25 ms·

Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

400 points by panic 9y ago

dugditches 9y ago
I asked this before, but it wasn't really the place: 1. To those who donate to Patreons, how do you budget/think about/justify your donations? 2. Do you have a set budget? What if you really want to support someone suddenly, do you stop supporting someone else to do so, or reduce how much you give them? 3. When do you stop/reduce Patreon support? How long do you typically support someone? Until you feel they no longer need it?
- falcolas 9y ago
  1) Entertainment - just like cable, Netflix, movies, etc. 2) The amounts I donate are so small on a monthly basis - around $3 per artist - that adding a new artist isn't a pain point in my entertainment budget. 3) When I stop consuming the content. Usually after getting the monthly breakdown of my contributions in my email, I say "I'm not listening to/watching this anymore, so I'll go ahead and cancel it."
- patmcguire 9y ago
  1) Entertainment 2) Same budget as entertainment 3) I only do one, there's a weekly extra for subscribers so it's worth it
- kilroy123 9y ago
  I just donate $3 a month to three different artists. Not a big deal to me, that's a cup of coffee in a lot of parts.
- avehn 9y ago
  1. I feel that I get value from the artist/podcaster/writer and in our capitalist society value == money. 2. I have a budget that changes. But if I cannot afford to support someone new I will wait until I have more income or less expenses. 3. I support people until I feel I no longer get value from them or can no longer afford to support them. Money gets tight sometimes.
- eduren 9y ago
  1. There's currently only one creator I'm supporting, so its not that hard to justify for now. But considering that he puts out ~2 hours of quality video content per day, and I watch 90% of that, makes sense. 2. I like to compare it to my Netflix subscription. I'm pretty sure I watch this certain YT channel more than Netflix, so the $1 a month I give is a good deal IMO. 3. For most patrons, the goal is to enable the content to be created. My money goes towards the creator paying their bills (YT is their only job). Unless I stop caring about the content, or the creator finds an alternative revenue stream that lets them create full-time, I don't see myself cancelling.
  - blhack 9y ago
    2 hours per day? Who is that? That is a tremendous amount of video!
    - eduren 9y ago
      Relatively small video game channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ManyATrueNerd https://www.youtube.com/user/ManyATrueNerd https://www.reddit.com/r/ManyATrueNerd/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ManyATrueNerd/ He puts out 2 videos a day, most averaging 45 min. Lots of good series plus frequent new game previews.
- raesene9 9y ago
  I judge my donations as paying for content I enjoy. I donate to several web comics and some youtube channels. I enjoy the content but dislike web ads, so patreon is great for me. I don't have a set budget but I don't tend to go for higher tiers. I support someone as long as I'm enjoying the content they're creating. So for webcomics, if they're still creating and I'm still reading, I'm happy to keep paying.
- upvotinglurker 9y ago
  1) I try to donate roughly $1 per hour of content I consume. For example, a podcaster I support creates several different podcast series on different topics; I am interested in two of the series each of which has about four 1-hour episodes per month; so I contribute $8 per month. The $1 figure is pretty arbitrary. A major-cable-network television episode purchased from iTunes/Amazon/Google costs $2-$3, so $1 seems fair for an amateur podcast? 2) The total amount so far has stayed small enough that I haven't needed to set a budget. If I needed to, I might ask myself questions like: whose content would I miss the most if they stopped making it? Which creators do I know to be trying (reasonably plausibly) to make a living from their creations, vs. those doing it as a hobby who would probably continue without Patreon contributions? 3) I have reduced or stopped contributions when I stop enjoying (and therefore stop consuming) a creator's content, or when the amount of enjoyable content they produce goes down. (I know the latter reason for reducing contributions can create a vicious circle, I don't have a good answer for it.) If the person is trying to make a living off their art, and they aren't a megastar, they will never really stop "needing" contributions from some minimal number of fans. Some creators I support don't easily fit into the above framework. For instance, for Every Frame a Painting I contribute $1 per video. His videos are rare (one every few months), far less than an hour long, make over $7000/video (so I don't feel like my personal contribution is particularly "needed"), and (so far as I can tell) are not a source of income he depends on. But I enjoy them so much that I often find myself watching them repeatedly and find I want to contribute.
- Bedon292 9y ago
  It is about the entertainment, perks, and access. So depending on the creator how I go about it. For one person the highest level of perk is $5, and they also have thousands of supporters, so I only do $5, but for another they have much fewer contributors, and I really enjoy what they do, so I donate more. Which gets me email / discord access directly to the creator at a higher level. I get to be a part of it, and I enjoy that. But if I stop listening to a podcast, and start a different one, I may switch my support to them, as a way of balancing the budget. I will stick with supporting someone as long as I derive value from it, and feel they still need it. I have a couple I am thinking about reducing, but will see how things go over the next couple months before I decide for sure.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  1. For me it's kinda subjective. Some creators I support just because I like their stuff and want more of it. I usually think about this in terms of the impact my contribution will have on the creator and how much I'll end up enjoying it. For example a guy who makes hours of video in his living room that I watch every month and love (personally, Lindybeige) is worth more to me than someone who makes super high production value stuff very infrequently (e.g. CGPGrey). Others I'll support for the rewards. I know Patreon is meant to be a "support people out of the goodness of your heart" kind of thing but a lot of creators I just want "stuff" from. Typically for me this is high resolution digital art or physical pieces of original art mailed to me. Sometimes it's a combination of both. 2. Nope. I just think about how much money I'm spending on Patreon when I do it. I mostly think of creators as individuals, not a big bucket of stuff and I consider my monthly expenses as a whole. If I think I'm spending too much I might cancel a Patreon contribution because I've lost interest in that creator or I might cancel a software subscription or something. 3. See point 1. When the value I place on the support/rewards goes down, the contribution goes down with it. This can be because a creator no longer interests me, a creator has so many contributions from others that I feel mine no longer have impact or because the rewards no longer satisfy me.
- jccalhoun 9y ago
  I don't make all that much so I only fund 4-5 creators (and one has stopped taking funds and another has had health issues so isn't producing anything)and I cap them at $1-2 dollars a month.
- therealdrag0 9y ago
  1. Anyone I subscribe to (consume content from regularly). 2. 1-5$. 1 guy has 10k patrons, so for him I just do 1$ per episode. "Philosophy Bites" has <300 patrons, so I give them more per episode. 3. When I stop consuming someone's content regularly. I have done this once or twice.
neaden 9y ago
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 personality? “No. I don’t think so,” Hollens says. “I don’t think the reclusive thing is going to happen anymore. That’s not the world we live in." While that works for plenty of artists I'm sure there are others that can't handle it. In addition it seems really exhausting.
- falcolas 9y ago
  > Lots of artists are essentially charging for interaction with them It's just marketing. Not all artists on Patreon provide this kind of interaction, and a number of artists on YouTube do. Peter Hollens' opinions are amplified because of his popularity, but his is not the only model of operation. And ultimately, if a personal interaction is what the audience wants, aren't those artists simply playing to those desires? If I'm paying for a ticket to a rock festival, I'd like to hear rock, not country.
- brandnewlow 9y ago
  Has it ever "worked"?
- empath75 9y ago
  > Is there a future for someone who wants to be a musician, but not a personality? There are tons of edm producers who don't cultivate much of a public personality, but even then, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes networking that goes on. Being a professional artist has always been about cultivating relationships with people who have money. Whether it's wealthy patrons, or people who own record labels or galleries, or event promoters, etc.
  - godot 9y ago
    One might even argue that being a professional anything (at least, a successful one at it) is about cultivating relationships with people who either have money (investors), have network, or have power (to hire you, etc.). This applies even for software engineers. Even the greatest software engineers in the world won't get very far by just sending job applications on a job listing site.
fernly 9y ago
