7 ms·

I believe your second sentence negates the first. But even if it didn't, Patreon is a glorified busker's tip jar. There are only a small number of individuals

I believe your second sentence negates the first. But even if it didn't, Patreon is a glorified busker's tip jar. There are only a small number of individuals on earth who can make a full-time living from it. There's no sign that this model could work at scale for a large corporation. Even if it theoretically could, in practice your second sentence would again come into play.

darkpuma 8y ago
>There's no sign that this model could work at scale for a large corporation. Why should it? Most of the content people are now enjoying day to day isn't coming from large corporations. What we're witnessing now is the infancy of a shift away from the centralization of entertainment started by the industrial revolution (with access to printing presses, radio broadcasting, etc being relatively limited by economies of scale or similar reasons) back to a more community focused model that provides greater diversity in content. Most are welcoming this change as it brings them access to media of the sort they've never before had access to, as well as closer two-way relationships with the producers of that content. This isn't limited to youtube/video content either by the way, it's happening in music and other forms of art/entertainment as well. The platforms used to provide the distribution of content and used to collect payment will prove to be interchangeable; they aren't the part of the picture that matters. What matters is the relationships creators and their patrons can now cultivate. Now that people know this model is possible, the cat's not going back into the bag. Even if youtube or patreon were to close up shop, the demand would still be there and new platforms would be adopted or created if necessary because now people have seen a glimpse of what's possible and don't want to go back.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  Well, we are discussing if Google and Facebook's digital ad revenues will be able to continue to rise. If Google is going to show ads on a content creator's channel because they map to the demographic I want to advertise to, what is stopping me from just cutting out Google and paying the content creator directly? That way I can exercise more fine-grained control over what my ads don't show up next to, the content creator gets more money, and everybody is happy except Google. But what is Youtube's value add other than as a commoditized video-hosting platform?
  - rock_hard 8y ago
    Because that doesn’t scale, that’s why
    - ss2003 8y ago
      Then AI it to scale.
    - bobthepanda 8y ago
      Do you need it to scale? People don't place ads on every website or every possible search query, why would you want an ad sprayed far and wide when most of your audience can be reached by targeting a few big creators?
      - rock_hard 8y ago
        Because scaling your ads is the a great way to sell more products! So every advertiser is incentivized to scale their ad campaigns as much as possible. And having to find creators yourself and negotiate deals one by one is inefficient in a world where Google and Facebook have build automated products to do so!
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    >what is stopping me from just cutting out Google and paying the content creator directly? Nothing per-se, but if you talk to content creators they'll tell you that they prefer Patreon or youtube monetization or similar systems for at least one simple reason: their per-month income is more predictable, which provides them with a sense of financial stability. For many creators this isn't a full-time job, but rather a time intensive hobby that brings in enough money to pay for itself with maybe a little extra. But feeling confident that their expenses will be covered next month provides them with a necessary sense of security to keep doing what they do. If they were to rely on people mailing them cheques every month, many people would simply forget and creators could never be confident of approximately how much money they'll have next month. Patreon and youtube monetization don't provide any guarantees about future income, but in practice creators find that it typically doesn't change that much month from month. This doesn't mean that youtube monetization or patreon have a permanent monopoly on the payment system for independent creators. Far from it actually, the fact that Patreon broke into the scene previously dominated by youtube monetization demonstrates that if your system provides relative stability to creators, they will be willing to adopt it. We are still in the infancy of this social transformation, but already we see a clear picture starting to emerge of what creators and their viewers require to make it work.
- ethbro 8y ago
