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Will Patreon become the real YT killer? They already have the best content creators on their platform, what’s to stop them building out a similar video hosting

Will Patreon become the real YT killer? They already have the best content creators on their platform, what’s to stop them building out a similar video hosting setup with search and discovery? Google might want to nip this in the bud now with a cheeky 2bn $ acquisition...

Barrin92 6y ago
> what’s to stop them building out a similar video hosting setup with search and discovery? for starters the absolutely abysmal performance of their site. I think Patreon found a good idea but good lord scrolling through a patreon account with someone who has a lot of posts basically stress tests my laptop fan
- crispyporkbites 6y ago
  Right but that can fixed with a few million dollar and few months. I don’t think many (any?) companies fail because of web app performance
  - RL_Quine 6y ago
    Reddit is getting there.
    - tirpen 6y ago
      Definitely. You can still opt in to keep using their old interface thankfully, the difference in both performance and UX is staggering. When that option disappears from the site, so will I.
      - jandrese 6y ago
        The day they discontinue old.reddit.com is the day I stop visiting the site. The new version is like a case study in everything I hate about "new" web UX.
  - jdminhbg 6y ago
    > (any?) Friendster is frequently cited as a potentially massive company that failed due to its poor performance: https://www.techinasia.com/awesome-startups-failed https://www.techinasia.com/awesome-startups-failed
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    Throwing money, people and time at a slow web app just about never improves bad performance. 999 times out of 1,000 (and I’m not exaggerating that figure), it remains where it is or gets slower. Of the remaining one in a thousand, the substantial majority are due to them realising just how bad things are and clawing back some of the performance that they have steadily thrown away, but even then they’re not improving it to where I will arbitrarily decree it “should” be. Note that I’m specifically talking about improving bad performance. If I was talking about having good performance, largely meaning designing the app to be fast from the start and never letting it get bad, the figures would be a bit more favourable, though they would still be very heavily skewed against large teams or companies. My conclusion is simply that the more people you have, the harder it is to make fast stuff. I’m quite serious about these numbers. Not all small teams can produce fast apps, but over time no large teams can produce fast apps unless they very deliberately design it in from the start, in which case it’s merely extremely difficult to maintain (again, over time).
    - tpxl 6y ago
      You can fix the slow web app by rewriting it.
      - chrismorgan 6y ago
        In theory, yes. In theory you can often fix a slow web app without rewriting it, too. But in practice if you have a large team, your rewrite is statistically extremely unlikely to succeed in improving performance meaningfully or even at all.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
robjan 6y ago
Youtube operates on a freemium model where most people pay nothing other than a few cents received here and there viewing ads. If Patreon starts becoming the new Youtube their bandwidth bills will skyrocket and they will have to reduce creator compensation. If they become a paywalled YouTube (after the hypothetical death of YouTube) it will harm discovery.
justapassenger 6y ago
Bandwidth is expensive. You need to be big enough player to have your own CDN spread across the world, with favorable peering agreements or bills will just kill you.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  I don't know about that. A relatively small player can get several mbps per dollar all over the US and Europe. That means you only need about 1 dollar per month per peak concurrent user.
  - tpxl 6y ago
    Also, you can use peer-to-peer transfers (like peertube)to decrease costs.
mFixman 6y ago
YouTube's real killer feature is its video discovery. Having millions users endlessly streaming content without many connection hitches while showing a dozen recommended videos each time does wonders for authors. I'd be more worried about YouTube getting their shit together and making a Patreon killer than Patreon building video hosting.
- rmvt 6y ago
  doesn't youtube feature a patreon-like feature already, where you can sponsor the creators?
  - coldpie 6y ago
    If they do, I have never seen it, and I watch a lot of YouTube.
    - michaelt 6y ago
      It's called "channel memberships" - if you look at [1] you'll see a 'join' button to the left of the 'subscribe' button (or at least, I do in the UK) I can't imagine it'll replace Patreon though, as a lot of creators see Patreon as giving them back control from Google's inscrutable, capricious treatment. [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcXhhVwCT6_WqjkEniejRJQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcXhhVwCT6_WqjkEniejRJQ
- Applejinx 6y ago
  YouTube's killer feature is ability to INFLUENCE video discovery. There is no need for them ever, ever to care about being able to pay creators in a competitive way, when they can be paid (or simply needed) just to get the content out there and seen by an audience. As long as they are YouTube they can capitalize on being the gatekeepers and there's no reason for them to care about becoming also the ticket-takers. There's also no need for them to try and kill Patreon to replace it: Patreon is taking pressure off of them and enabling them to enjoy the really useful part of their dominance, with no consequences to them. With Patreon out there, YouTube doesn't even need to care whether it seems like it pays creators or not.
Applejinx 6y ago
Terrible idea. They're not a content hosting platform, they're a content creator payment system. Why become a bandwidth provider and directly fight Google in a domain that Google has already scaled into?