The article is well-done but speaks mostly from the artist's side. From the patron-side, I think an important factor in Patreon success is that it gives the donors the good feels for very little cost. I fund several web-comic artists whose work I enjoy at a trivial level, $0.25 per new comic for instance, or for some, the minimum $1/month. For a few $ a month, I get regular doses of warm fuzzies from knowing I am actually helping good artists continue to make art.
- falcolas 9y ago
  Agreed. Clickspring is my goto example. Stupidly high quality videos with full subtitles, good filming, and a well narrated explanation of a really niche activity. There just aren't a lot of detailed videos about clock building from end-to-end out there. And it's all effectively funded by Patreon. $3 a video is well worth it.
pillowkusis 9y ago
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 not beholden to advertizers. You’re not beholden to the whims of a few patrons (church or people). You only need the loyalty of people who value your work. Before Patreon, internet content creators (from the BBC to a little indie band) were in a dangerous place. Paygates couldn't sustain growth but ad-supported free media couldn't sustain revenue (now more than ever with ad-blockers). Now there is an answer. I am totally convinced Patreon (or the patreon model) is the future of content creation. Ethical, decentralized, economically viable flourishing of the arts. If anyone at Patreon reads this, I would love to come work for you, please contact me sparrowmaxx at google’s email service. :)
- fhood 9y ago
  One of the most important implications being that with services like this, creating content that a few people love is now as viable as creating content that many people like.
  - dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
    Of course, this also means you likely have much less in common with the person next to you.
    - CaptSpify 9y ago
      Is that a problem? Legit question, because I'm not sure why you bring it up
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        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 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3341872
nilved 9y ago
A lot of creators I appreciate use Patreon, so I signed up to donate to them. They started sending me spam emails. It was like I was paying extra (giving Patreon a cut) for the privilege of getting annoying emails. Now I just donate directly to the creators, and I have a checklist that I go through every month. I think something like Patreon is a great idea, but having a centralized company handle it and take a cut is not the way to go about it.
- jonathanjaeger 9y ago
  Do you they not offer an unsubscribe option?
  - nilved 9y ago
    They do, but I don't like supporting services that opt you in to spam automatically.
    - ARCarr 9y ago
      I don't see how getting an email about the person you're supporting is spam.
      - nilved 9y ago
        I'm not talking about those. I would view a Patreon creator's page and then get emails saying "are you sure you don't want to support xyz?"
  - Ermenwyr 9y ago
    The default is to email you every time someone you support publishes anything on Patreon. You turn this off, but the annoying thing is that you need to turn it off separately for each person you support.
    - falcolas 9y ago
      > need to turn it off separately for each person you support This doesn't seem unreasonable, particularly since many offer early access to content, and these emails are the gateway to that content.
drewg123 9y ago
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 just not obvious?
- Torai 9y ago
  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.
  - raesene9 9y ago
    Patreon works just fine per piece of content. I follow multiple artists who work on this model (e.g. https://www.patreon.com/scottbradlee https://www.patreon.com/scottbradlee, https://www.patreon.com/pomplamoose https://www.patreon.com/pomplamoose)
    - Torai 9y ago
      That's a subscription model, thus patronage. I mean donating to a piece of content you have just consumed or appreciate.
- savanaly 9y ago
  Sign up then immediately cancel? One month's payment should go through.
  - WesleyLivesay 9y ago
    I just want to correct your comment unless anybody else sees this. By default this is not how Patreon works. For most creators you are not charged until the end of the month, so if you sign up on August 2nd you are not charged any money, and the money doesn't go to the creator, until September 1st. They do have a new setting for Patreon campaigns that lets the creators change this, but many have not.
mason240 9y ago
Corporation caught in a scandal over censoring political speech against the right? Better have the The Verge write a puff piece on them.
- yedava 9y ago
  There neither is any 'scandal' or 'censorship'. Patreon's decision was a textbook application of John Stuart Mill's "Harm Principle".
  - wsrGoWkWeJ3i7w 9y ago
    hate speech is free speech
  - almonj 9y ago
    They banned a middle of the road conservative blogger, it has nothing to do with preventing harm. They got pressured by hardcore pro-government pro-mass immigration groups and caved. Very shameful and terribly stupid business decision making.
    - paulgb 9y ago
      Which blogger are you referring to?
      - nostrebored 9y ago
        Lauren Southern. She was banned after throwing flares and attempting to block a ship (with no refugees on board) from leaving port to pick up refugees who she believes are being trafficked into Italy with the government's assistance. She was arrested for participation in this act of protest and then Patreon made the claim that her activities could have caused loss of life (which is ridiculous).
        eropple 9y ago
        The alt-right is not "middle-of-the-road conservative". The alt-right is literal-not-figurative fascism with memes and, occasionally, good dress sense. If you consider white supremacists (oh, sorry, white nationalists (oh, sorry, ethno-nationalists)) to be "middle of the road conservatives," there is a profoundly deeper problem in your calculus.
vinceguidry 9y ago
If anybody at Patreon is reading this, here's some feedback. I spend maybe $20 a month on Patreon. The main thing keeping me from spending more is the interface makes artists appear more money-grubbing than they might want to. I don't want to scroll down someone's feed only to find half of the content is locked. This is a negative user experience and makes me want to click off the site and go do something else. Suggested fix is a checkbox or setting that allows me to hide content that I'm not at the right patron level to see.
- technomalogical 9y ago
  On the flip side, not knowing about that content means you might not increase your pledge to a level where you could access it.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    The main problem is that there's a lot of content that I like on Patreon, enough to give a small amount of money towards, but I don't like it enough to want to pay $40+ a month for it. And getting constantly beaten over the head with "why aren't you paying $40-60??" just leaves me cold. I know damn well why I'm not paying more, you don't have to remind me all the time.
- pjc50 9y ago
  I don't think they're ever likely to do that; the response to locked content that you want to see is to decide whether or not to pay for it. This is like complaining that Amazon shows you products you can't afford.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    It's cool, I just won't use the Patreon website as a way to explore new creators, nor will I patronize creators that heavily tier their content. This means pretty much all of their adult content. If they knew how much time and money I've spent on that kind of thing, they wouldn't take my complaints lightly.
model_m_warrior 9y ago
In my years on the internet I find the content works itself out, so I'm unsure why I'd pay anyone anything. Half the reason I like most of it is because it's free.
- gizmo686 9y ago
  Every I support on Patreon publishes there content for free. Some have token perks, like early access or occasional patron only content, but not enough to justify paying. It is a patronage model. Donors donate so the create has the resources to create.
- jccalhoun 9y ago
  I only pay a couple people $1 a month but I do it because I like what they make and want to support it at least a little.
raesene9 9y ago
Personally I like the patreon model, and think it works really well. Bundling together payments for different creators into one place is handy and I'm guessing helps reduce fees, so smaller payments work better. I only have to provide payment details to one site, so that's nice and easy too. I get to support creators who's work I enjoy without having to endure web ads, which I dislike. From the creators standpoint it seems to provide a nice even revenue stream. Whilst I don't know any personally, I'd guess it must be nice to have an idea of the base income you're going to get in a month, rather than relying on something more variable like advertising or ad-hoc tips.
__s 9y ago
I've got a pretty niche patreon where I post a stream of consciousness devlog for Luwa. Only 1 subscriber, but it keeps me motivated having an outlet & knowing _someone_ thinks it's worth 5 dollars a month for me to flail around hand writing WebAssembly after work
kareldonk 9y ago