  > Most of the content people are now enjoying day to day isn't coming from large corporations. Taking that at face value, it's still the Google vs Apple argument. "The content people are enjoying" is not nearly as valuable as "the content people are willing to pay for." It's easy to get someone to watch free stuff. And in terms of total revenue, I'm skeptical that quantity of free content + ads can beat quality paid content + ads over the long run. Separately, the democratization of media doesn't mean we've improved the net quality. For every Groklaw PJ, there's 1,000 poorly-informed rants. It's important we now have more outlets for people to express themselves, but professionalism = talent + dedication. And most people don't have both of those.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    > "Separately, the democratization of media doesn't mean we've improved the net quality. For every Groklaw PJ, there's 1,000 poorly-informed rants." Maybe part of the reason you're struggling with this concept is because your focus is too narrow. Look beyond political/legal commentary, where small creators are competing directly against international media corporations that provide content in the same category. Look beyond that, because most of what's out there doesn't fall into that category. There is a LONG tail of independent content being produced that has no competition at all from corporate media. Name any narrow interest or hobby and you can almost certainly find independent creators online that are collectively producing far more content in that topic every week than the corporate media has produced in the past century. Take for instance woodworking. To be sure, there have been TV shows about woodworking, The New Yankee Workshop (Norm Abram) and The Woodwright's Shop (Roy Underhill), both on PBS (which is probably notable, can we expect Disney to produce and commercialize a woodworking TV show?), are very notable excellent examples. But there is so much more content on youtube, the woodworking content on youtube is more diverse, and those independent online creators typically have a closer relationship with their viewers. Woodworking is a generous example because it's actually a case where traditional media can marginally compete. But change the topic slightly and traditional media leaves you completely out in the cold. What if instead of cutting and joining wood, you're interested in metal? Where is the PBS show for hobby metal working? Would Disney ever give Adam Booth his own machining show? I don't think so. This is a small list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Arts_and_crafts_television_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Arts_and_crafts_telev...
- cinquemb 8y ago
  I am seeing this as well. I think the big platforms like ran by alphabet/facebook/etc have been a boon in showing people what's possible and helping to grow the market, but I cant be bullish on them in the long term as the medium people exchange content and attention on becomes interchangeable and cheaper for individual and small orgs to deploy (as well having more control in aligning their incentives with their own goals rather than mega platforms goals and incentives). I'm not ready to take a position in the markets against them yet (but I dont know when, also there's alot cheaper weaker companies out there now to take positions against), but it would probably be something like buying the stock, selling long dated ITM calls, buying medium dated slightly to deep otm puts.
- pmart123 8y ago
  I think what you are articulating is half true, or more so, half of the picture. People love big blockbusters more than ever. Game of thrones, The Avengers, etc. really show that it is a bifurcated market. I think the full effects of globalization have caused part of this (people around the world are less interested in the coming of age Boston story), so the studio pushes something with universal appeal. No one man band can compete with this. On the other side of the equation, I won’t be surprised if Joe Rogan gets a similar amount of views as Fox News. Ad spend seems to be significantly lagging viewership at the moment.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    >"I think what you are articulating is half true, or more so, half of the picture. People love big blockbusters more than ever. Game of thrones, The Avengers, etc. really show that it is a bifurcated market." People still consume that sort of media, but the amount of time they spend consuming media like that is small compared to the amount of time they spend consuming independently produced media. Compare how many hours a month they spend watching Hollywood blockbusters and how many hours a month they spend watching independent creators on youtube or listening to independent creators music on soundcloud. Some people, mostly older people are still stuck in the past. They avoid specialized independent content and instead consume corporate entertainment (engineered for 'universal appeal' by finding an LCD) with netflix, hulu, or even with cable subscriptions(!). But it's clear that times are changing. There was once a time when corporate media had a near total monopoly on people's attention, but those days are now long gone and will never come back.
- themagician 8y ago
  Most of the content people enjoy still comes from big corporations. Much of the content people consume now comes from random people, but they don’t actually enjoy it. You ever watch someone use Instagram? It’s just conditioning. Scroll, tap tap, scroll, tap tap, scroll, tap tap. When people enjoy content they pay for it with money. When people mindlessly consume content whose value approaches zero, but isn’t quite zero because zero would be nothing at all, they pay for it with “likes.”

