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I foresee this being very successful if they make the barrier to entry for the viewer essentially zero. People have been starved for a YouTube alternative for t

by junon 5y ago

I foresee this being very successful if they make the barrier to entry for the viewer essentially zero. People have been starved for a YouTube alternative for the better part of a decade now.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
There’s still a cost but Mux, Cloudflare, Vimeo, and other video infra providers continue to make hosting your own video content less painful as time goes by. Patreon has the benefit that there’s a revenue model they can offset the video cost with. Free video hosting of very popular content is always going to be a challenge, economically speaking. Someone’s gotta pay for disk and bandwidth.
- breakingcups 5y ago
  Cloudflare and Vimeo are insanely expensive once you cross a threshold. Those looking to make their own video hosting platform may be better off with something like BunnyCDN.
astlouis44 5y ago
100%.
godshatter 5y ago
Creators will likely see extra revenue if they make some videos patron-only, at different levels. Some creators will likely get too greedy and lose viewers, while others will probably do fine holding a select few back to attract new patrons. The bonus for users will be (hopefully) fewer in-video sponsorship ads (I know all about squarespace and nord vpn, thanks), and no algorithms sending you content you don't want. Less discoverable of new content, though. I suppose "click like and subscribe" will turn into "become a patron!", so that's a wash. Hopefully there won't be as much self-censorship, too, because they have another revenue stream if a video gets demonetized. Or maybe they will put the controversial ones on Patreon only. I'll be interested to see how this turns out. If it becomes competitive, I suspect YouTube will ban Patreon links instead of doing the more sane thing of partnering with them.
- pitaa 5y ago
  I still see getting your viewers over to patreon being the most difficult part. No matter how many times you plug a patreon in your YouTube videos, only a small percent of viewers are going to follow the link.

by junon 5y ago

I foresee this being very successful if they make the barrier to entry for the viewer essentially zero. People have been starved for a YouTube alternative for the better part of a decade now.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

There’s still a cost but Mux, Cloudflare, Vimeo, and other video infra providers continue to make hosting your own video content less painful as time goes by. Patreon has the benefit that there’s a revenue model they can offset the video cost with. Free video hosting of very popular content is always going to be a challenge, economically speaking. Someone’s gotta pay for disk and bandwidth.

breakingcups 5y ago
Cloudflare and Vimeo are insanely expensive once you cross a threshold. Those looking to make their own video hosting platform may be better off with something like BunnyCDN.

astlouis44 5y ago

100%.

godshatter 5y ago

Creators will likely see extra revenue if they make some videos patron-only, at different levels. Some creators will likely get too greedy and lose viewers, while others will probably do fine holding a select few back to attract new patrons. The bonus for users will be (hopefully) fewer in-video sponsorship ads (I know all about squarespace and nord vpn, thanks), and no algorithms sending you content you don't want. Less discoverable of new content, though. I suppose "click like and subscribe" will turn into "become a patron!", so that's a wash. Hopefully there won't be as much self-censorship, too, because they have another revenue stream if a video gets demonetized. Or maybe they will put the controversial ones on Patreon only. I'll be interested to see how this turns out. If it becomes competitive, I suspect YouTube will ban Patreon links instead of doing the more sane thing of partnering with them.

pitaa 5y ago
I still see getting your viewers over to patreon being the most difficult part. No matter how many times you plug a patreon in your YouTube videos, only a small percent of viewers are going to follow the link.