There should be no middle men. Only a direct P2P model will truly benefit everyone.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  I disagree. There are shared services that Patreon provides that would be a pain for creators: - Payment processing: Patreon consolidates all payments under one gateway account so fees are low for everyone. - Support: What happens if the payment fails? Creators don't want to deal with that mess every month, it's less time to do useful stuff. - Abuse handling: Patreon can deal with spam comments and the like. - Service hosting: They integrate all this stuff in one place that creators don't have to host themselves. - Consolidated management for Patrons: As a subscriber it's nice to see all the stuff I'm supporting and how much I'm paying for it in one place.
  - WesleyLivesay 9y ago
    I would also like to add Ease of Use to your list. I have had to help several of my Patrons with basic tech support issues, like setting up RSS feeds in their podcast app. And I doubt that they would be able/comfortable with working with a service that is not as easy and straight forward as Patreon.
- zanny 9y ago
  The only way to make it purely P2P is to make it non fiat based. And when you try to do that, you have suddenly alienated 99% of your potential audience of supporters.
Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
Patreon is starting to take off for open source, too, which is great. I set one up and it offsets a good deal of the infrastructure costs for my projects. Many FOSS Patreons have pretty low figures - please go looking for them and support your tools!
- zanny 9y ago
  Let us be honest though, github is bad enough that so many free software projects are using a proprietary web service for project organization. Having the primary source of proceeds to keep the project afloat also on a proprietary web service is really, really dangerous.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
    It's a difficult problem for sure. I actually built an open source donation platform before I did a Patreon page [0]. Over the past 2 years, I've earned $1500 on it. I've always had an average of maybe $20-30/mo in recurring donations, plus anywhere from $0-$300/mo in one-offs (usually on the left of that scale). Until last month, I had been making $30/mo in recurring donations on the FOSS platform, and now I'm up to $50/mo. I started the Patreon page two months ago and it was pushing $100/mo within a week, and without any noticable disruption to my FOSS donations - it effectively increases my donation flow 3x-4x. Patreon is a platform people already trust with their CC# and people are already supporting other creators on. Reducing the barrier of entry can get you way more money, which makes a big difference. Patreon also makes it clear that your support is meant to be recurring, which has a big impact on the long term viability of the income stream. I still accept donations through the FOSS portal, and point people there first if they ask me directly how to donate. But it doesn't make sense to turn down Patreon, either. Aside: I'm working on an open source git platform too, I feel you wrt GitHub. [0] https://github.com/SirCmpwn/fosspay https://github.com/SirCmpwn/fosspay
    - WesleyLivesay 9y ago
      I can echo this, my Patreon isn't for software, but I get more per month on Patreon than I was getting per year through donations with basically the same level of marketing.
AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
barf. yuck. I found that article physically repulsive. Patreon, if you are listening, don't buy into all the power that the article wants to shower upon you. They want you to influence your exercise of that power, and they want you to use that power to do their bidding in limiting free debate of ideas. Patrons and the person that they support, that's it, that's all there is to it. The silver coin is being given by hands of patrons and taken by hands of one that is being supported, that silver coin shouldn't have opinions, emotions and desires. Stay neutral, that is the greatest challenge of our time, stay neutral. If a crime is being committed then co-operate fully with law enforcement, but don't give in to the pressures from lobbying groups with their own agenda. Don't get carried away into the corrupting power the platforms like youtube, facebook, twitter exercise on the discussion carried out on these platforms. They have absolute power, and you can see that once you use it, it's addictively corrupting. Stay neutral, it is going to be hard to do, I hope you find the power within you to do so. Good luck.
- AlwaysBCoding 9y ago
  They've already fucked it up. Here's an hour long interview with Patreon's CEO, Jack Conte, where he goes through some ridiculous mental gymnastics trying to justify why it's ok he is kicking conservative journalists off his platform. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofpbDgCj9rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofpbDgCj9rw
  - xexers 9y ago
    Can you give me the TLDW;?
    - Neeek 9y ago
      Not having watched the whole thing, it sounds like this Lauren Southern (the journalist in question) was using funds from Patreon to help blockade a ship in the Mediterranean. They though the ship was leaving to collect migrants, apparently it was being used by doctors without borders for search and rescue operations. The CEO states in the first couple of minutes that they wouldn't be supporting that kind of activity and is apparently against their terms of service. This seems pretty obviously not about freedom of speech but about what illegal activities Patreon could be accused of supporting financially.* Does he go on later in the video to justify removing other accounts because of political beliefs? I haven't made it much further in. *EDIT: So after watching another video on the subject, the official statement has less to do with what Patreon doesn't want to be seen funding but more about a section of their content policy stating they will not allow action that might endanger the life of another person, i.e. blockading search and rescue vessels.
just2n 9y ago
I'm in favor of directly funding creators. I hate everything about ads. That said, I don't see any real value Patreon provides over other payment services, especially given their cost. I definitely don't want politically driven judgement calls made on my behalf as to whether or not that creator should even be allowed to have my money, when that person hasn't actually done anything illegal. It's my money, and no business has any business telling me who I can and can't give money to, or why, and to step into that position is to trivialize competition. It's a bad move on Patreon's part, and it's completely antithetical to the service they should be providing: making it easier to find content you like by creators you like and then fund it so there's more. They don't do the former, and the latter is more and more only for "Patreon approved" creators. What is it they do that makes them invaluable or irreplaceable, because I'm not seeing it. I've given thousands through Patreon but I've stopped using it for many reasons. I feel pretty justified in that decision just looking at their behavior, both lately and in the past. They've allowed pages to remain up for people who are provably doing nothing but harassing others (and advertising that behavior as the "activism" their Patreon page is funding), but taken others down just because they run a service which on principle refuses to police discussion but which isn't breaking any law because Patreon dislikes what people on that service say/do. Now they've removed someone because they disagree with something that person has done unrelated to their content creation being funded through Patreon (again, not even illegal behavior), and it looks entirely politically motivated. I don't support Lauren and never have, but this kind of moral grandstanding and virtue signaling from Patreon just isn't acceptable to me, and definitely not from what is a glorified payment processing web interface. Tim Pool as usual has a fairly solid take on it, and I mostly agree with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_yIp7eQO1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_yIp7eQO1c. This piece looks like a pretty desperate PR move.
- quxbar 9y ago
  I find it funny that the content creator you linked to still uses Patreon, despite them not providing any value over other payment services ;)
vijayr 9y ago
this article (no affiliation with the author, just happen to enjoy his work) is also worth a read https://gaps.com/patreon-earners/ https://gaps.com/patreon-earners/
- mdpopescu 9y ago
  That site is a goldmine, thank you for pointing it out.
phry 9y ago
Laura Southern literally advocates for the death of migrants, pardon me for not giving a fuck about her losing an income stream.
- PKop 9y ago
  And because many people agree with you, and many people don't, there is and will forever be a market for decentralization.
- vetinari 9y ago
  > Laura Southern literally advocates for the death of migrants, pardon me for not giving a fuck about her losing an income stream. That's huge misinterpretation. What they wouldn't do is to ferry the migrants from Libyan coast to Italy. They would return them back to Libya. That's not advocating the death of migrants. That's exactly what the coast guard of Italy should be doing!
  - cholantesh 9y ago
    There just firing on the unarmed flotillas in self defense! They're Defending Europe, get it?
- nostrebored 9y ago
  Cite your sources, because you're objectively wrong. Stop saying that people literally advocate for death. This is something that has happened in the past, something that will probably happen in the future, and being a sensationalist about it just makes you an asshole.
  - phry 9y ago
