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Network effect. I already have a Patreon account hooked up with my payment info. I subscribe to 10-12 different people I like. Adding one more is trivial. Signi

by chime 8y ago

Network effect. I already have a Patreon account hooked up with my payment info. I subscribe to 10-12 different people I like. Adding one more is trivial. Signing up for a whole new service with payment info for a single content creator is a lot of commitment.

m11a 8y ago
What about if you use PayPal or something, and it isn't a website? You're linked to say, www.chime.com/subscribe, which sets up a payment on PayPal via the API and redirects the user to authorise under the hood. You login with your PayPal account (same as entering Patreon credentials on Patreon), confirm, and you're redirected to a simple thanks page. You can then manage your subscription via PayPal, as you can with all others, and it's one less interface, even. Instead of managing Patreon vs. non-Patreon, you're managing everything from PayPal. Additionally, it's likely that anyone using Pateron also has a PayPal account. Such a software is, of course, trivial to make, and could be open-sourced. Here, you keep 100% of income (- tax etc.)
- macappthrowaway 8y ago
  Any time I read about a developer saying that a service would be "trivial to make", to save the poor user that last 5% in fees, I think of DropBox.
- adjkant 8y ago
  Let's say that 80% of your paetrons would have also signed up with the home rolled method but 20% would not (which would be insane numbers, I'd bet it's close to 50/50 out of sheer convenience factor). Assuming an equal donation from all, you're already losing more than the fees. I'm not a fan of Patreons recent moves but I think that a platform that enables easy and convenient ways to support art, development, and generally small projects more than deserves a small but fair piece of the pie. Maybe that platform is another company in 10 years but right now it's Patreon. This is an example of a company that would be amazing if it was nonprofit and adjusted its fees to simply pay for hosting, a well paid but manageable staff size, and a bit of comfort for if business goes south.

by chime 8y ago

m11a 8y ago

What about if you use PayPal or something, and it isn't a website? You're linked to say, www.chime.com/subscribe, which sets up a payment on PayPal via the API and redirects the user to authorise under the hood. You login with your PayPal account (same as entering Patreon credentials on Patreon), confirm, and you're redirected to a simple thanks page. You can then manage your subscription via PayPal, as you can with all others, and it's one less interface, even. Instead of managing Patreon vs. non-Patreon, you're managing everything from PayPal. Additionally, it's likely that anyone using Pateron also has a PayPal account. Such a software is, of course, trivial to make, and could be open-sourced. Here, you keep 100% of income (- tax etc.)

macappthrowaway 8y ago
Any time I read about a developer saying that a service would be "trivial to make", to save the poor user that last 5% in fees, I think of DropBox.
adjkant 8y ago
Let's say that 80% of your paetrons would have also signed up with the home rolled method but 20% would not (which would be insane numbers, I'd bet it's close to 50/50 out of sheer convenience factor). Assuming an equal donation from all, you're already losing more than the fees. I'm not a fan of Patreons recent moves but I think that a platform that enables easy and convenient ways to support art, development, and generally small projects more than deserves a small but fair piece of the pie. Maybe that platform is another company in 10 years but right now it's Patreon. This is an example of a company that would be amazing if it was nonprofit and adjusted its fees to simply pay for hosting, a well paid but manageable staff size, and a bit of comfort for if business goes south.