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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

#131

Post by pompino »

sct202 wrote: post #103
pompino wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if monetization with a low subscriber base isn't as hard as we imagine. Afterall, you just need to net like 80K in a non HCOL city to live very comfortably. (assuming no employees, or office rent, or expensive production)

To monetize a small subscriber base you have to pull a sizable $x per active user that almost requires you to become a little scummy at best. I've seen a lot of personal finance influencers (FIRE especially) pull sizeable amounts of money because their niches are pretty favorable, but they end up pushing weird financial products and courses for $Xk on how to make money blogging/real estate/some other business.

A low sub base liking/commenting will keep your video somewhat relevant to the algo for recommendation. So you'll have a chunk of subs that stay the same, and a percentage of new viewers. Granted that will also cap your total views in some way, but I wonder what the threshold is. Like maybe 100k or 50k of subs is sufficient to keep you buoyant.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#132

Post by zrn900 »

grey_earthling wrote: post #37

Patreon knows that Patreon doesn't work - they don't fund themselves by donations on Patreon; instead they take a cut of other people's donations. And the model where some patrons receive a reward encourages transactionalism and disappointed patrons when they don't get the reward they expected. Liberapay's model seems much more sustainable - donations only, no rewards; Liberapay fund themselves via Liberapay because…

> Patreon knows that Patreon doesn't work - they don't fund themselves by donations on Patreon; instead they take a cut of other people's donations.

Huh? So does Paypal by taking a cut of payments. It does not work by people donating to Paypal. Does that mean Paypal doesnt work? The proposition does not make sense...

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#133

Post by [deleted] »

xetplan wrote: post #66
pompino wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if monetization with a low subscriber base isn't as hard as we imagine. Afterall, you just need to net like 80K in a non HCOL city to live very comfortably. (assuming no employees, or office rent, or expensive production)

It is hysterical to me people think this. It is just because you are not accounting for all the people trying this and failing. By definition, no one is watching all the youtube videos that only get 50 views per episode of a podcast. It isn't hard if you use a massive selection bias towards the winners and just assume you will also be a winner. May as well just say it is easy to make a living in the restaurant busine…

[deleted]

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#134

Post by zrn900 »

bell-cot wrote: post #15

Sorry, but the "creator economy" is a mostly-malicious delusion. Sure, it can sound great. And for a very lucky few it probably is great. But the 99% reality is that it's just hype from techo-utopians, wanna-be's, get-rich-quick salesmen, and a bunch of mega-corporate platforms - whose profits are built on the backs of virtual-slave "creator" labor. (Yes, maybe this is a bit too cynical. Maybe. A bit.)

And how is that any different anywhere else in the modern economy... At least with the creator economy, content creation (including software) is more democratized and distributed.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#135

Post by elevatedastalt »

In a perfect market, the profits tend to zero. This is a basic idea in Economics, and can be seen in any area of work that gets 'democratized'. Whether that's good or bad can be debated, but the outcome isn't very surprising.

Apart from a few (0.01% or lower) content creators, most do NOT have very distinctive content. In economic terms it's a commodity market, and therefore it's not surprising that it pays similar profits.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#136

Post by [deleted] »

karaterobot wrote: post #99

Subscription services like Patreon are the only way I give people money unless they sell a product I want. I'm not going to watch commercials, and I'll skip sponsored videos or segments every time. If the idea is that not enough people use Patreon for you to make money, then go ahead and run advertisements, I'll just move on down the road to someone else. If the idea is that Patreon in particular is bad—that it takes…

[deleted]

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#137

Post by extraduder_ire »

phone8675309 wrote: post #102
thaumasiotes wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Install an ordinary ad blocker and your video experience will be completely ad-free without needing YT Premium.

With YT Premium the people you watch actually get paid even if you skip the ads.

They would get paid slightly less though, since the premium revenue split is based on watchtime IIRC.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#138

Post by mrguyorama »

phone8675309 wrote: post #102
thaumasiotes wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Install an ordinary ad blocker and your video experience will be completely ad-free without needing YT Premium.

With YT Premium the people you watch actually get paid even if you skip the ads.

The people I watch don't get paid from youtube ads, don't like youtube ads, don't like Youtube forcing ads on videos they do not want to put ads on, don't like random companies forcing ads onto a video THEY made based on some nonsense "contentID" system that is trivial to cheat, and can't rely on youtube not shutting down their channel over "copyright" reasons that aren't even valid.

Patreon means all they have to do is exactly what they want to do, put that on the internet, and make a livable wage. This isn't exactly an isolated case either. Every youtube creator between 100k - 1 million "subscribers" is better served by just doing what they want and being supported by patrons. It is the single most direct and viable form of talent funding.

Most of these creators actively dislike youtube, which is why they push their literal replacement; nebula.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#139

Post by mrguyorama »

lewismenelaws wrote: post #88
kalleboo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay, but I don't want to watch businesspeople, I want to watch what this person is making/doing/writing/etc! That's the whole point!

Patreon means I can just give them dollars for doing a good job, and they don't have to go get an associates degree in marketing to realize that sponsorships are lowballing them entire magnitudes.

I consider this infinitely better to a creator selling my attention, for pennies on the dollar compared to what a company would spend for equivalent advertising from a less exploitable cadre, to companies that are morally grey at BEST, often false advertising or literal scams like Established Titles in the norm.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#140

Post by dsir »

karaterobot wrote: post #99

Subscription services like Patreon are the only way I give people money unless they sell a product I want. I'm not going to watch commercials, and I'll skip sponsored videos or segments every time. If the idea is that not enough people use Patreon for you to make money, then go ahead and run advertisements, I'll just move on down the road to someone else. If the idea is that Patreon in particular is bad—that it takes…

I think the issue with Patreon, and a lot of similar services is that they are too focused on the "creator > consumer" relationship. I think the biggest value that a content creator is creating is acting as a beacon that people can rally behind regarding a specific niche and facilitating "consumer > consumer". Their biggest value add is as a curator. It's often difficult, especially for smaller niches to find a dedicated community around it if not for a content creator creating content and promoting it. In many cases, a content creator becomes synonymous with the niche.

I've been working on a platform called Sociables (https://www.sociables.com/) that gives content creators a place to offer their community as a part of their product offering. The difference between Patreon is it is much more focused on allowing creators to set up a place for their community to interact with each other instead of the more para-social style relationship seen on Patreon.

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