    oops it was laura loomer, apologies for mixing up my moronic racists. the line between the two is thin to the point of being non-existent regardless.
    - nostrebored 9y ago
jmcgough 9y ago
What I've found interesting is the number of smut games and comics creators that are thriving (sometimes making their creator 6 figures a year) because of patreon.
RangerScience 9y ago
There's a part of me that just wants to set up a Patreon, link to it from a few places with enough content to have a profile (Github, Medium; if I ever finish an article), and if it starts getting traffic, do more of that content. See what happens. (Unlikely to be anything without marketing, but, why not? Cost of the effort is low.)
Jerry2 9y ago
How long before Youtube bans private videos and destroys Pateron's business?
- blhack 9y ago
  I can't imagine that they would do that. At the very least if they did, they would gate it for a few $$/mo. Make it a feature for red users only or something.
- CM30 9y ago
  Probably not happening, since private and unlisted videos have plenty of non Patreon uses as well. For example, some people use unlisted videos in thei Ycombinator or startup accelerator applications. Or on pages on their own sites where the video merely compliments the content and is useless on its own. Removing that sort of thing seems illogical.
  - VLM 9y ago
    Another example is you only need to be 13 to have a youtube account and the interesting privacy compromise at school is the kids upload their video presentation homework to youtube as private videos. Another example is prepping for launch day, upload and test everything then change private to public on the big day. I suspect google can't monetize private videos because it would bring an uncomfortable discussion about income inequality at youtube (much like patreon, almost all users make essentially no money, which is not going to help content provider recruitment if it becomes noticed in wider public eye)
bcheung 9y ago
It's funny, and a bit unfair, how they can get away with having adult content and not being labeled `high-risk`. Most adult credit card processing takes 10-15% before the business even sees anything, and they are only taking 5% total and providing a service. In many ways it's an anti-trust issue because competitor platforms geared specifically towards adult content can't get those same rates.
cdcox 9y ago
I do wonder how Google, Facebook and the ad sphere sees Patreon. A fair number of creators I've seen use Patreon to go ad free. It seems small but growing with strong network effects, and a clear path to profitability. In a lot of places on the internet it's almost a household name. It also is relatively platform agnostic and there is a lot of room for it to grow into. This seems like it might be a deep threat to the current power players of the internet and the current structure of the internet. On the other hand, you could have said the same thing about Kickstarter a few years ago, but then it hit its growth limits and became just another, still slowly growing but no longer earth changing, feature of the internet landscape.
gregjw 9y ago
Patreon's office caught fire yesterday! But everyone and everything is completely fine. https://twitter.com/jackconte/status/892888675570208769 https://twitter.com/jackconte/status/892888675570208769
Applejinx 9y ago
I'm https://www.patreon.com/airwindows https://www.patreon.com/airwindows and I'm writing audio DSP plugins in AU and VST form, for a living. Here are my observations over the past year of relative success on Patreon. I'm in the top 3.2% of all Patreon, sitewide. That amounts to only a little over $700 a month (I'm using it to replace a for-pay business model that wildly oscillated from $400 to $3000 a month). It's growing. I'm having to put out twice or three times the work, but I'm happier with a 'free/patronage' model because what was happening to me under the for-pay model was, I got locked into a 'hype cycle' versus other developers and companies. The sense I had was, my industry sector is dying. The way we treat customers is worsening, and it's a race to DRM-based, extremely invasive monthly software rental and a degree of dishonesty that didn't sit well with me. I feel that I bailed 'in time' to turn my ten years of reputation and experience into just-barely a subsistence using Patreon, and that if I hadn't done so, I would have been run out of business by competitors using every sort of deceptive and customer-abusing practice, and the epitaph would've been 'A shame, he was one of the good ones. Tough business'. As such I feel I have a real-world view of what Patreon actually is. It's a form of payment processor that can let you bill for basically 'goodwill': the strong point is, it lets you render your income more predictable, at the cost of not being able to exploit individual creations which might be more valuable. Never, NEVER get sucked into the 'just 0.1% of all living humans donating one cent a month will make you rich!' argument. If you have a hundred thousand known fans, MAYBE you can get a hundredth of them to give to you. You've got no control over what 'the crowd' will do. I don't know how many times I've revealed on HN that I'm creating mass quantities of code with an open-source (planned MIT license) future, on Patreon, and of the 347 patrons I've got, ALL of them are from my existing connections who already use my software. I'm looking to do an experiment with Facebook ads where I literally link to my entire library as a free zip to download and say 'I'm paying Facebook to tell you that I made this for you'. Haven't done it yet, don't have high hopes for it. ALL your traction on Patreon comes organically from what you're already doing. In no way does it find you patrons: it's your shopping cart software. That does have one unusual consequence: since they aggregate patronage together and bill people in a lump sum, I've never seen anything more effective at enabling content that is routinely censored by credit card companies. Anyone who knows anyone who's tried to run an internet content business with NSFW material as part of the mix (I know a bunch of cartoonists) knows the dangers of getting banned by Visa and Mastercard (IIRC, particularly Visa won't touch you if you're dirty-minded). Patreon is a layer of abstraction that has enabled a startling opening up of opportunity for censored content, and that's shown in the NSFW side of Patreon. It's still not a 'free ticket to money' as you still have to generate your own attention, but obviously if you're good at NSFW content and distributing it free then the internet will beat a path to your door, and Patreon is accepted (in fact, the paywall model seems popular among NSFW creators with few objections to the idea. Premium content may not last long before being 'liberated' but I rarely see objection to the basic concept of a paywall around the freshest source of the creator's output). I've been keeping records of what constitutes the top 1% of all Patreon, because I was keeping records of where I stood (started out at top 10% almost immediately because I had ten years of existing relationships w. customers). About a year ago, the 1% mark sat at around $2350 a month, with total creators between 41,000 and 45,000. It's been dropping, and as Patreon approaches 78,000 creators the 1% mark is dropping below $1890. This is while key patreon accounts are hitting new records for monthly income. It's definitely the internet power-law thing in action: the number of participants doubles, but most people are doing worse: the distribution is NOT staying the same, it's getting more skewed towards the outliers. I'm guessing this is partly caused by a flood of people who think it's an internet lottery ticket and not a way to bill masses of existing customers… Summary: Patreon is probably even less prone to 'discovery of worthwhile projects' than Kickstarter, because the mode of engagement is different: rather than seek out 'discoveries' it's a method of inserting benevolent digital leeches onto people's credit cards, very much like DRM-based rental schemes but less coercive. Because it can be used in a 'strictly voluntary' way, the revenue you'll get seems to be a quarter to a tenth what you'd get on a 'direct sales' model, but the consistency of a massed small-donation model combined with billing people's credit cards gives you a steadiness of income that is a LOT more easy to live with than boom-and-bust product development (which I did for a decade, pre-Patreon). If you can budget for a growth month-over-month that's a little better than, say, the growth of index funds, and you've got created product with a decent number of people already aware of what you do, it's great. I have no regrets about going Patreon. I passed up an opportunity to do my whole 'for-pay' model over again to a market at least twice the size of my original (my whole decade of for-pay work was Mac only, and I relaunched targeting PC VST) but I'm glad I did. It let me double down on my positioning as a product maker, and completely avoid spending any time on being an internet cop. I just give everything away now, and the patronage gradually gets closer to minimum wage ;) For now, I am your audio DSP waitress, on roller-skates. I always figured that was what ten years of creative work was worth ;)
contingencies 9y ago
I think the hyperbolic title needs an injection of reality. My 2c. Patreon ... added it 1 year ago to a commercial-friendly (LGPL3) library, in finance of all areas, that I've ploughed hundreds of hours in to over 8 years ... 14,000+ downloads per month ... and nobody has ever given a cent.

