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> Facebook only turned into such a hostile entity because it got big enough to exert real political influence. This evaluation is very shallow. Facebook has be

> Facebook only turned into such a hostile entity because it got big enough to exert real political influence. This evaluation is very shallow. Facebook has been a manipulative and unethical corporation for years, maybe forever. It's true that lots of companies start out fine and then start abusing their power once they get big. But Facebook is that and is unethical in other ways also. By design, Facebook is about collecting deep personal info, capturing attention and then selling your attention to the highest bidder. The very design of Patreon is in opposition to this. Even if Patreon were the most unethical abuser of their power, they would then be the worst in the basically ethical market of funding creative work directly. And Patreon isn't abusing their power dramatically right now and may never get there. Facebook is already being the worst in a fundamentally unethical market based on getting attention and selling it to advertisers. Your points about corporations and ethics are broadly true. But that doesn't mean that there aren't better and worse. We should be skeptical of all for-profit entities, especially VC-backed and stock-based ones. But they aren't all equal. Some are worse than others and some are by-design worse. It's basically impossible for Patreon to turn into something as horrendous as Facebook. Patreon could get pretty bad and that would still be true.

zanny 9y ago
Patreon has been pushing features to publish content on their platform. They already have correlated user data not only between what people like, but what they are willing to pay for, and have mounds of comments and pledge data about all that behavior. Patreon isn't about collecting personal info, but people are giving them personal info by the boatload and Patreon remains a private corporation at the end of the day. If they get big enough they will be presented with an opportunity to exert Facebook class influence, especially if (this is my fear) content creators start using patreon as their only platform, where they don't release their creative endeavors on other sites and services, the same way a lot of people only interact with others online via Facebook. The difference is good content creators are making legitimately valuable information unlike what the vast majority of Facebook is. The crowding out effects of Facebook just limit access to insular echo chambers. The crowding out effects of Patreon, taken to the scale of Facebook, crowd out the market for artists, musicians, animators, game developers, software creators, almost any creative profession that gets so centralized on Patreon that operating in that industry de facto requires using Patreon. We are not nearly there yet, but given Patreons growth curve (and with knowledge of the growth rates of other abusive centralized services like Facebook) it is not something to just ignore the potential of. There is always the possibility Patreon can be using its data already for nefarious purposes. We have no idea, the data is private, and if they are violating their own data collection TOS thats only a problem if users find out about it. Bulk collection by dozens of web properties has been going on for decades without consequences despite bogus terms of service and data privacy agreements, the fundamental problem with all those services is how little people care or are aware of the dangers of giving information freely.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  Patreon will never be as large as Facebook. Your concerns about Patreon acting against the public good are VALID as are your concerns about them becoming a monopoly (although they are not that right now). Get this straight: I'm not AT ALL defending Patreon. But to compare them to Facebook is to fail to realize how deeply horrible Facebook is. I'm not saying Patreon is better than you say they are. I'm saying Facebook is far WORSE than you suggest.

zanny 9y ago

Patreon has been pushing features to publish content on their platform. They already have correlated user data not only between what people like, but what they are willing to pay for, and have mounds of comments and pledge data about all that behavior. Patreon isn't about collecting personal info, but people are giving them personal info by the boatload and Patreon remains a private corporation at the end of the day. If they get big enough they will be presented with an opportunity to exert Facebook class influence, especially if (this is my fear) content creators start using patreon as their only platform, where they don't release their creative endeavors on other sites and services, the same way a lot of people only interact with others online via Facebook. The difference is good content creators are making legitimately valuable information unlike what the vast majority of Facebook is. The crowding out effects of Facebook just limit access to insular echo chambers. The crowding out effects of Patreon, taken to the scale of Facebook, crowd out the market for artists, musicians, animators, game developers, software creators, almost any creative profession that gets so centralized on Patreon that operating in that industry de facto requires using Patreon. We are not nearly there yet, but given Patreons growth curve (and with knowledge of the growth rates of other abusive centralized services like Facebook) it is not something to just ignore the potential of. There is always the possibility Patreon can be using its data already for nefarious purposes. We have no idea, the data is private, and if they are violating their own data collection TOS thats only a problem if users find out about it. Bulk collection by dozens of web properties has been going on for decades without consequences despite bogus terms of service and data privacy agreements, the fundamental problem with all those services is how little people care or are aware of the dangers of giving information freely.

quadrangle 9y ago
Patreon will never be as large as Facebook. Your concerns about Patreon acting against the public good are VALID as are your concerns about them becoming a monopoly (although they are not that right now). Get this straight: I'm not AT ALL defending Patreon. But to compare them to Facebook is to fail to realize how deeply horrible Facebook is. I'm not saying Patreon is better than you say they are. I'm saying Facebook is far WORSE than you suggest.