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Huh. I didn't know Patreon published info on what creators are earning. Wouldn't that be a design flaw? What's the benefit to anybody? It seems to only deter po

by jolmg 8y ago

Huh. I didn't know Patreon published info on what creators are earning. Wouldn't that be a design flaw? What's the benefit to anybody? It seems to only deter potential sponsors.

vidyesh 8y ago
I don't think Patreon does. As you can see you cannot see that information for every creator. Publishers/creators can choose to show or hide the number of subscribers and their monthly earnings. This site simply is scraping that freely available information.
- ThePadawan 8y ago
  Note that this wasn't the case in the beginning. It was only at some point that Patreon gave creators that choice - and I believe the default was to hide the earnings (but no the number of patrons).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
IloveHN84 8y ago
Design flaw? No, I think it's called "transparency"
- jolmg 8y ago
  "Transparency" is a pretty word, and I like transparency in a lot of things, but not in everything, and I don't think it's good here. I've given my reasons in another comment close to this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18468332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18468332
- Uberphallus 8y ago
  The good old battle between privacy and transparency! Nothing better to start a heated conversation: Finland publishes all personal taxes https://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2011/11/finland-publishes-all-personal-tax.html https://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2011/11/finland-publishes-al...
anoncake 8y ago
So people can avoid sponsoring creators that already have a fair income level.
- auggierose 8y ago
  "Fair" is relative.
  - anoncake 8y ago
    What do you mean?
  - john_moscow 8y ago
    It is and for most of the world the bar is around $3K/month.
- jolmg 8y ago
  Like john_moscow has pointed out, though, that deters people from becoming Patreon creators. It's very normal for people to underestimate the difficulty of what others do or the real worth of their work. Besides that, supporting someone economically in a capitalist environment is giving them your vote for them to continue doing what they're doing. Not voting for them, when you otherwise would, solely because you can see they have some quantity of votes already, disrupts that. I would like this type of economy to flourish, as it seems like a very viable way to get good economic support for open-source. However, if this is a common occurrence, it seems developers will continue to be better off working on closed-source.
  - anoncake 8y ago
    What deters people from becoming Patreon creators is not being supported. I certainly would never voluntarily support someone if I for all I know they could already be grossly overpaid for what they do. If supporting someone with X€ is any kind of "vote", it's a vote that they should get X€ more than they currently get for their work. It may be hard to make an educated decision about that, but it's impossible without knowing a creator's current income level to begin with.
jobigoud 8y ago
The way Patreon works is that you can set "achievements" levels and people coming on the page can see how far you are from the next goal. You have to publish the earnings for that feature. It entice people to contribute towards the goal so it's not a design flaw.

by jolmg 8y ago

Huh. I didn't know Patreon published info on what creators are earning. Wouldn't that be a design flaw? What's the benefit to anybody? It seems to only deter potential sponsors.

vidyesh 8y ago

I don't think Patreon does. As you can see you cannot see that information for every creator. Publishers/creators can choose to show or hide the number of subscribers and their monthly earnings. This site simply is scraping that freely available information.

ThePadawan 8y ago
Note that this wasn't the case in the beginning. It was only at some point that Patreon gave creators that choice - and I believe the default was to hide the earnings (but no the number of patrons).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

IloveHN84 8y ago

Design flaw? No, I think it's called "transparency"

jolmg 8y ago
"Transparency" is a pretty word, and I like transparency in a lot of things, but not in everything, and I don't think it's good here. I've given my reasons in another comment close to this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18468332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18468332
Uberphallus 8y ago
The good old battle between privacy and transparency! Nothing better to start a heated conversation: Finland publishes all personal taxes https://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2011/11/finland-publishes-all-personal-tax.html https://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2011/11/finland-publishes-al...

anoncake 8y ago

So people can avoid sponsoring creators that already have a fair income level.

auggierose 8y ago
"Fair" is relative.
- anoncake 8y ago
  What do you mean?
- john_moscow 8y ago
  It is and for most of the world the bar is around $3K/month.
jolmg 8y ago
Like john_moscow has pointed out, though, that deters people from becoming Patreon creators. It's very normal for people to underestimate the difficulty of what others do or the real worth of their work. Besides that, supporting someone economically in a capitalist environment is giving them your vote for them to continue doing what they're doing. Not voting for them, when you otherwise would, solely because you can see they have some quantity of votes already, disrupts that. I would like this type of economy to flourish, as it seems like a very viable way to get good economic support for open-source. However, if this is a common occurrence, it seems developers will continue to be better off working on closed-source.
- anoncake 8y ago
  What deters people from becoming Patreon creators is not being supported. I certainly would never voluntarily support someone if I for all I know they could already be grossly overpaid for what they do. If supporting someone with X€ is any kind of "vote", it's a vote that they should get X€ more than they currently get for their work. It may be hard to make an educated decision about that, but it's impossible without knowing a creator's current income level to begin with.

jobigoud 8y ago

The way Patreon works is that you can set "achievements" levels and people coming on the page can see how far you are from the next goal. You have to publish the earnings for that feature. It entice people to contribute towards the goal so it's not a design flaw.