darkpuma 8y ago

>There's no sign that this model could work at scale for a large corporation. Why should it? Most of the content people are now enjoying day to day isn't coming from large corporations. What we're witnessing now is the infancy of a shift away from the centralization of entertainment started by the industrial revolution (with access to printing presses, radio broadcasting, etc being relatively limited by economies of scale or similar reasons) back to a more community focused model that provides greater diversity in content. Most are welcoming this change as it brings them access to media of the sort they've never before had access to, as well as closer two-way relationships with the producers of that content. This isn't limited to youtube/video content either by the way, it's happening in music and other forms of art/entertainment as well. The platforms used to provide the distribution of content and used to collect payment will prove to be interchangeable; they aren't the part of the picture that matters. What matters is the relationships creators and their patrons can now cultivate. Now that people know this model is possible, the cat's not going back into the bag. Even if youtube or patreon were to close up shop, the demand would still be there and new platforms would be adopted or created if necessary because now people have seen a glimpse of what's possible and don't want to go back.

bobthepanda 8y ago
Well, we are discussing if Google and Facebook's digital ad revenues will be able to continue to rise. If Google is going to show ads on a content creator's channel because they map to the demographic I want to advertise to, what is stopping me from just cutting out Google and paying the content creator directly? That way I can exercise more fine-grained control over what my ads don't show up next to, the content creator gets more money, and everybody is happy except Google. But what is Youtube's value add other than as a commoditized video-hosting platform?
- rock_hard 8y ago
  Because that doesn’t scale, that’s why
  - ss2003 8y ago
    Then AI it to scale.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    Do you need it to scale? People don't place ads on every website or every possible search query, why would you want an ad sprayed far and wide when most of your audience can be reached by targeting a few big creators?
    - rock_hard 8y ago
      Because scaling your ads is the a great way to sell more products! So every advertiser is incentivized to scale their ad campaigns as much as possible. And having to find creators yourself and negotiate deals one by one is inefficient in a world where Google and Facebook have build automated products to do so!
- darkpuma 8y ago
  >what is stopping me from just cutting out Google and paying the content creator directly? Nothing per-se, but if you talk to content creators they'll tell you that they prefer Patreon or youtube monetization or similar systems for at least one simple reason: their per-month income is more predictable, which provides them with a sense of financial stability. For many creators this isn't a full-time job, but rather a time intensive hobby that brings in enough money to pay for itself with maybe a little extra. But feeling confident that their expenses will be covered next month provides them with a necessary sense of security to keep doing what they do. If they were to rely on people mailing them cheques every month, many people would simply forget and creators could never be confident of approximately how much money they'll have next month. Patreon and youtube monetization don't provide any guarantees about future income, but in practice creators find that it typically doesn't change that much month from month. This doesn't mean that youtube monetization or patreon have a permanent monopoly on the payment system for independent creators. Far from it actually, the fact that Patreon broke into the scene previously dominated by youtube monetization demonstrates that if your system provides relative stability to creators, they will be willing to adopt it. We are still in the infancy of this social transformation, but already we see a clear picture starting to emerge of what creators and their viewers require to make it work.
ethbro 8y ago
> Most of the content people are now enjoying day to day isn't coming from large corporations. Taking that at face value, it's still the Google vs Apple argument. "The content people are enjoying" is not nearly as valuable as "the content people are willing to pay for." It's easy to get someone to watch free stuff. And in terms of total revenue, I'm skeptical that quantity of free content + ads can beat quality paid content + ads over the long run. Separately, the democratization of media doesn't mean we've improved the net quality. For every Groklaw PJ, there's 1,000 poorly-informed rants. It's important we now have more outlets for people to express themselves, but professionalism = talent + dedication. And most people don't have both of those.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  > "Separately, the democratization of media doesn't mean we've improved the net quality. For every Groklaw PJ, there's 1,000 poorly-informed rants." Maybe part of the reason you're struggling with this concept is because your focus is too narrow. Look beyond political/legal commentary, where small creators are competing directly against international media corporations that provide content in the same category. Look beyond that, because most of what's out there doesn't fall into that category. There is a LONG tail of independent content being produced that has no competition at all from corporate media. Name any narrow interest or hobby and you can almost certainly find independent creators online that are collectively producing far more content in that topic every week than the corporate media has produced in the past century. Take for instance woodworking. To be sure, there have been TV shows about woodworking, The New Yankee Workshop (Norm Abram) and The Woodwright's Shop (Roy Underhill), both on PBS (which is probably notable, can we expect Disney to produce and commercialize a woodworking TV show?), are very notable excellent examples. But there is so much more content on youtube, the woodworking content on youtube is more diverse, and those independent online creators typically have a closer relationship with their viewers. Woodworking is a generous example because it's actually a case where traditional media can marginally compete. But change the topic slightly and traditional media leaves you completely out in the cold. What if instead of cutting and joining wood, you're interested in metal? Where is the PBS show for hobby metal working? Would Disney ever give Adam Booth his own machining show? I don't think so. This is a small list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Arts_and_crafts_television_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Arts_and_crafts_telev...
cinquemb 8y ago
I am seeing this as well. I think the big platforms like ran by alphabet/facebook/etc have been a boon in showing people what's possible and helping to grow the market, but I cant be bullish on them in the long term as the medium people exchange content and attention on becomes interchangeable and cheaper for individual and small orgs to deploy (as well having more control in aligning their incentives with their own goals rather than mega platforms goals and incentives). I'm not ready to take a position in the markets against them yet (but I dont know when, also there's alot cheaper weaker companies out there now to take positions against), but it would probably be something like buying the stock, selling long dated ITM calls, buying medium dated slightly to deep otm puts.
pmart123 8y ago
I think what you are articulating is half true, or more so, half of the picture. People love big blockbusters more than ever. Game of thrones, The Avengers, etc. really show that it is a bifurcated market. I think the full effects of globalization have caused part of this (people around the world are less interested in the coming of age Boston story), so the studio pushes something with universal appeal. No one man band can compete with this. On the other side of the equation, I won’t be surprised if Joe Rogan gets a similar amount of views as Fox News. Ad spend seems to be significantly lagging viewership at the moment.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  >"I think what you are articulating is half true, or more so, half of the picture. People love big blockbusters more than ever. Game of thrones, The Avengers, etc. really show that it is a bifurcated market." People still consume that sort of media, but the amount of time they spend consuming media like that is small compared to the amount of time they spend consuming independently produced media. Compare how many hours a month they spend watching Hollywood blockbusters and how many hours a month they spend watching independent creators on youtube or listening to independent creators music on soundcloud. Some people, mostly older people are still stuck in the past. They avoid specialized independent content and instead consume corporate entertainment (engineered for 'universal appeal' by finding an LCD) with netflix, hulu, or even with cable subscriptions(!). But it's clear that times are changing. There was once a time when corporate media had a near total monopoly on people's attention, but those days are now long gone and will never come back.
themagician 8y ago
Most of the content people enjoy still comes from big corporations. Much of the content people consume now comes from random people, but they don’t actually enjoy it. You ever watch someone use Instagram? It’s just conditioning. Scroll, tap tap, scroll, tap tap, scroll, tap tap. When people enjoy content they pay for it with money. When people mindlessly consume content whose value approaches zero, but isn’t quite zero because zero would be nothing at all, they pay for it with “likes.”