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Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

theverge.com

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Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#51

Post by Torai »

drewg123 wrote: post #16

Unless I'm missing something, they seem to only have a monthly contribution model. There are many times where I find a content creator helpful (for example a video tutorial on how to fix my broken washing machine), and I'd like to reward them. But I don't want to do it monthly, as I'll probably never watch another thing from them. So I'd like to be able to easily leave a one-time tip. Can Patreon do this, and it's ju…

Yeah, a donations per piece of content are obvious, but Patreon can't do it as the content (videos, music...) are hosted in other platform. Youtube, for example, could do it, but I guess it's not willing to stop milking the fat cow of ads, yet. I'm waiting for the time we will be able to donate as low as 5 cents even to a comment in HN.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#52

Post by egypturnash »

neaden wrote: post #2

I like patreon but at the same time I'm a bit uncomfortable with how the interaction aspect of it sometimes works. Lots of artists are essentially charging for interaction with them rather than a product. From the article: "In this system, it’s almost impossible to separate a work of art from its creator — or, at least, its creator’s public persona. Is there a future for someone who wants to be a musician, but not a…

I get $3-800 per month from Patreon, depending on how productive I am on drawing pages of comics.

I have next to no interaction with my patrons. It's pretty awesome. If I ask a question in a post I'll get a few replies, that's about it.

I mean they know something of who I am from following my Twitter or whatever, I'm no Pynchon, but every now and then Patreon sends out emails suggesting ways to make more patrons by livestreaming or whatever and I'm all "oh fuck that".

I'm not charging for time with me. Im not selling the illusion of companionship. I'm just charging for my comics.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#53

Post by toomuchtodo »

CaptSpify wrote: post #44
dgfgfdagasdfgfa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, this also means you likely have much less in common with the person next to you.

Is that a problem? Legit question, because I'm not sure why you bring it up

Causes havoc with societal cohesion.

> Social cohesion is defined as the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3341872

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#54

Post by ouid »

PKop wrote: post #42
pillowkusis wrote: post #7

I have seen so many content creators go full time and create awesome work because Patreon gives them a format to incentivize their followers to pay them. The economics are beautiful — turns out just 1,000 people (a pittance on internet mass media websites) donating $5 a month will totally change the way you run your life. And even better, these artists are independent in a way no artist has ever been before. You’re n…

I've seen Patreon kicking people off their platform for political reasons, so it is not decentralized, though certainly more so than alternatives existing before Patreon. The evolution will converge towards content creators being funded through decentralized crypto currency platforms so that the money cannot be prevented from getting to creators if someone wants to pay them. Something more along the lines of https://…

Yes, clearly Bitcoin is the only way Patreon can become a "good thing".

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#55

Post by pingpongchef »

paulgb wrote: post #48
mason240 wrote: post #26

Corporation caught in a scandal over censoring political speech against the right? Better have the The Verge write a puff piece on them.

Which case are you referring to? Lauren Southern was literally attempting to block ships (thereby endangering life) so that goes beyond "speech" in my book.

True, but it shows that Patreon will make it a priority to refuse service to people they disagree with. If I were a creator in Patreon who in my spare time engaged in such activities, it's clear that Patreon is willing to ban my account. After all, it's easy to argue that the money coming in from my patrons is supporting my activities.

This is not good news for creators who are looking for a way to do something controversial, having been turned down by other providers like Youtube.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#56

Post by frik »

pillowkusis wrote: post #7

I have seen so many content creators go full time and create awesome work because Patreon gives them a format to incentivize their followers to pay them. The economics are beautiful — turns out just 1,000 people (a pittance on internet mass media websites) donating $5 a month will totally change the way you run your life. And even better, these artists are independent in a way no artist has ever been before. You’re n…

I have so many things that was paid by ads and now is behind a patreon-paywall. A plague. No thanks, bookmark deleted.

Ads is a good business model, very unfortunate that greed created this current toxic ads crash browsers and waste way to much CPU cycles - Google & co need to step in and throttle the ads.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#57

Post by bryanlarsen »

PKop wrote: post #42
pillowkusis wrote: post #7

I have seen so many content creators go full time and create awesome work because Patreon gives them a format to incentivize their followers to pay them. The economics are beautiful — turns out just 1,000 people (a pittance on internet mass media websites) donating $5 a month will totally change the way you run your life. And even better, these artists are independent in a way no artist has ever been before. You’re n…

I've seen Patreon kicking people off their platform for political reasons, so it is not decentralized, though certainly more so than alternatives existing before Patreon. The evolution will converge towards content creators being funded through decentralized crypto currency platforms so that the money cannot be prevented from getting to creators if someone wants to pay them. Something more along the lines of https://…

They kicked off 8chan but kept The Sarkeesian Effect so in my opinion they've got it exactly right. They keep up pretty nasty stuff in the name of free speech, but don't let you cross the line into doxing and the like.

I much prefer having sensible humans at the helm than have something purely anonymous.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#58

Post by bryanlarsen »

mason240 wrote: post #26

Corporation caught in a scandal over censoring political speech against the right? Better have the The Verge write a puff piece on them.

Any corporation that doesn't pull down The Sarkeesian Effect is being far more generous to the alt-right than the vast majority of corporations would be.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#59

Post by pjc50 »

drewg123 wrote: post #16

Unless I'm missing something, they seem to only have a monthly contribution model. There are many times where I find a content creator helpful (for example a video tutorial on how to fix my broken washing machine), and I'd like to reward them. But I don't want to do it monthly, as I'll probably never watch another thing from them. So I'd like to be able to easily leave a one-time tip. Can Patreon do this, and it's ju…

People say they want to be able to tip, but so few actually do. Ask anyone with a blog tipjar.

Patreon works because people pay for the possibility of future stuff.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#60

Post by simlevesque »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #53
CaptSpify wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a problem? Legit question, because I'm not sure why you bring it up

Causes havoc with societal cohesion. > Social cohesion is defined as the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3341872

I'm not convinced that having something in common with someone corrolates with cooperation.
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