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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

#151

Post by BlueTemplar »

georgesimon wrote: post #60
pjc50 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nobody "made" her do this It's not a career, it's more like being in a band. Everyone who is visible doing it, looks like a success. We don't see the 1000 failures. My advice with all creative pursuits is: don't. Put it to one side and create the next one. If it keeps nagging at you despite your attempts to leave it behind, then you can give it some attention. Only go all-in when you're left with no other choice. I…

Sounds like great advice, reminds me about how (all?) writers cannot help themselves but write.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#152

Post by meheleventyone »

RulerOf wrote: post #146
dsir wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dedic…

Most Patreons I've seen use discord to fill that specific social gap, but I've always found it a little odd that they didn't try to fill that niche themselves.

Discord are with Server Subscriptions: https://creator-support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/104230...

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#153

Post by BlueTemplar »

bombcar wrote: post #113
electroly wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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's quite informative to look/listen to old videos and podcasts, and see who the sponsors are. So many of them are now-dead VC-backed startups, but here and there you find a sponsor that still exists (Squarespace, for example). The food related ones are always the most amusing because you know it's all fake bullshit and the host doesn't actually use the product, because nobody does.

Heh, I recently saw a video which started by an over the top promotional sketch, and then in the middle of the video they openly made fun of it (again) by deliberately slowing down the pace of the video while using a 150 years older competitor...

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#154

Post by CMCDragonkai »

inglor_cz wrote: post #147
HDThoreaun wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero marginal cost structure of the internet has conditioned everyone to thinking digital goods should be free. Remember that anti piracy ad with "you wouldnt download a car" and literally everyone was like "of course I would download a car if I could"

"of course I would download a car if I could" LOL at that, you're right. When it comes to content online, we live in an era of total abundance. This is the sort of abundance that used to be considered utopian. You will literally never run out of excellent texts for free, a mere human just cannot read them fast enough. Same with videos, games etc. But that abundance has significant downsides for the people who create…

And even more abundance is coming with the advent of generative AI.

The problem now isn't scarcity of content. It's signal vs noise.

As a consumer of content what we want is content specifically relevant and valuable to us, but there is too much noise most of the time. As a producer of content we want to is to be able to capture some of that value. For example if there was a source of content that have me an advantage in some domain area I work on, I would absolutely pay for it. (And in fact I do, like chatgpt plus).

For entertainment content there's probably enough free stuff that most people don't care to pay.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#155

Post by joquarky »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #143
inglor_cz wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an author ... People will gladly buy physical books off you, but they won't pay for articles. There seems to be a mental barrier between those two. A physical book in your hand probably feels more real, though the total amount of work isn't that different (to a series of articles).

Zero marginal cost structure of the internet has conditioned everyone to thinking digital goods should be free. Remember that anti piracy ad with "you wouldnt download a car" and literally everyone was like "of course I would download a car if I could"

It didn't condition us, it reminded us that intellectual property is a social abstraction that flows against nature

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#156

Post by twic »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #77
twic wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean it wasn't profitable, just that the network thought another show in that slot might be more profitable. Talking about audience thresholds for profitability of TV shows is a bit pointless though, because there's so much variation in how much they cost to make. Effects-heavy action shows are ~30 million dollars an episode at the moment. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is ~1.5 million. Gameshows and…

> That doesn't mean it wasn't profitable, just that the network thought another show in that slot might be more profitable. Another show in that slot being more profitable does mean that the show already in there isn't. The time slot is a resource that the show consumes; if it can't afford to pay for that resource, then it's unprofitable.

That would only be correct if the cost of the time slot was set according to the maximum amount that any show could pay to be in it (determined via cross-universe market research?). But it isn't, so it's incorrect.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#157

Post by plastic3169 »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #118
plastic3169 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It used to be that a TV show needed viewership numbers of millions of viewers to be profitable, this is still a massive democratization of content. That is somewhat US pov. Small countries with small populations did and still do domestic content all the time and hitting even 100s of thousands viewers is absolutely massive if your population is in single millions. Sure it’s not game of thrones budget, but if you loo…

Most of the small countries are not Denmark and they indeed do have shit, low-budget TV shows on all the time.

True, but even the low-budget programs need crew, production companies, studio or locations, surprising amount of gear etc. Average influencer can run their setup so much more light weight.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#158

Post by JohnFen »

inglor_cz wrote: post #141
HDThoreaun wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality is the vast majority of people will absolutely refuse to pay content creators. Even legit newspapers with large staffs can’t get people to subscribe. Most people are ok with ads though. Your best bet is some sort of split where a small niche try’s to go subscription because there’s no chance of a widespread content creator subscription service that can replace ads.

As an author ... People will gladly buy physical books off you, but they won't pay for articles. There seems to be a mental barrier between those two. A physical book in your hand probably feels more real, though the total amount of work isn't that different (to a series of articles).

A physical book is more real. If I buy a book, I have that book available to me effectively forever. If I "buy" something that only exists online, it's temporary.

Re: The creator economy can't rely on Patreon

#160

Post by iteratethis »

I consider the words "creator" and "creator economy" dangerous because it suggests it's a serious and viable job. As the article and many comments explain, it isn't viable for 99.99% of those trying. Which isn't true for pretty much any other job. You can aspire to be a dog psychotherapist and actually have a decent chance of making a living from it, the odds are better than being a "creator".

The digital world is really simple: we all work for Big Tech but without the pay. All revenue flows in that direction.

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