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Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

blog.patreon.com

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Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#341

Post by xenadu02 »

I subscribe to a single Patreon. It's an artist publishing an online comic. I pay for day-ahead access vs the public site.

Reading the thing I pay for is fucking _painful_ on Patreon. So is trying to use their comment system to interact with the creator or other fans. Everything is slow-loading infinite scroll with tons of "load more" links. It is absolutely dreadful and every time I interact with the site I'm reminded that I really should cancel my subscription.

The experience has not meaningfully changed in years.

They can pay all the lip service they like but Patreon sucks at connecting creators to fans/subs. Their content presentation sucks. Their search sucks. Their comment system sucks.

Whatever they are doing they aren't making the service more useful to the people forking over the money.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#343

Post by rideontime »

egypturnash wrote: post #299
remram wrote: post #222

Patreon could have eaten OnlyFans' cake so easily, instead they seem to be struggling like everyone thought they would when they banned NSFW content in 2017. I don't understand why they thought that move would benefit them. I don't understand how Jack Conte is still CEO after such a stupid change or how he can say with a straight face that he's "taking responsibility".

There is a time-honored path that this choice to ban NSFW stuff is part of. 1. Make a way for people to get paid over the Internet for making stuff. 2. Be okay with horny stuff, possibly as an explicit choice in the beginning, possibly as a pivot when people who make horny stuff start shifting a lot of money through the pipeline you're providing. 3. Get big enough for Visa/Mastercard/Apple/Google to notice that you s…

Despite all my anti-crypto ideals and principles, this feels like a potential use case. If I have to make an ethereum wallet to get all my niche furry porn, so be it.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#344

Post by leoqa »

aeyes wrote: post #282
avg_dev wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure this says more about me than anything but if a company lays me off there is zero chance of me exercising options in that company. Edit: I read the link and it appears to apply to RSUs as well. What I said about options is true but RSUs, different story. I’d sell those for sure.

Why not? Options are usually "in the money" so if you don't exercise them you are throwing away money which you already earned.

This is true for liquid options. Startup options are not liquid, there is a chance they’re illiquid until the company folds or is bought- and in an acquisition of a struggling company they’re likely to prioritize higher share classes before common stock gets to see a piece of the price.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#345

Post by hedora »

leoqa wrote: post #344
aeyes wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Options are usually "in the money" so if you don't exercise them you are throwing away money which you already earned.

This is true for liquid options. Startup options are not liquid, there is a chance they’re illiquid until the company folds or is bought- and in an acquisition of a struggling company they’re likely to prioritize higher share classes before common stock gets to see a piece of the price.

They’re extending the exercise window to 5 (or more years) for laid off employees. There’s no reason not to at least hold on to the options until IPO.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#346

Post by [deleted] »

mabbo wrote: post #275
q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #53

This bit from the employee announcement about how they're handling equity vesting [1] is worth highlighting as a pretty classy move, all things considered: > We’re waiving the one-year equity vesting cliff for all departing employees so that everyone has an opportunity to be a shareholder, regardless of your tenure. [...] All departing teammates will qualify for an extended option exercise period of 5 years, and we h…

Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but since the equity is all options , doesn't that imply that they're making it easier for people to give them money ? Yes, sure, they have to dilute the company a bit by creating more stocks for the people buying it, but if your company is in enough trouble that you're laying off 1 in 6 employees, it seems financially wise to effectively be doing many small rounds of fundraising this…

[deleted]

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#347

Post by buzzy_hacker »

preston4tw wrote: post #96
q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #53

This bit from the employee announcement about how they're handling equity vesting [1] is worth highlighting as a pretty classy move, all things considered: > We’re waiving the one-year equity vesting cliff for all departing employees so that everyone has an opportunity to be a shareholder, regardless of your tenure. [...] All departing teammates will qualify for an extended option exercise period of 5 years, and we h…

I always thought it was awesome that a company to support creators was creator lead. I came across Jack Conte in 2010 before Patreon existed. He was a music creator on YouTube that made what he was calling Video Songs, songs with each instrument part video'd and mixed together, and selling his music collection through e-junkie at the time. He was one of the first creators I ever financially supported. Some of the vid…

Yes, I’m a long time Pomplamoose fan https://youtu.be/FlDGFrP4NgI

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#348

Post by xapata »

egypturnash wrote: post #299
remram wrote: post #222

Patreon could have eaten OnlyFans' cake so easily, instead they seem to be struggling like everyone thought they would when they banned NSFW content in 2017. I don't understand why they thought that move would benefit them. I don't understand how Jack Conte is still CEO after such a stupid change or how he can say with a straight face that he's "taking responsibility".

There is a time-honored path that this choice to ban NSFW stuff is part of. 1. Make a way for people to get paid over the Internet for making stuff. 2. Be okay with horny stuff, possibly as an explicit choice in the beginning, possibly as a pivot when people who make horny stuff start shifting a lot of money through the pipeline you're providing. 3. Get big enough for Visa/Mastercard/Apple/Google to notice that you s…

Branding matters, too. It may be difficult to serve both horny and "no horny" consumers, so you need to decide which market you prefer.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#349

Post by xapata »

LightG wrote: post #312
honkdaddy wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the expression, but usually when English speakers say they "take full responsibility" for a tragedy or unfortunate occurrence, they mean from a moral and blame-based standpoint, it's rarely related to the finances of those affected. The laid off employees are the ones ultimately worse off by the outcome, that goes without saying, what you're missing is that this is different from being…

Back in the day it meant falling on your sword and letting someone better/new take over.

Luckily, these days we value lessons learned from mistakes.

Re: Patreon Lays off 17% of Staff

#350

Post by xapata »

bcrescimanno wrote: post #284
weego wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're +$400mil into venture capital raises 'the company' doing something like that can be an awful lot of time, effort and potentially political capital for a CEO to get through. I'm astounded that so many supposed seasoned leaders were out there making crazy projections around maintaining covid levels of growth and I also don't think 'my bad' is enough in that context, but benefits above what's required are ra…

I'd share your surprise; but, I sometimes question if they believed it themselves. I've spent the last 15 years in public companies and if there's one thing "The Street" demands, it's growth upon growth. The context of a pandemic being a once-in-a-lifetime event is meaningless. Your business experienced record growth and we expect you to continue that trajectory of increased growth no matter what--so get to investing…

Also, it might have been defensive. If competitors are burning money, you might feel like you need to keep up, even if it's not the ideal trajectory.
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