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"It then displays it in the Brave Payments list, enabling the user to donate back on a monthly" ... So this will block ads on Youtube, and the creators will be

"It then displays it in the Brave Payments list, enabling the user to donate back on a monthly" ... So this will block ads on Youtube, and the creators will be compensated on donations? Does someone have a case-study on content/Youtube creators potentially making a living of donations? This seems like a bad business model: make creative videos and expect people to donate so you can feed yourself.

Raphmedia 9y ago
> Does someone have a case-study on content/Youtube creators potentially making a living of donations? https://www.patreon.com/Kurzgesagt https://www.patreon.com/Kurzgesagt - 9,890 patrons - $36,214 per months in donations. https://www.patreon.com/cgpgrey https://www.patreon.com/cgpgrey - 7,719 patrons - $19,439 per video in donations. Edit: And there's https://www.patreon.com/DeFranco https://www.patreon.com/DeFranco at 14,268 patrons. His revenue is hidden but that's at least around 60k/month if not more.
- guiomie 9y ago
  Patreon is really cool. Thanks for sharing.
- bpicolo 9y ago
  These are (currently) just the really exceptional cases though. Youtube is building far more monetary value on the whole through ads.
  - jerf 9y ago
    Here's a more complete view: https://graphtreon.com/ https://graphtreon.com/ Median income in the US is ~$42,000/yr last I knew. Call it $4K to make up a bit for benefits and such. There isn't a hard-and-fast way to count because some people hide their total, but there are clearly plural hundreds of people above that line in the top 1000 [1]. There's several more hundred people making poverty-line in most of the US (which as a relative measure, I can't do a precise cut off), and before one starts moralizing about how horrible that is, remember that they are not necessarily doing this as their only job. What may not be enough to live on can still be a very very nicely paying hobby. You are certainly correct that overall, more money flows through YouTube. I am much less convinced that that's a good thing in general, though. The incentives on YouTube fluctuate a lot, but in general tend to support quantity over quality. In fact as I think about it, I wonder if Patreon is helping prop up YouTube a bit by helping the quality producers resist that; if YouTube banned alternate monetization and tried to survive just on their own quantity-over-quality metrics I wouldn't be surprised they would eventually experience an eat-your-own-seed-corn collapse. I've listened to the YouTube videos of a couple of the people chasing the quantity-over-quality treadmill that YouTube ends up putting them on to stay on top, and it's not a life I'd want or wish on anyone. [1]: https://graphtreon.com/patreon-creators https://graphtreon.com/patreon-creators
    - bpicolo 9y ago
      Many of them are businesses >> 1 person, and they're not all video. There's no doubt some successful video creators on patreon, but it's still a pretty small number. Plenty of the video-based ones are in erotic media, too. It's definitely a new and interesting income medium for that genre.
- learc83 9y ago
  AvE has just shy of 12k patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AvE https://www.patreon.com/AvE He doesn't list a dollar amount but my guess is that it's at least $20k a month.
- bluetwo 9y ago
  All these people seem to make YouTube videos, so it looks like they are just cutting out the middleman (Patreon).
pault 9y ago
Jordan Peterson was making $60,000/mo (before he hid the donation totals) on Patreon [0]. Obviously it's a steep curve at the top but the big youtubers make good money with that model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Peterson#Other_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Peterson#Other_projects
garrettjoecox 9y ago
Have you seen the industry of livestreaming? That's basically it. I'm not saying it's a good business model but people are making a ridiculous amount of money from it.
sp332 9y ago
This is not super wide-spread but it's more popular than you think. In addition to a bunch of Patreon-backed people, there's the Erfworld webcomic getting almost $2k per full-page update https://login.erfworld.com/toolshed https://login.erfworld.com/toolshed and Sluggy Freelance with 442 subscribers https://login.sluggy.com/defenders https://login.sluggy.com/defenders
013a 9y ago
Creator produces content. I pay creator for content. Did you just suggest that the most traditional, direct business model ever created, value for value, is a "bad" one? There are really only a couple problems: consumers have become accustomed to freeloading, and that there's no system in place to enable micropayments for content. Once we figure out a way to enable paying, let's say, $0.01 to watch a video or read a news article, the web will fundamentally change in a positive way.
- harryh 9y ago
  Someone needs to re-read the penny gap. People HATE being nickel and dimed. Exactly zero people want to have to think to themselves "is this news article worth 5 cents?" every time they load a web page.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    Right, which is why patreon works, and 10c per pageview doesn't.
  - haltingthoughts 9y ago
    But do they hate it less than ads? If you pay for mobile service per GB then you already have this problem.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  "Value for value" is fine; but the value of watching a video or reading an article is usually about zero to me, something I could easily do without, something that might even carry a negative value since it takes up my time. In fact, since it usually benefits the maker to have more viewers, maybe they should try paying me to watch. "Consumers" (a problematic term) need a refrigerator to keep food cold, figuratively speaking. They don't need "content." If money is what people care about, they should get into the refrigerator business. (In China, since that's where it is now.) The web isn't a money machine. If everybody who wanted to get paid for it, got the hell off it or was starved off it, that also would lead to the positive fundamental change of which you speak. Just sayin'.
- 9y ago
natural219 9y ago
These business models (Patreon, Twitch subscriptions) have been robustly tested over the last 5 - 10 years, and many people make a living off of it. Are you unaware about these sites and how much money they make? The top Twitch streamers have around 15k subscribers, each at $5 / month, about half of which goes directly to the creator. Do the math and consider switching your career, haha.