400 points by panic 9y ago

I asked this before, but it wasn't really the place: 1. To those who donate to Patreons, how do you budget/think about/justify your donations? 2. Do you have a set budget? What if you really want to support someone suddenly, do you stop supporting someone else to do so, or reduce how much you give them? 3. When do you stop/reduce Patreon support? How long do you typically support someone? Until you feel they no longer need it?

falcolas 9y ago
1) Entertainment - just like cable, Netflix, movies, etc. 2) The amounts I donate are so small on a monthly basis - around $3 per artist - that adding a new artist isn't a pain point in my entertainment budget. 3) When I stop consuming the content. Usually after getting the monthly breakdown of my contributions in my email, I say "I'm not listening to/watching this anymore, so I'll go ahead and cancel it."
patmcguire 9y ago
1) Entertainment 2) Same budget as entertainment 3) I only do one, there's a weekly extra for subscribers so it's worth it
kilroy123 9y ago
I just donate $3 a month to three different artists. Not a big deal to me, that's a cup of coffee in a lot of parts.
avehn 9y ago
1. I feel that I get value from the artist/podcaster/writer and in our capitalist society value == money. 2. I have a budget that changes. But if I cannot afford to support someone new I will wait until I have more income or less expenses. 3. I support people until I feel I no longer get value from them or can no longer afford to support them. Money gets tight sometimes.
eduren 9y ago
1. There's currently only one creator I'm supporting, so its not that hard to justify for now. But considering that he puts out ~2 hours of quality video content per day, and I watch 90% of that, makes sense. 2. I like to compare it to my Netflix subscription. I'm pretty sure I watch this certain YT channel more than Netflix, so the $1 a month I give is a good deal IMO. 3. For most patrons, the goal is to enable the content to be created. My money goes towards the creator paying their bills (YT is their only job). Unless I stop caring about the content, or the creator finds an alternative revenue stream that lets them create full-time, I don't see myself cancelling.
- blhack 9y ago
  2 hours per day? Who is that? That is a tremendous amount of video!
  - eduren 9y ago
    Relatively small video game channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ManyATrueNerd https://www.youtube.com/user/ManyATrueNerd https://www.reddit.com/r/ManyATrueNerd/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ManyATrueNerd/ He puts out 2 videos a day, most averaging 45 min. Lots of good series plus frequent new game previews.
raesene9 9y ago
I judge my donations as paying for content I enjoy. I donate to several web comics and some youtube channels. I enjoy the content but dislike web ads, so patreon is great for me. I don't have a set budget but I don't tend to go for higher tiers. I support someone as long as I'm enjoying the content they're creating. So for webcomics, if they're still creating and I'm still reading, I'm happy to keep paying.
upvotinglurker 9y ago
1) I try to donate roughly $1 per hour of content I consume. For example, a podcaster I support creates several different podcast series on different topics; I am interested in two of the series each of which has about four 1-hour episodes per month; so I contribute $8 per month. The $1 figure is pretty arbitrary. A major-cable-network television episode purchased from iTunes/Amazon/Google costs $2-$3, so $1 seems fair for an amateur podcast? 2) The total amount so far has stayed small enough that I haven't needed to set a budget. If I needed to, I might ask myself questions like: whose content would I miss the most if they stopped making it? Which creators do I know to be trying (reasonably plausibly) to make a living from their creations, vs. those doing it as a hobby who would probably continue without Patreon contributions? 3) I have reduced or stopped contributions when I stop enjoying (and therefore stop consuming) a creator's content, or when the amount of enjoyable content they produce goes down. (I know the latter reason for reducing contributions can create a vicious circle, I don't have a good answer for it.) If the person is trying to make a living off their art, and they aren't a megastar, they will never really stop "needing" contributions from some minimal number of fans. Some creators I support don't easily fit into the above framework. For instance, for Every Frame a Painting I contribute $1 per video. His videos are rare (one every few months), far less than an hour long, make over $7000/video (so I don't feel like my personal contribution is particularly "needed"), and (so far as I can tell) are not a source of income he depends on. But I enjoy them so much that I often find myself watching them repeatedly and find I want to contribute.
Bedon292 9y ago
It is about the entertainment, perks, and access. So depending on the creator how I go about it. For one person the highest level of perk is $5, and they also have thousands of supporters, so I only do $5, but for another they have much fewer contributors, and I really enjoy what they do, so I donate more. Which gets me email / discord access directly to the creator at a higher level. I get to be a part of it, and I enjoy that. But if I stop listening to a podcast, and start a different one, I may switch my support to them, as a way of balancing the budget. I will stick with supporting someone as long as I derive value from it, and feel they still need it. I have a couple I am thinking about reducing, but will see how things go over the next couple months before I decide for sure.
Veratyr 9y ago
1. For me it's kinda subjective. Some creators I support just because I like their stuff and want more of it. I usually think about this in terms of the impact my contribution will have on the creator and how much I'll end up enjoying it. For example a guy who makes hours of video in his living room that I watch every month and love (personally, Lindybeige) is worth more to me than someone who makes super high production value stuff very infrequently (e.g. CGPGrey). Others I'll support for the rewards. I know Patreon is meant to be a "support people out of the goodness of your heart" kind of thing but a lot of creators I just want "stuff" from. Typically for me this is high resolution digital art or physical pieces of original art mailed to me. Sometimes it's a combination of both. 2. Nope. I just think about how much money I'm spending on Patreon when I do it. I mostly think of creators as individuals, not a big bucket of stuff and I consider my monthly expenses as a whole. If I think I'm spending too much I might cancel a Patreon contribution because I've lost interest in that creator or I might cancel a software subscription or something. 3. See point 1. When the value I place on the support/rewards goes down, the contribution goes down with it. This can be because a creator no longer interests me, a creator has so many contributions from others that I feel mine no longer have impact or because the rewards no longer satisfy me.
jccalhoun 9y ago
I don't make all that much so I only fund 4-5 creators (and one has stopped taking funds and another has had health issues so isn't producing anything)and I cap them at $1-2 dollars a month.
therealdrag0 9y ago
1. Anyone I subscribe to (consume content from regularly). 2. 1-5$. 1 guy has 10k patrons, so for him I just do 1$ per episode. "Philosophy Bites" has <300 patrons, so I give them more per episode. 3. When I stop consuming someone's content regularly. I have done this once or twice.

neaden 9y ago

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 personality? “No. I don’t think so,” Hollens says. “I don’t think the reclusive thing is going to happen anymore. That’s not the world we live in." While that works for plenty of artists I'm sure there are others that can't handle it. In addition it seems really exhausting.

falcolas 9y ago
> Lots of artists are essentially charging for interaction with them It's just marketing. Not all artists on Patreon provide this kind of interaction, and a number of artists on YouTube do. Peter Hollens' opinions are amplified because of his popularity, but his is not the only model of operation. And ultimately, if a personal interaction is what the audience wants, aren't those artists simply playing to those desires? If I'm paying for a ticket to a rock festival, I'd like to hear rock, not country.
brandnewlow 9y ago
Has it ever "worked"?
empath75 9y ago
> Is there a future for someone who wants to be a musician, but not a personality? There are tons of edm producers who don't cultivate much of a public personality, but even then, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes networking that goes on. Being a professional artist has always been about cultivating relationships with people who have money. Whether it's wealthy patrons, or people who own record labels or galleries, or event promoters, etc.
- godot 9y ago
  One might even argue that being a professional anything (at least, a successful one at it) is about cultivating relationships with people who either have money (investors), have network, or have power (to hire you, etc.). This applies even for software engineers. Even the greatest software engineers in the world won't get very far by just sending job applications on a job listing site.

