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Patreon is selling a service, Facebook is selling access to an audience. Two seemingly similar but vastly different offerings. That's why Facebook can have a lo

Patreon is selling a service, Facebook is selling access to an audience. Two seemingly similar but vastly different offerings. That's why Facebook can have a lot of crappier versions of other products that are still successful (e.g. Facebook events vs. Meetup.) I doubt they'll be able to get away with the terms as is, but it wouldn't surprise me if they manage to successfully charge significantly more than Patreon and still get a lot of customers.

jraby3 8y ago
Absolutely correct and the best comment here imo. It’s very different to provide an audience vs. providing a service.
- mamborambo 8y ago
  But pas
- mamborambo 8y ago
  But once past initial audience discovery, the recurrent billing of patronage donations is just pure service. So logically creators should only use FB for access to new audience, build a relationship with the newly acquired audience, and pivot to direct billing or Patreon for recurrent collection.
  - pavlov 8y ago
    By the same logic, YouTube creators should only use YT to build an audience, then switch to hosting their own videos. Yet they want to remain on the platform.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      Video hosting costs a lot of money. Sending an API request, to the credit card company, to bill the monthly payment, does not cost a lot of money. Getting your audience to switch platforms for the monthly payments is a compartively easy thing to do, compared to setting up your own video hosting site.
      - pavlov 8y ago
        More to the point, neither is very easy to do in practice.
    - hrktb 8y ago
      That's a move some creators are at least seriously preparing for. And building a patreon user base is a good step for that.
rootlocus 8y ago
> Facebook is selling access to an audience. I remember their promo videos promising access to "millions of people" and "your imagination is the limit". Turns out it isn't feasible to spam all the people in your friends list with all your updates, so Facebook decides who sees which. Want more people to see your posts? Your wallet is the limit.
- ddalex 8y ago
  > access to "millions of people" and "your imagination is the limit". > Want more people to see your posts? Your wallet is the limit. I'm not seeing anything inconsistent in that position. They didn't promise free access to their audience. The imagination of how much you can spend is indeed the limit.
  - spinchange 8y ago
    >They didn't promise free access to their audience It was literally the default setting until they started making people and orgs pay to reach all _of their own, organically grown_ audience. People were advertising their FB pages in advertising, on billboards and signage all over the country for a couple of years. I'm talking like Realtors and run-of-the-mill small businesses, etc. It all just turned out to be free advertising for Facebook because they changed their mind after reaching scale and needed to turn on some more profit.
  - waylandsmithers 8y ago
    In my mind at least the 30% fee was the price for access to the audience.

jraby3 8y ago

Absolutely correct and the best comment here imo. It’s very different to provide an audience vs. providing a service.

mamborambo 8y ago
But pas
mamborambo 8y ago
But once past initial audience discovery, the recurrent billing of patronage donations is just pure service. So logically creators should only use FB for access to new audience, build a relationship with the newly acquired audience, and pivot to direct billing or Patreon for recurrent collection.
- pavlov 8y ago
  By the same logic, YouTube creators should only use YT to build an audience, then switch to hosting their own videos. Yet they want to remain on the platform.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    Video hosting costs a lot of money. Sending an API request, to the credit card company, to bill the monthly payment, does not cost a lot of money. Getting your audience to switch platforms for the monthly payments is a compartively easy thing to do, compared to setting up your own video hosting site.
    - pavlov 8y ago
      More to the point, neither is very easy to do in practice.
  - hrktb 8y ago
    That's a move some creators are at least seriously preparing for. And building a patreon user base is a good step for that.

rootlocus 8y ago

> Facebook is selling access to an audience. I remember their promo videos promising access to "millions of people" and "your imagination is the limit". Turns out it isn't feasible to spam all the people in your friends list with all your updates, so Facebook decides who sees which. Want more people to see your posts? Your wallet is the limit.

ddalex 8y ago
> access to "millions of people" and "your imagination is the limit". > Want more people to see your posts? Your wallet is the limit. I'm not seeing anything inconsistent in that position. They didn't promise free access to their audience. The imagination of how much you can spend is indeed the limit.
- spinchange 8y ago
  >They didn't promise free access to their audience It was literally the default setting until they started making people and orgs pay to reach all _of their own, organically grown_ audience. People were advertising their FB pages in advertising, on billboards and signage all over the country for a couple of years. I'm talking like Realtors and run-of-the-mill small businesses, etc. It all just turned out to be free advertising for Facebook because they changed their mind after reaching scale and needed to turn on some more profit.
- waylandsmithers 8y ago
  In my mind at least the 30% fee was the price for access to the audience.