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1000 True Fans? Try 100

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Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#101

Post by mikro2nd »

sytelus wrote: post #13

While this is well written, I would urge people to NOT to follow this advice. Subscriber churn is a real thing and losing $1000/yr subscriber hurts way more than losing $100/yr subscriber. Additionally, it takes an order of magnitude more effort for conversion and your product has to almost match the utility of a smartphone produced by $1T company to even demand that kind of automated recurring payments. The vast maj…

I didn't read the article as advice, rather as pointing up/sharpening the differences between two variants of online subscription model.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#102

Post by gadders »

Apart from the practicality of the business process, I would say if your content is in any way "edgy" or skirts close to the edge of the Overton Window [1] I would try and self-host as much as possible. It would be all too easy for a twitter-storm to get you kicked off social media, twitch, patreon, cloudflare, stripe, paypal etc and then your business disappears overnight.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#103

Post by Cthulhu_ »

lultimouomo wrote: post #68
beAbU wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I agree with all you are saying and your general sentiment, I just want to understand why you state that Physiotherapy is scammy?

I don't think that he meant physiotherapy is scammy, just the concept of teaching it through online courses. If you take it a few steps further, e.g. online abdominal surgery courses, the point becomes more clear.

"Learn to perform emergency appendectomies in just one day!"

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#104

Post by nottorp »

kaybe wrote: post #92
nottorp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it is a good critical comment but the HN readers are part of the same bubble and don't realize it :)

It is not, it's far too short for that. The way it is now it isn't even a decent invitation to discuss. dav43 could probably expand it into one easily though. What kind of bubble? Who's in it? Why do they think so? What are the consequences and what could be done about it? etc.

Well let me expand it again (i have another comment saying the same thing):

HN readers are for the most part highly paid tech workers. Even in the US, tell someone who makes 30k/year that you spend 1K/year on someone's Patreon and he'll think you're crazy... or spit in your face.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#106

Post by mikorym »

scandox wrote: post #94

> As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. As a sentence this just fills me with dread. And it's hard to say why because I know, for example, that a writer making a living from selling their books could be said to be "monetizing what they love" OR engaging in the "Passion Economy". But if I was to try and get to the heart of it it's simply that I don't want to monetize what I love. I w…

I share your sentiment. In some way I think eventually you make some compromise between income and passions.

If the thing you truly love can make a lot of money then I would say one should do that but reflect on how not to start hating it. Even hobbies require discipline, but you don't see them as forced on you.

Career choices to me are more a process of elimination than choosing, especially if you have many things that you are interested in.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#107

Post by pbhjpbhj »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #99
scandox wrote: post #94

> As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. As a sentence this just fills me with dread. And it's hard to say why because I know, for example, that a writer making a living from selling their books could be said to be "monetizing what they love" OR engaging in the "Passion Economy". But if I was to try and get to the heart of it it's simply that I don't want to monetize what I love. I w…

An economy is just a group of people all making resource allocation decisions. I have no idea why you’d want to exclude passion from the decision making process of the worlds billions of economic actors.

Isn't an economy specifically about optimising resource allocation. The more general term being a financial system.

I assume you're being purposefully terse, but just in case ... can you see how one might want to do an activity without considering 'could I charge people [more] to enjoy this with me, could I end this activity with less opportunity cost lost' and instead just be generous with something one loves and free with ones use of time when having fun?

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#108

Post by [deleted] »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #99
scandox wrote: post #94

> As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. As a sentence this just fills me with dread. And it's hard to say why because I know, for example, that a writer making a living from selling their books could be said to be "monetizing what they love" OR engaging in the "Passion Economy". But if I was to try and get to the heart of it it's simply that I don't want to monetize what I love. I w…

An economy is just a group of people all making resource allocation decisions. I have no idea why you’d want to exclude passion from the decision making process of the worlds billions of economic actors.

[deleted]

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#109

Post by claudiawerner »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #99
scandox wrote: post #94

> As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. As a sentence this just fills me with dread. And it's hard to say why because I know, for example, that a writer making a living from selling their books could be said to be "monetizing what they love" OR engaging in the "Passion Economy". But if I was to try and get to the heart of it it's simply that I don't want to monetize what I love. I w…

An economy is just a group of people all making resource allocation decisions. I have no idea why you’d want to exclude passion from the decision making process of the worlds billions of economic actors.

That is the definition of an economy in abstract - it is ignorant of the historical factors which have created this particular global economy, and it is ignorant of the large and small scale social dynamics influencing the economy and influenced by it. It is ignorant of the necessary rights, as they are formed today, to sustain the economy. It is ignorant of commodity fetishism and alienation, and the fact that an economy must reproduce itself daily, hourly.

There are many criticisms of this economy that we currently have, and the creeping monetization of the last vestige of private life in which we don't need to currently sell, those hours after work and before sleep.

"Why exclude this?", as you ask, simply shows you think that there is no space to resist the totality (I would sometimes go as far as to say tolatitarianism) of "the economy". No space is free, because we have given up resisting it.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#110

Post by pbhjpbhj »

toxik wrote: post #76
bambax wrote: post #47

1. The article shows a pyramid and it's important. In order to get a few "true fans" (people prepared to pay dearly for what you produce), you need a large amount of "distant fans" (people who like what you do, as long as it's free). The key word is conversion , and, regrettably, it's not present once in the post [0]. It's probably in the 1 to 0.1% range. [0] Edit: In fact it is (convert). However in the next paragra…

Interesting point with the pyramid, a podcaster (Sam Harris) recently turned his free podcast into a "freemium" model where you get half of each episode for free. I imagine this is going to completely kill his following, as it did for me. Freemium is actually being charitable, it's more like shareware.

>completely kill his following, //

You think people who currently pay will stop paying?

Like, it's some sort of virtue signalling?

If he's changed to that model presumably he doesn't care about his following but instead wants to make a living (or make himself rich, depending how things are for him).

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