4 ms·

You have to have a heck of an offering to get a $5 monthly out of me. Every $5 monthly gets measured against "half a Netflix" and comes up short. Edit: I'll a

by Pxtl 6y ago

You have to have a heck of an offering to get a $5 monthly out of me. Every $5 monthly gets measured against "half a Netflix" and comes up short. Edit: I'll admit I'll gladly drop $40 on an ebook from the same creators I feel weird about funding monthly. I'm allergic to monthlies.

throwanem 6y ago
What I hear you saying is, Netflix has swamped the market and driven down the price of quality content. Well, I say "quality". It seems like every time I look at it, their catalog's dropped something else I wanted to see. My hit rate on searches there has to be hovering around 2%.
- amelius 6y ago
  No, really, no single human creator can provide $5/mo worth of content. If you don't like Netflix just think of a quality monthly magazine.
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    IMO it's subjective. I once was horrified by a creator's video thanking his fans in an obviously poorly produced setting and style. Years later I've grown to enjoy both their older, rougher works and their newer, polished content. Maybe it's just the illusion of a human connection or hip to support indies, but I'm seriously considering making some monthly donations to support their work. Niches like theirs will always exist.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      That sounds a lot like AvE. I've been on his Patreon for, oh, must be years now, and he was very gracious when in a fit of excitement I sent a couple of photos of my first completed metalworking project. Not that he's not a bit of a drunk uncle, but it turns out you can learn a lot from one of those. And there's really nothing that's not funny about the occasional 18650 accidentally eating a hacksaw, so long as you're not in the room when it happens.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - CarbyAu 6y ago
    Is this the next stage of Patreon? Be more magazine like? $5 month gets you a group of creators in a given field. Hell, I would happily pay that for a whole group of 3D printer/Blender gurus doing their thing and showing me how...
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Judging by my actual spend, I'm infinitely more likely to put $5 a month toward some individual's excellent work, via Patreon, than I am toward a magazine subscription. Meanwhile, the persistence of my Netflix account relies entirely on inertia. Besides, when was the last time you could get a magazine for $5 a month? They were already well past that when I was still a little kid, and these days a physical magazine is both too costly to produce, and too much of a status symbol, for any such low price to seem very likely.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      I think my average magazine subscription has been 80% off cover price. $5 a month is an extremely easy bar to clear. Right now I can go out and get Wired for $20 a year and Time for $30 a year with only a couple seconds of searching, and those are probably not the best offers available.
    - jen20 6y ago
      > Besides, when was the last time you could get a magazine for $5 a month? I just renewed my subscription to "Sound on Sound" - an _incredibly_ high quality recording industry magazine - for $58.50 for the year, which includes both the print edition and digital edition, so that works out just under $5/mo...
    - twic 6y ago
      > Besides, when was the last time you could get a magazine for $5 a month? Private Eye is £34 a year, so $3.72 a month. And it comes every two weeks.
    - mark-r 6y ago
      Maybe I'm just old, but my mental anchor price is a yearly magazine subscription for $24. Anything more than that seems like a ripoff.
  - Talanes 6y ago
    I pay a $10 podcast Patreon that is the last subscription service I would cancel, because the content is weekly and I consistently enjoy it. I regularly go a week without watching anything on Netflix.
  - detaro 6y ago
    How do you define $5/mo worth of content? Comparing with how people use Netflix, 2-3 hours of entertainment a week? That's not impossible to get from a single creator if what they do fits your tastes.
balfirevic 6y ago
If Netflix halved their price, would you go and cancel a bunch of other services you pay for?
nbaksalyar 6y ago
If we talk about Patreon and independent creators, I don't think it's a fair comparison because usually most of the content is already offered for free, unlike Netflix which you can't access without paying.
toiletfuneral 6y ago
have you ever ordered a drink at a bar?
redis_mlc 6y ago
> You have to have a heck of an offering to get a $5 monthly out of me. There are some Youtubers with very high-quality channels: Melsickscreamoannie's Heavy Metal and Relaxation Music Channel (Weekly uploads) Mark Felton's History Channel (Bi-weekly uploads) Rick Beato's "Everything Music" Channel (Daily uploads)
bpodgursky 6y ago
The Netflix cost-per-content is only sustainable in a world where everyone consumes the same content, because there are incredible economies of scale (where you can broadcast the same TV show to 2 billion people). But that's not really a great world for individual agency or the creative arts. A writer with 1,000 readers can only write so much per month -- and $5 doesn't (or only barely) makes it possible. People who want a world which HAS niche content are going to have to cough up more -- I'd like to think most people here are in that camp.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Ya, thinking that Netflix is the standard of price and quality is like saying no one needs anything more than Walmart. There are lots of products and media that is niche/boutique/artisanal or whatever your preferred term is. And people are willing to pay much more for that.
Chris2048 6y ago
Or another metric: $5 give you a single digitalocean droplet, or a sub to CrunchyRoll.
juniper_strong 6y ago
> I'm allergic to monthlies Me too. The way I look at it, if I'm going to live off 4% of my assets a year in retirement, I need an extra $1500 to fund a $5 a month recurring charge. So it's a matter of looking at how long it would take to save that $1500 and asking if I would commit to working that much longer before I retire in order to afford the recurring payment. If "that much longer" is measured in days/weeks/months instead of minutes or hours, the answer is almost certainly going to be no.