fernly 9y ago

The article is well-done but speaks mostly from the artist's side. From the patron-side, I think an important factor in Patreon success is that it gives the donors the good feels for very little cost. I fund several web-comic artists whose work I enjoy at a trivial level, $0.25 per new comic for instance, or for some, the minimum $1/month. For a few $ a month, I get regular doses of warm fuzzies from knowing I am actually helping good artists continue to make art.

falcolas 9y ago
Agreed. Clickspring is my goto example. Stupidly high quality videos with full subtitles, good filming, and a well narrated explanation of a really niche activity. There just aren't a lot of detailed videos about clock building from end-to-end out there. And it's all effectively funded by Patreon. $3 a video is well worth it.

pillowkusis 9y ago

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 not beholden to advertizers. You’re not beholden to the whims of a few patrons (church or people). You only need the loyalty of people who value your work. Before Patreon, internet content creators (from the BBC to a little indie band) were in a dangerous place. Paygates couldn't sustain growth but ad-supported free media couldn't sustain revenue (now more than ever with ad-blockers). Now there is an answer. I am totally convinced Patreon (or the patreon model) is the future of content creation. Ethical, decentralized, economically viable flourishing of the arts. If anyone at Patreon reads this, I would love to come work for you, please contact me sparrowmaxx at google’s email service. :)

fhood 9y ago
One of the most important implications being that with services like this, creating content that a few people love is now as viable as creating content that many people like.
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
  Of course, this also means you likely have much less in common with the person next to you.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    Is that a problem? Legit question, because I'm not sure why you bring it up
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      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 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3341872

nilved 9y ago

A lot of creators I appreciate use Patreon, so I signed up to donate to them. They started sending me spam emails. It was like I was paying extra (giving Patreon a cut) for the privilege of getting annoying emails. Now I just donate directly to the creators, and I have a checklist that I go through every month. I think something like Patreon is a great idea, but having a centralized company handle it and take a cut is not the way to go about it.

jonathanjaeger 9y ago
Do you they not offer an unsubscribe option?
- nilved 9y ago
  They do, but I don't like supporting services that opt you in to spam automatically.
  - ARCarr 9y ago
    I don't see how getting an email about the person you're supporting is spam.
    - nilved 9y ago
      I'm not talking about those. I would view a Patreon creator's page and then get emails saying "are you sure you don't want to support xyz?"
- Ermenwyr 9y ago
  The default is to email you every time someone you support publishes anything on Patreon. You turn this off, but the annoying thing is that you need to turn it off separately for each person you support.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    > need to turn it off separately for each person you support This doesn't seem unreasonable, particularly since many offer early access to content, and these emails are the gateway to that content.

drewg123 9y ago

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 just not obvious?

Torai 9y ago
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.
- raesene9 9y ago
  Patreon works just fine per piece of content. I follow multiple artists who work on this model (e.g. https://www.patreon.com/scottbradlee https://www.patreon.com/scottbradlee, https://www.patreon.com/pomplamoose https://www.patreon.com/pomplamoose)
  - Torai 9y ago
    That's a subscription model, thus patronage. I mean donating to a piece of content you have just consumed or appreciate.
savanaly 9y ago
Sign up then immediately cancel? One month's payment should go through.
- WesleyLivesay 9y ago
  I just want to correct your comment unless anybody else sees this. By default this is not how Patreon works. For most creators you are not charged until the end of the month, so if you sign up on August 2nd you are not charged any money, and the money doesn't go to the creator, until September 1st. They do have a new setting for Patreon campaigns that lets the creators change this, but many have not.

mason240 9y ago

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

yedava 9y ago
There neither is any 'scandal' or 'censorship'. Patreon's decision was a textbook application of John Stuart Mill's "Harm Principle".
- wsrGoWkWeJ3i7w 9y ago
  hate speech is free speech
- almonj 9y ago
  They banned a middle of the road conservative blogger, it has nothing to do with preventing harm. They got pressured by hardcore pro-government pro-mass immigration groups and caved. Very shameful and terribly stupid business decision making.
  - paulgb 9y ago
    Which blogger are you referring to?
    - nostrebored 9y ago
      Lauren Southern. She was banned after throwing flares and attempting to block a ship (with no refugees on board) from leaving port to pick up refugees who she believes are being trafficked into Italy with the government's assistance. She was arrested for participation in this act of protest and then Patreon made the claim that her activities could have caused loss of life (which is ridiculous).
      - eropple 9y ago
        The alt-right is not "middle-of-the-road conservative". The alt-right is literal-not-figurative fascism with memes and, occasionally, good dress sense. If you consider white supremacists (oh, sorry, white nationalists (oh, sorry, ethno-nationalists)) to be "middle of the road conservatives," there is a profoundly deeper problem in your calculus.

vinceguidry 9y ago

If anybody at Patreon is reading this, here's some feedback. I spend maybe $20 a month on Patreon. The main thing keeping me from spending more is the interface makes artists appear more money-grubbing than they might want to. I don't want to scroll down someone's feed only to find half of the content is locked. This is a negative user experience and makes me want to click off the site and go do something else. Suggested fix is a checkbox or setting that allows me to hide content that I'm not at the right patron level to see.

technomalogical 9y ago
On the flip side, not knowing about that content means you might not increase your pledge to a level where you could access it.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  The main problem is that there's a lot of content that I like on Patreon, enough to give a small amount of money towards, but I don't like it enough to want to pay $40+ a month for it. And getting constantly beaten over the head with "why aren't you paying $40-60??" just leaves me cold. I know damn well why I'm not paying more, you don't have to remind me all the time.
pjc50 9y ago
I don't think they're ever likely to do that; the response to locked content that you want to see is to decide whether or not to pay for it. This is like complaining that Amazon shows you products you can't afford.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  It's cool, I just won't use the Patreon website as a way to explore new creators, nor will I patronize creators that heavily tier their content. This means pretty much all of their adult content. If they knew how much time and money I've spent on that kind of thing, they wouldn't take my complaints lightly.

model_m_warrior 9y ago

In my years on the internet I find the content works itself out, so I'm unsure why I'd pay anyone anything. Half the reason I like most of it is because it's free.

gizmo686 9y ago
Every I support on Patreon publishes there content for free. Some have token perks, like early access or occasional patron only content, but not enough to justify paying. It is a patronage model. Donors donate so the create has the resources to create.
jccalhoun 9y ago
I only pay a couple people $1 a month but I do it because I like what they make and want to support it at least a little.

raesene9 9y ago

Personally I like the patreon model, and think it works really well. Bundling together payments for different creators into one place is handy and I'm guessing helps reduce fees, so smaller payments work better. I only have to provide payment details to one site, so that's nice and easy too. I get to support creators who's work I enjoy without having to endure web ads, which I dislike. From the creators standpoint it seems to provide a nice even revenue stream. Whilst I don't know any personally, I'd guess it must be nice to have an idea of the base income you're going to get in a month, rather than relying on something more variable like advertising or ad-hoc tips.

__s 9y ago

I've got a pretty niche patreon where I post a stream of consciousness devlog for Luwa. Only 1 subscriber, but it keeps me motivated having an outlet & knowing _someone_ thinks it's worth 5 dollars a month for me to flail around hand writing WebAssembly after work

kareldonk 9y ago

There should be no middle men. Only a direct P2P model will truly benefit everyone.

