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I agree the model is the future, but a for profit American company running a proprietary web service cannot be the final solution. On one hand, patronage perfe
by zanny 9y ago
I agree the model is the future, but a for profit American company running a proprietary web service cannot be the final solution.
On one hand, patronage perfectly replaces all the draconian reasons modern IP exists as it does. Paying people to make the stuff you want them to make versus having them paid by someone looking to profit off government enforced scarcity on the produced work is much, much better for everyone involved (except the middle men).
On the other, unless Patreon itself goes non-profit / public benefit like Kickstarter / decentralizes their platform it would be insane to let a private company dictate who gets to use the platform and who gets their supporters money, on top of the cut Patreon is taking - for some parties, the 5% Patreon fee only exists to get the lowered resistance to using the platform. Users who already have Patreon accounts set up are extremely more likely to support you there than on alternatives, and they then have mindshare. But that is all you are paying for if you don't also use Patreon as a content host - the mindshare effect. All the major tech companies now, all the investors, so much effort goes into creating a captive audience / market / userbase to extort. Patreon is no exception.
But the stakes are much, much higher with Patreon than with the mindshare factor around Facebook et al. For the same reasons I'd argue the stakes are higher with github. Livelihoods depend on these platforms. Entire business models are being built for individuals to live their lives with work involving what these services provide. And unlike Facebook, their whole point is this model, where people do their jobs on web services - either as payment providers or infrastructure. The same applies to etsy and ebay, pretty much. I'm extraordinarily against how proprietary and controlling the companies behind these ecosystems behave, because they dictate what is a viable business and what is not.
- makomk 9y agoProbably also why they still haven't fixed their handling of security reports since they left everyone's personal information on a system with a web-accessible root Python shell for over a week after being warned about said hole, and it inevitably got hacked and leaked all over the Internet. (A researcher was complaining about not being able to report a serious issue a couple of days ago.) As long as everything's centralised on Patreon and there are no meaningful alternatives there's no reason for them to care. After all, what are people going to do? For ordinary people, Patreon is where all the artists and content are; for artists it's where all the poeple funding them are.
- seanie_patreon 9y agoHi, I'm a security engineer at Patreon. Like most companies we take security reports from folks via security@patreon.com and support@patreon.com. The dedicated security email is the quickest route to the security team. We also have an invite only HackerOne program where we've invited the top reporters on HackerOne. When folks send us a valid report via email we also add them to our HackerOne program for reward (we've paid out >$17,000 to security researchers to date). As with any developing bug bounty program we're still improving it and we plan to open up our HackerOne program soon.
- makomk 9y agoWhile that's good to know, it's not me you should be telling this to now, it's this guy a few days ago: https://twitter.com/DMDeck16/status/889156464891371520 https://twitter.com/DMDeck16/status/889156464891371520 https://twitter.com/DMDeck16/status/890188665389010945 https://twitter.com/DMDeck16/status/890188665389010945
- Aeolun 9y agoI dunno, it took me all of 20 seconds to go to their FAQ page and find the reporting email address for security issues (https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003872306-Security-Research-Reporting-Security-Vulnerabilities- https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003872306-S...). If this guy has been screaming into the void on Twitter waiting for an email address, then the problem is probably that he's using twitter.
- rtpg 9y ago>it would be insane to let a private company dictate who gets to use the platform It would be absurdly easy for anyone who has problems with Patreon to set up an alternative place. Though you still have to deal with payment processors. Patreon is less a platform, and more just a hosting service. Saying someone banned from Patreon is shut off from this sort of service might be a bit of a stretch IMO.
- zanny 9y agoThis is dismissing its mindshare model. People recognize patreon. Once they use it once, the friction to support more artists is minimal. This means if you are someone who wants patrons for your work, you have to use Patreon. Not because of technical merit, but because that is where people are. It isn't that bad yet. It hasn't taken off massively and conquered the universe like Facebook. But it is currently on track to. The only saving grace is that the usual onboarding is content discovery -> patreon rather than patreon -> content, but if they ever become a content platform and creators stop releasing their work anywhere but on patreon it spells the death of competition.