by Pxtl 6y ago

throwanem 6y ago

What I hear you saying is, Netflix has swamped the market and driven down the price of quality content. Well, I say "quality". It seems like every time I look at it, their catalog's dropped something else I wanted to see. My hit rate on searches there has to be hovering around 2%.

amelius 6y ago
No, really, no single human creator can provide $5/mo worth of content. If you don't like Netflix just think of a quality monthly magazine.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  IMO it's subjective. I once was horrified by a creator's video thanking his fans in an obviously poorly produced setting and style. Years later I've grown to enjoy both their older, rougher works and their newer, polished content. Maybe it's just the illusion of a human connection or hip to support indies, but I'm seriously considering making some monthly donations to support their work. Niches like theirs will always exist.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    That sounds a lot like AvE. I've been on his Patreon for, oh, must be years now, and he was very gracious when in a fit of excitement I sent a couple of photos of my first completed metalworking project. Not that he's not a bit of a drunk uncle, but it turns out you can learn a lot from one of those. And there's really nothing that's not funny about the occasional 18650 accidentally eating a hacksaw, so long as you're not in the room when it happens.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- CarbyAu 6y ago
  Is this the next stage of Patreon? Be more magazine like? $5 month gets you a group of creators in a given field. Hell, I would happily pay that for a whole group of 3D printer/Blender gurus doing their thing and showing me how...
- throwanem 6y ago
  Judging by my actual spend, I'm infinitely more likely to put $5 a month toward some individual's excellent work, via Patreon, than I am toward a magazine subscription. Meanwhile, the persistence of my Netflix account relies entirely on inertia. Besides, when was the last time you could get a magazine for $5 a month? They were already well past that when I was still a little kid, and these days a physical magazine is both too costly to produce, and too much of a status symbol, for any such low price to seem very likely.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    I think my average magazine subscription has been 80% off cover price. $5 a month is an extremely easy bar to clear. Right now I can go out and get Wired for $20 a year and Time for $30 a year with only a couple seconds of searching, and those are probably not the best offers available.
  - jen20 6y ago
    > Besides, when was the last time you could get a magazine for $5 a month? I just renewed my subscription to "Sound on Sound" - an _incredibly_ high quality recording industry magazine - for $58.50 for the year, which includes both the print edition and digital edition, so that works out just under $5/mo...
  - twic 6y ago
    > Besides, when was the last time you could get a magazine for $5 a month? Private Eye is £34 a year, so $3.72 a month. And it comes every two weeks.
  - mark-r 6y ago
    Maybe I'm just old, but my mental anchor price is a yearly magazine subscription for $24. Anything more than that seems like a ripoff.
- Talanes 6y ago
  I pay a $10 podcast Patreon that is the last subscription service I would cancel, because the content is weekly and I consistently enjoy it. I regularly go a week without watching anything on Netflix.
- detaro 6y ago
  How do you define $5/mo worth of content? Comparing with how people use Netflix, 2-3 hours of entertainment a week? That's not impossible to get from a single creator if what they do fits your tastes.

balfirevic 6y ago

If Netflix halved their price, would you go and cancel a bunch of other services you pay for?

nbaksalyar 6y ago

If we talk about Patreon and independent creators, I don't think it's a fair comparison because usually most of the content is already offered for free, unlike Netflix which you can't access without paying.

toiletfuneral 6y ago

have you ever ordered a drink at a bar?

redis_mlc 6y ago

> You have to have a heck of an offering to get a $5 monthly out of me. There are some Youtubers with very high-quality channels: Melsickscreamoannie's Heavy Metal and Relaxation Music Channel (Weekly uploads) Mark Felton's History Channel (Bi-weekly uploads) Rick Beato's "Everything Music" Channel (Daily uploads)

bpodgursky 6y ago

The Netflix cost-per-content is only sustainable in a world where everyone consumes the same content, because there are incredible economies of scale (where you can broadcast the same TV show to 2 billion people). But that's not really a great world for individual agency or the creative arts. A writer with 1,000 readers can only write so much per month -- and $5 doesn't (or only barely) makes it possible. People who want a world which HAS niche content are going to have to cough up more -- I'd like to think most people here are in that camp.

jjeaff 6y ago
Ya, thinking that Netflix is the standard of price and quality is like saying no one needs anything more than Walmart. There are lots of products and media that is niche/boutique/artisanal or whatever your preferred term is. And people are willing to pay much more for that.

Chris2048 6y ago

Or another metric: $5 give you a single digitalocean droplet, or a sub to CrunchyRoll.

juniper_strong 6y ago

> I'm allergic to monthlies Me too. The way I look at it, if I'm going to live off 4% of my assets a year in retirement, I need an extra $1500 to fund a $5 a month recurring charge. So it's a matter of looking at how long it would take to save that $1500 and asking if I would commit to working that much longer before I retire in order to afford the recurring payment. If "that much longer" is measured in days/weeks/months instead of minutes or hours, the answer is almost certainly going to be no.