pretty much only makes videos in order to promote sponsors. The sponsors drive the very content we're here for, it's not just 30 second spots.

Fair point there. That channel would just have to drop for me if the "review" videos got excessive, and find a replacement or no replacement.

I'm looking to skip the embedded ad-read sponsorships, credits, the "thanks for subscribing," and "thanks for our patreons" stuff and sponsorblock does that in spades.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#86

Post by lewismenelaws »

lizknope wrote: post #74
lewismenelaws wrote: post #2

I’m a full-time content creator. I feel like patreon/newsletters/paid communities are more hassle than anything. When I look at the pros and cons of every single revenue strategy, sponsorships has the highest gain and least cons (for me). Sponsors pay at least 10x what ad revenue pays, I don’t have to ask my community for money and the audience are likely to skip the ad anyway if they didn’t want to watch it. Patreon…

When you say sponsor do you mean a 1 minute advertisement in a 10 minute video where you say "Today's video is sponsored by ABC Corporation, they make this useful product to do XYZ" or do you mean a video where you got a free product and paid money to do a promotional video about the product? I've seen both and I don't mine the advertisement style but when someone makes an entire video about a product that they got f…

It’s different for everyone, but for me, it’s similar to the 1 minute section like you mentioned. I integrate it within my video. Not sure if this is what you’re referring to, but if someone doesn’t disclaim that something was sent to them or paid to say it. Highly illegal.

Reason I say Patreon is a lot more work is because usually you need to build an incentive with Patreon as well (community, BTS, extra content).

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#87

Post by lewismenelaws »

_v7gu wrote: post #43
lewismenelaws wrote: post #2

I’m a full-time content creator. I feel like patreon/newsletters/paid communities are more hassle than anything. When I look at the pros and cons of every single revenue strategy, sponsorships has the highest gain and least cons (for me). Sponsors pay at least 10x what ad revenue pays, I don’t have to ask my community for money and the audience are likely to skip the ad anyway if they didn’t want to watch it. Patreon…

How much extra work is Patreon if you don't offer any extras to people who sponsor on there? Most sponsored content is either completely orthogonal to the channel and its contents which is quite iffy if the creator is positioning themselves a someone with judgement their audience can trust (non-gaming channels advertising Raid: Shadow Legends, or non-tech channels advertising NordVPN), or actively make me lose respec…

I’m sure none but then I would feel guilt taking money from my audience. I know it might be silly, but sponsors makes everything free for everyone.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#88

Post by lewismenelaws »

kalleboo wrote: post #23
lewismenelaws wrote: post #2

I’m a full-time content creator. I feel like patreon/newsletters/paid communities are more hassle than anything. When I look at the pros and cons of every single revenue strategy, sponsorships has the highest gain and least cons (for me). Sponsors pay at least 10x what ad revenue pays, I don’t have to ask my community for money and the audience are likely to skip the ad anyway if they didn’t want to watch it. Patreon…

That interesting since several YouTube creators I follow on Patreon (ok, so it's a self-selecting group) say the opposite. They've done sponsors a few times, but the sponsors are so much work to collaborate with (they take too long to approve videos, they want pointless changes done, etc) that they gave up on it and rely on Patreon instead where they can just create the videos they want to on their own schedule witho…

I’ve done sponsorships for a while now, we have contracts specifying that any changes they make is minor at most.

Business sense is really important when dealing with this.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#89

Post by lewismenelaws »

xxs wrote: post #22
lewismenelaws wrote: post #2

I’m a full-time content creator. I feel like patreon/newsletters/paid communities are more hassle than anything. When I look at the pros and cons of every single revenue strategy, sponsorships has the highest gain and least cons (for me). Sponsors pay at least 10x what ad revenue pays, I don’t have to ask my community for money and the audience are likely to skip the ad anyway if they didn’t want to watch it. Patreon…

Depending on the type of content, there is always a chance the sponsorship deals affecting integrity.

Very true. I’m not a review type channel, so this isn’t something I have to worry about.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#90

Post by lewismenelaws »

mdorazio wrote: post #80
tomcam wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you expect it to be?

White dude making coding videos with the usual modern algorithm-inspired cringe thumbnails and titles. It definitely seems to be working, though - over 500k subs is impressive.

Hahaha! Love this comment. Long form and short form content has been significant for the growth.
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