What excites me about Patreon and Substack is the underlying cultural shift that makes them possible. 10 years ago, users of a free service I run urged me to p

What excites me about Patreon and Substack is the underlying cultural shift that makes them possible. 10 years ago, users of a free service I run urged me to put up a Paypal donation button like they were dying to throw money at me. After months of urging, I finally did. ...I received so little in donations that I refunded the money. Last year, my users urged me to put up a Patreon and, expecting the worst, I finally did it. The service isn't nearly as popular as it was 10 years ago, yet they've committed $300+/month which is enough to at least pay for some of my time to improve the service, a service I considered taking down. It's hard to overstate what's going on here. There are avenues opening up just when I thought, yesterday, that they closed off for good. Just like Adsense created a content renaissance that let small creators (on a couple mediums) make a living, it might not be overstating it to say that we're seeing the next one, this time with direct, recurring (important!) funding. Aside, I wonder what the historian's analysis of the cultural shift would look like mapped out. I wouldn't be surprised if Twitch was the lynchpin in normalizing direct contribution.