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What is the network effect of Patreon? Whatever it is, I don’t consider it to be very strong. Many creators are discovered through their own channels first befo
by erlend_sh 9y ago
What is the network effect of Patreon? Whatever it is, I don’t consider it to be very strong. Many creators are discovered through their own channels first before their fans learn about their Patreon.
OpenCollective made its way into the recurring payments market with relative ease. “All” they needed to do was cater to an underserved niche (open source) that could be serviced better on its own stand-alone platform as opposed to being one of many categories on Patreon.
Something very similar is happening with Kickstarter. See Fig as an example of a specialized crowdfunding platform that’s carving its own niche by catering specifically to games.
https://www.polygon.com/2017/8/10/16125828/fig-first-profitable-game-equity-investment-kingdoms-and-castles https://www.polygon.com/2017/8/10/16125828/fig-first-profita...
- aargh_aargh 9y agoConsider the perspective of the "patreon" (funder). You choose maybe 5 creators you want to watch and fund. With Patreon you have a convenient place to do that - you're spoonfed new content and you enter your payment info to a single trusted third party, not each individual creator. I also assume there are great options for discovering new related content and creators. Disclaimer: I never used Patreon, I only assume that's how it works.
- detaro 9y agoIt has some network effect in that for users already on Patreon, starting to give money to another creator is a lot more low-effort compared to signing up on yet another site or handing yet another party payment details. Depending on how big the motivation is to give money to someone, that can be significant.