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"I use Patreon on a lot, and I don't have any expectation that they are doing it for free." That's not really the criticism you're responding to though. It's n

"I use Patreon on a lot, and I don't have any expectation that they are doing it for free." That's not really the criticism you're responding to though. It's not "People will be upset Patreon makes money", it is "people will be upset that Patreon will have to take SO MUCH MONEY from people giving it to others to justify their valuation."

dmix 9y ago
I would only be concerned if Patreon didn't have a business model. But they clearly do. I'm seeing Patreon everywhere and I've seen plenty of people making $50k/month... they have a far better opportunity to generate revenue than the majority of tech startups. All they have to do is maintain growth. They don't have to make any weird sacrifices for revenue like a lot of social startups that raised billions under the pretext of making money later.
jerf 9y ago
Well, again, I think people get confused between the idea of "rapacious" profits and just profits in general. Contra the general attitude, profits aren't bad; profits are where the strength comes from. Your favorite Mom & Pop coffee shops go under not just because the big bad corporations come in and steal all their customers, but because their model didn't have enough profit built into it to sustain any headwinds. (Though in their defense, there isn't a lot of evidence that such a model exists. But that doesn't mean they still don't suffer the consequences of lack of profitability.) I think this space is going to be sufficiently competitive over the next few years that I don't expect Patreon to be able to just run away with people's money without consequences. In fact I'm racking my brain here to come up with what Patreon would want to do as a moat and I'm not coming up with anything. (Anything sensible, anyhow. The frequent suggestion that they could do their own YouTube would build a moat, alright, but the evidence is that it would build a moat around a cash flow model in which you guarantee that you'll never make any money, and, well, those don't really need moats very much....)

dmix 9y ago

I would only be concerned if Patreon didn't have a business model. But they clearly do. I'm seeing Patreon everywhere and I've seen plenty of people making $50k/month... they have a far better opportunity to generate revenue than the majority of tech startups. All they have to do is maintain growth. They don't have to make any weird sacrifices for revenue like a lot of social startups that raised billions under the pretext of making money later.

jerf 9y ago

Well, again, I think people get confused between the idea of "rapacious" profits and just profits in general. Contra the general attitude, profits aren't bad; profits are where the strength comes from. Your favorite Mom & Pop coffee shops go under not just because the big bad corporations come in and steal all their customers, but because their model didn't have enough profit built into it to sustain any headwinds. (Though in their defense, there isn't a lot of evidence that such a model exists. But that doesn't mean they still don't suffer the consequences of lack of profitability.) I think this space is going to be sufficiently competitive over the next few years that I don't expect Patreon to be able to just run away with people's money without consequences. In fact I'm racking my brain here to come up with what Patreon would want to do as a moat and I'm not coming up with anything. (Anything sensible, anyhow. The frequent suggestion that they could do their own YouTube would build a moat, alright, but the evidence is that it would build a moat around a cash flow model in which you guarantee that you'll never make any money, and, well, those don't really need moats very much....)