Veratyr 9y ago
I disagree. There are shared services that Patreon provides that would be a pain for creators: - Payment processing: Patreon consolidates all payments under one gateway account so fees are low for everyone. - Support: What happens if the payment fails? Creators don't want to deal with that mess every month, it's less time to do useful stuff. - Abuse handling: Patreon can deal with spam comments and the like. - Service hosting: They integrate all this stuff in one place that creators don't have to host themselves. - Consolidated management for Patrons: As a subscriber it's nice to see all the stuff I'm supporting and how much I'm paying for it in one place.
- WesleyLivesay 9y ago
  I would also like to add Ease of Use to your list. I have had to help several of my Patrons with basic tech support issues, like setting up RSS feeds in their podcast app. And I doubt that they would be able/comfortable with working with a service that is not as easy and straight forward as Patreon.
zanny 9y ago
The only way to make it purely P2P is to make it non fiat based. And when you try to do that, you have suddenly alienated 99% of your potential audience of supporters.

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago

Patreon is starting to take off for open source, too, which is great. I set one up and it offsets a good deal of the infrastructure costs for my projects. Many FOSS Patreons have pretty low figures - please go looking for them and support your tools!

zanny 9y ago
Let us be honest though, github is bad enough that so many free software projects are using a proprietary web service for project organization. Having the primary source of proceeds to keep the project afloat also on a proprietary web service is really, really dangerous.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  It's a difficult problem for sure. I actually built an open source donation platform before I did a Patreon page [0]. Over the past 2 years, I've earned $1500 on it. I've always had an average of maybe $20-30/mo in recurring donations, plus anywhere from $0-$300/mo in one-offs (usually on the left of that scale). Until last month, I had been making $30/mo in recurring donations on the FOSS platform, and now I'm up to $50/mo. I started the Patreon page two months ago and it was pushing $100/mo within a week, and without any noticable disruption to my FOSS donations - it effectively increases my donation flow 3x-4x. Patreon is a platform people already trust with their CC# and people are already supporting other creators on. Reducing the barrier of entry can get you way more money, which makes a big difference. Patreon also makes it clear that your support is meant to be recurring, which has a big impact on the long term viability of the income stream. I still accept donations through the FOSS portal, and point people there first if they ask me directly how to donate. But it doesn't make sense to turn down Patreon, either. Aside: I'm working on an open source git platform too, I feel you wrt GitHub. [0] https://github.com/SirCmpwn/fosspay https://github.com/SirCmpwn/fosspay
  - WesleyLivesay 9y ago
    I can echo this, my Patreon isn't for software, but I get more per month on Patreon than I was getting per year through donations with basically the same level of marketing.

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago

barf. yuck. I found that article physically repulsive. Patreon, if you are listening, don't buy into all the power that the article wants to shower upon you. They want you to influence your exercise of that power, and they want you to use that power to do their bidding in limiting free debate of ideas. Patrons and the person that they support, that's it, that's all there is to it. The silver coin is being given by hands of patrons and taken by hands of one that is being supported, that silver coin shouldn't have opinions, emotions and desires. Stay neutral, that is the greatest challenge of our time, stay neutral. If a crime is being committed then co-operate fully with law enforcement, but don't give in to the pressures from lobbying groups with their own agenda. Don't get carried away into the corrupting power the platforms like youtube, facebook, twitter exercise on the discussion carried out on these platforms. They have absolute power, and you can see that once you use it, it's addictively corrupting. Stay neutral, it is going to be hard to do, I hope you find the power within you to do so. Good luck.

AlwaysBCoding 9y ago
They've already fucked it up. Here's an hour long interview with Patreon's CEO, Jack Conte, where he goes through some ridiculous mental gymnastics trying to justify why it's ok he is kicking conservative journalists off his platform. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofpbDgCj9rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofpbDgCj9rw
- xexers 9y ago
  Can you give me the TLDW;?
  - Neeek 9y ago
    Not having watched the whole thing, it sounds like this Lauren Southern (the journalist in question) was using funds from Patreon to help blockade a ship in the Mediterranean. They though the ship was leaving to collect migrants, apparently it was being used by doctors without borders for search and rescue operations. The CEO states in the first couple of minutes that they wouldn't be supporting that kind of activity and is apparently against their terms of service. This seems pretty obviously not about freedom of speech but about what illegal activities Patreon could be accused of supporting financially.* Does he go on later in the video to justify removing other accounts because of political beliefs? I haven't made it much further in. *EDIT: So after watching another video on the subject, the official statement has less to do with what Patreon doesn't want to be seen funding but more about a section of their content policy stating they will not allow action that might endanger the life of another person, i.e. blockading search and rescue vessels.

just2n 9y ago

I'm in favor of directly funding creators. I hate everything about ads. That said, I don't see any real value Patreon provides over other payment services, especially given their cost. I definitely don't want politically driven judgement calls made on my behalf as to whether or not that creator should even be allowed to have my money, when that person hasn't actually done anything illegal. It's my money, and no business has any business telling me who I can and can't give money to, or why, and to step into that position is to trivialize competition. It's a bad move on Patreon's part, and it's completely antithetical to the service they should be providing: making it easier to find content you like by creators you like and then fund it so there's more. They don't do the former, and the latter is more and more only for "Patreon approved" creators. What is it they do that makes them invaluable or irreplaceable, because I'm not seeing it. I've given thousands through Patreon but I've stopped using it for many reasons. I feel pretty justified in that decision just looking at their behavior, both lately and in the past. They've allowed pages to remain up for people who are provably doing nothing but harassing others (and advertising that behavior as the "activism" their Patreon page is funding), but taken others down just because they run a service which on principle refuses to police discussion but which isn't breaking any law because Patreon dislikes what people on that service say/do. Now they've removed someone because they disagree with something that person has done unrelated to their content creation being funded through Patreon (again, not even illegal behavior), and it looks entirely politically motivated. I don't support Lauren and never have, but this kind of moral grandstanding and virtue signaling from Patreon just isn't acceptable to me, and definitely not from what is a glorified payment processing web interface. Tim Pool as usual has a fairly solid take on it, and I mostly agree with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_yIp7eQO1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_yIp7eQO1c. This piece looks like a pretty desperate PR move.

quxbar 9y ago
I find it funny that the content creator you linked to still uses Patreon, despite them not providing any value over other payment services ;)

vijayr 9y ago

this article (no affiliation with the author, just happen to enjoy his work) is also worth a read https://gaps.com/patreon-earners/ https://gaps.com/patreon-earners/

mdpopescu 9y ago
That site is a goldmine, thank you for pointing it out.

phry 9y ago

Laura Southern literally advocates for the death of migrants, pardon me for not giving a fuck about her losing an income stream.

PKop 9y ago
And because many people agree with you, and many people don't, there is and will forever be a market for decentralization.
vetinari 9y ago
> Laura Southern literally advocates for the death of migrants, pardon me for not giving a fuck about her losing an income stream. That's huge misinterpretation. What they wouldn't do is to ferry the migrants from Libyan coast to Italy. They would return them back to Libya. That's not advocating the death of migrants. That's exactly what the coast guard of Italy should be doing!
- cholantesh 9y ago
  There just firing on the unarmed flotillas in self defense! They're Defending Europe, get it?
nostrebored 9y ago
Cite your sources, because you're objectively wrong. Stop saying that people literally advocate for death. This is something that has happened in the past, something that will probably happen in the future, and being a sensationalist about it just makes you an asshole.
- phry 9y ago
  oops it was laura loomer, apologies for mixing up my moronic racists. the line between the two is thin to the point of being non-existent regardless.
  - nostrebored 9y ago

jmcgough 9y ago

What I've found interesting is the number of smut games and comics creators that are thriving (sometimes making their creator 6 figures a year) because of patreon.