Barrin92 6y ago

> what’s to stop them building out a similar video hosting setup with search and discovery? for starters the absolutely abysmal performance of their site. I think Patreon found a good idea but good lord scrolling through a patreon account with someone who has a lot of posts basically stress tests my laptop fan

crispyporkbites 6y ago
Right but that can fixed with a few million dollar and few months. I don’t think many (any?) companies fail because of web app performance
- RL_Quine 6y ago
  Reddit is getting there.
  - tirpen 6y ago
    Definitely. You can still opt in to keep using their old interface thankfully, the difference in both performance and UX is staggering. When that option disappears from the site, so will I.
    - jandrese 6y ago
      The day they discontinue old.reddit.com is the day I stop visiting the site. The new version is like a case study in everything I hate about "new" web UX.
- jdminhbg 6y ago
  > (any?) Friendster is frequently cited as a potentially massive company that failed due to its poor performance: https://www.techinasia.com/awesome-startups-failed https://www.techinasia.com/awesome-startups-failed
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  Throwing money, people and time at a slow web app just about never improves bad performance. 999 times out of 1,000 (and I’m not exaggerating that figure), it remains where it is or gets slower. Of the remaining one in a thousand, the substantial majority are due to them realising just how bad things are and clawing back some of the performance that they have steadily thrown away, but even then they’re not improving it to where I will arbitrarily decree it “should” be. Note that I’m specifically talking about improving bad performance. If I was talking about having good performance, largely meaning designing the app to be fast from the start and never letting it get bad, the figures would be a bit more favourable, though they would still be very heavily skewed against large teams or companies. My conclusion is simply that the more people you have, the harder it is to make fast stuff. I’m quite serious about these numbers. Not all small teams can produce fast apps, but over time no large teams can produce fast apps unless they very deliberately design it in from the start, in which case it’s merely extremely difficult to maintain (again, over time).
  - tpxl 6y ago
    You can fix the slow web app by rewriting it.
    - chrismorgan 6y ago
      In theory, yes. In theory you can often fix a slow web app without rewriting it, too. But in practice if you have a large team, your rewrite is statistically extremely unlikely to succeed in improving performance meaningfully or even at all.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

robjan 6y ago

Youtube operates on a freemium model where most people pay nothing other than a few cents received here and there viewing ads. If Patreon starts becoming the new Youtube their bandwidth bills will skyrocket and they will have to reduce creator compensation. If they become a paywalled YouTube (after the hypothetical death of YouTube) it will harm discovery.

justapassenger 6y ago

Bandwidth is expensive. You need to be big enough player to have your own CDN spread across the world, with favorable peering agreements or bills will just kill you.

Dylan16807 6y ago
I don't know about that. A relatively small player can get several mbps per dollar all over the US and Europe. That means you only need about 1 dollar per month per peak concurrent user.
- tpxl 6y ago
  Also, you can use peer-to-peer transfers (like peertube)to decrease costs.

mFixman 6y ago

YouTube's real killer feature is its video discovery. Having millions users endlessly streaming content without many connection hitches while showing a dozen recommended videos each time does wonders for authors. I'd be more worried about YouTube getting their shit together and making a Patreon killer than Patreon building video hosting.

rmvt 6y ago
doesn't youtube feature a patreon-like feature already, where you can sponsor the creators?
- coldpie 6y ago
  If they do, I have never seen it, and I watch a lot of YouTube.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    It's called "channel memberships" - if you look at [1] you'll see a 'join' button to the left of the 'subscribe' button (or at least, I do in the UK) I can't imagine it'll replace Patreon though, as a lot of creators see Patreon as giving them back control from Google's inscrutable, capricious treatment. [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcXhhVwCT6_WqjkEniejRJQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcXhhVwCT6_WqjkEniejRJQ
Applejinx 6y ago
YouTube's killer feature is ability to INFLUENCE video discovery. There is no need for them ever, ever to care about being able to pay creators in a competitive way, when they can be paid (or simply needed) just to get the content out there and seen by an audience. As long as they are YouTube they can capitalize on being the gatekeepers and there's no reason for them to care about becoming also the ticket-takers. There's also no need for them to try and kill Patreon to replace it: Patreon is taking pressure off of them and enabling them to enjoy the really useful part of their dominance, with no consequences to them. With Patreon out there, YouTube doesn't even need to care whether it seems like it pays creators or not.

Applejinx 6y ago

Terrible idea. They're not a content hosting platform, they're a content creator payment system. Why become a bandwidth provider and directly fight Google in a domain that Google has already scaled into?