Raphmedia 9y ago

> Does someone have a case-study on content/Youtube creators potentially making a living of donations? https://www.patreon.com/Kurzgesagt https://www.patreon.com/Kurzgesagt - 9,890 patrons - $36,214 per months in donations. https://www.patreon.com/cgpgrey https://www.patreon.com/cgpgrey - 7,719 patrons - $19,439 per video in donations. Edit: And there's https://www.patreon.com/DeFranco https://www.patreon.com/DeFranco at 14,268 patrons. His revenue is hidden but that's at least around 60k/month if not more.

guiomie 9y ago
Patreon is really cool. Thanks for sharing.
bpicolo 9y ago
These are (currently) just the really exceptional cases though. Youtube is building far more monetary value on the whole through ads.
- jerf 9y ago
  Here's a more complete view: https://graphtreon.com/ https://graphtreon.com/ Median income in the US is ~$42,000/yr last I knew. Call it $4K to make up a bit for benefits and such. There isn't a hard-and-fast way to count because some people hide their total, but there are clearly plural hundreds of people above that line in the top 1000 [1]. There's several more hundred people making poverty-line in most of the US (which as a relative measure, I can't do a precise cut off), and before one starts moralizing about how horrible that is, remember that they are not necessarily doing this as their only job. What may not be enough to live on can still be a very very nicely paying hobby. You are certainly correct that overall, more money flows through YouTube. I am much less convinced that that's a good thing in general, though. The incentives on YouTube fluctuate a lot, but in general tend to support quantity over quality. In fact as I think about it, I wonder if Patreon is helping prop up YouTube a bit by helping the quality producers resist that; if YouTube banned alternate monetization and tried to survive just on their own quantity-over-quality metrics I wouldn't be surprised they would eventually experience an eat-your-own-seed-corn collapse. I've listened to the YouTube videos of a couple of the people chasing the quantity-over-quality treadmill that YouTube ends up putting them on to stay on top, and it's not a life I'd want or wish on anyone. [1]: https://graphtreon.com/patreon-creators https://graphtreon.com/patreon-creators
  - bpicolo 9y ago
    Many of them are businesses >> 1 person, and they're not all video. There's no doubt some successful video creators on patreon, but it's still a pretty small number. Plenty of the video-based ones are in erotic media, too. It's definitely a new and interesting income medium for that genre.
learc83 9y ago
AvE has just shy of 12k patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AvE https://www.patreon.com/AvE He doesn't list a dollar amount but my guess is that it's at least $20k a month.
bluetwo 9y ago
All these people seem to make YouTube videos, so it looks like they are just cutting out the middleman (Patreon).

pault 9y ago

Jordan Peterson was making $60,000/mo (before he hid the donation totals) on Patreon [0]. Obviously it's a steep curve at the top but the big youtubers make good money with that model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Peterson#Other_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Peterson#Other_projects

garrettjoecox 9y ago

Have you seen the industry of livestreaming? That's basically it. I'm not saying it's a good business model but people are making a ridiculous amount of money from it.

sp332 9y ago

This is not super wide-spread but it's more popular than you think. In addition to a bunch of Patreon-backed people, there's the Erfworld webcomic getting almost $2k per full-page update https://login.erfworld.com/toolshed https://login.erfworld.com/toolshed and Sluggy Freelance with 442 subscribers https://login.sluggy.com/defenders https://login.sluggy.com/defenders

013a 9y ago

Creator produces content. I pay creator for content. Did you just suggest that the most traditional, direct business model ever created, value for value, is a "bad" one? There are really only a couple problems: consumers have become accustomed to freeloading, and that there's no system in place to enable micropayments for content. Once we figure out a way to enable paying, let's say, $0.01 to watch a video or read a news article, the web will fundamentally change in a positive way.

harryh 9y ago
Someone needs to re-read the penny gap. People HATE being nickel and dimed. Exactly zero people want to have to think to themselves "is this news article worth 5 cents?" every time they load a web page.
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  Right, which is why patreon works, and 10c per pageview doesn't.
- haltingthoughts 9y ago
  But do they hate it less than ads? If you pay for mobile service per GB then you already have this problem.
rdiddly 9y ago
"Value for value" is fine; but the value of watching a video or reading an article is usually about zero to me, something I could easily do without, something that might even carry a negative value since it takes up my time. In fact, since it usually benefits the maker to have more viewers, maybe they should try paying me to watch. "Consumers" (a problematic term) need a refrigerator to keep food cold, figuratively speaking. They don't need "content." If money is what people care about, they should get into the refrigerator business. (In China, since that's where it is now.) The web isn't a money machine. If everybody who wanted to get paid for it, got the hell off it or was starved off it, that also would lead to the positive fundamental change of which you speak. Just sayin'.
9y ago

natural219 9y ago

These business models (Patreon, Twitch subscriptions) have been robustly tested over the last 5 - 10 years, and many people make a living off of it. Are you unaware about these sites and how much money they make? The top Twitch streamers have around 15k subscribers, each at $5 / month, about half of which goes directly to the creator. Do the math and consider switching your career, haha.