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

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.