RangerScience 9y ago

There's a part of me that just wants to set up a Patreon, link to it from a few places with enough content to have a profile (Github, Medium; if I ever finish an article), and if it starts getting traffic, do more of that content. See what happens. (Unlikely to be anything without marketing, but, why not? Cost of the effort is low.)

Jerry2 9y ago

How long before Youtube bans private videos and destroys Pateron's business?

blhack 9y ago
I can't imagine that they would do that. At the very least if they did, they would gate it for a few $$/mo. Make it a feature for red users only or something.
CM30 9y ago
Probably not happening, since private and unlisted videos have plenty of non Patreon uses as well. For example, some people use unlisted videos in thei Ycombinator or startup accelerator applications. Or on pages on their own sites where the video merely compliments the content and is useless on its own. Removing that sort of thing seems illogical.
- VLM 9y ago
  Another example is you only need to be 13 to have a youtube account and the interesting privacy compromise at school is the kids upload their video presentation homework to youtube as private videos. Another example is prepping for launch day, upload and test everything then change private to public on the big day. I suspect google can't monetize private videos because it would bring an uncomfortable discussion about income inequality at youtube (much like patreon, almost all users make essentially no money, which is not going to help content provider recruitment if it becomes noticed in wider public eye)

bcheung 9y ago

It's funny, and a bit unfair, how they can get away with having adult content and not being labeled `high-risk`. Most adult credit card processing takes 10-15% before the business even sees anything, and they are only taking 5% total and providing a service. In many ways it's an anti-trust issue because competitor platforms geared specifically towards adult content can't get those same rates.

cdcox 9y ago

I do wonder how Google, Facebook and the ad sphere sees Patreon. A fair number of creators I've seen use Patreon to go ad free. It seems small but growing with strong network effects, and a clear path to profitability. In a lot of places on the internet it's almost a household name. It also is relatively platform agnostic and there is a lot of room for it to grow into. This seems like it might be a deep threat to the current power players of the internet and the current structure of the internet. On the other hand, you could have said the same thing about Kickstarter a few years ago, but then it hit its growth limits and became just another, still slowly growing but no longer earth changing, feature of the internet landscape.

gregjw 9y ago

Patreon's office caught fire yesterday! But everyone and everything is completely fine. https://twitter.com/jackconte/status/892888675570208769 https://twitter.com/jackconte/status/892888675570208769

Applejinx 9y ago

I'm https://www.patreon.com/airwindows https://www.patreon.com/airwindows and I'm writing audio DSP plugins in AU and VST form, for a living. Here are my observations over the past year of relative success on Patreon. I'm in the top 3.2% of all Patreon, sitewide. That amounts to only a little over $700 a month (I'm using it to replace a for-pay business model that wildly oscillated from $400 to $3000 a month). It's growing. I'm having to put out twice or three times the work, but I'm happier with a 'free/patronage' model because what was happening to me under the for-pay model was, I got locked into a 'hype cycle' versus other developers and companies. The sense I had was, my industry sector is dying. The way we treat customers is worsening, and it's a race to DRM-based, extremely invasive monthly software rental and a degree of dishonesty that didn't sit well with me. I feel that I bailed 'in time' to turn my ten years of reputation and experience into just-barely a subsistence using Patreon, and that if I hadn't done so, I would have been run out of business by competitors using every sort of deceptive and customer-abusing practice, and the epitaph would've been 'A shame, he was one of the good ones. Tough business'. As such I feel I have a real-world view of what Patreon actually is. It's a form of payment processor that can let you bill for basically 'goodwill': the strong point is, it lets you render your income more predictable, at the cost of not being able to exploit individual creations which might be more valuable. Never, NEVER get sucked into the 'just 0.1% of all living humans donating one cent a month will make you rich!' argument. If you have a hundred thousand known fans, MAYBE you can get a hundredth of them to give to you. You've got no control over what 'the crowd' will do. I don't know how many times I've revealed on HN that I'm creating mass quantities of code with an open-source (planned MIT license) future, on Patreon, and of the 347 patrons I've got, ALL of them are from my existing connections who already use my software. I'm looking to do an experiment with Facebook ads where I literally link to my entire library as a free zip to download and say 'I'm paying Facebook to tell you that I made this for you'. Haven't done it yet, don't have high hopes for it. ALL your traction on Patreon comes organically from what you're already doing. In no way does it find you patrons: it's your shopping cart software. That does have one unusual consequence: since they aggregate patronage together and bill people in a lump sum, I've never seen anything more effective at enabling content that is routinely censored by credit card companies. Anyone who knows anyone who's tried to run an internet content business with NSFW material as part of the mix (I know a bunch of cartoonists) knows the dangers of getting banned by Visa and Mastercard (IIRC, particularly Visa won't touch you if you're dirty-minded). Patreon is a layer of abstraction that has enabled a startling opening up of opportunity for censored content, and that's shown in the NSFW side of Patreon. It's still not a 'free ticket to money' as you still have to generate your own attention, but obviously if you're good at NSFW content and distributing it free then the internet will beat a path to your door, and Patreon is accepted (in fact, the paywall model seems popular among NSFW creators with few objections to the idea. Premium content may not last long before being 'liberated' but I rarely see objection to the basic concept of a paywall around the freshest source of the creator's output). I've been keeping records of what constitutes the top 1% of all Patreon, because I was keeping records of where I stood (started out at top 10% almost immediately because I had ten years of existing relationships w. customers). About a year ago, the 1% mark sat at around $2350 a month, with total creators between 41,000 and 45,000. It's been dropping, and as Patreon approaches 78,000 creators the 1% mark is dropping below $1890. This is while key patreon accounts are hitting new records for monthly income. It's definitely the internet power-law thing in action: the number of participants doubles, but most people are doing worse: the distribution is NOT staying the same, it's getting more skewed towards the outliers. I'm guessing this is partly caused by a flood of people who think it's an internet lottery ticket and not a way to bill masses of existing customers… Summary: Patreon is probably even less prone to 'discovery of worthwhile projects' than Kickstarter, because the mode of engagement is different: rather than seek out 'discoveries' it's a method of inserting benevolent digital leeches onto people's credit cards, very much like DRM-based rental schemes but less coercive. Because it can be used in a 'strictly voluntary' way, the revenue you'll get seems to be a quarter to a tenth what you'd get on a 'direct sales' model, but the consistency of a massed small-donation model combined with billing people's credit cards gives you a steadiness of income that is a LOT more easy to live with than boom-and-bust product development (which I did for a decade, pre-Patreon). If you can budget for a growth month-over-month that's a little better than, say, the growth of index funds, and you've got created product with a decent number of people already aware of what you do, it's great. I have no regrets about going Patreon. I passed up an opportunity to do my whole 'for-pay' model over again to a market at least twice the size of my original (my whole decade of for-pay work was Mac only, and I relaunched targeting PC VST) but I'm glad I did. It let me double down on my positioning as a product maker, and completely avoid spending any time on being an internet cop. I just give everything away now, and the patronage gradually gets closer to minimum wage ;) For now, I am your audio DSP waitress, on roller-skates. I always figured that was what ten years of creative work was worth ;)

contingencies 9y ago

I think the hyperbolic title needs an injection of reality. My 2c. Patreon ... added it 1 year ago to a commercial-friendly (LGPL3) library, in finance of all areas, that I've ploughed hundreds of hours in to over 8 years ... 14,000+ downloads per month ... and nobody has ever given a cent.