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Of course this poses other challenges. You'll end up an 'artist' of gilding toilet seats for rich and demanding 'customers' who are very clear on what they want

Of course this poses other challenges. You'll end up an 'artist' of gilding toilet seats for rich and demanding 'customers' who are very clear on what they want. That ain't me: my branding is aligned with what my actual values and heritage are, and it's profoundly oriented towards the folks who have skills and dreams but no resources, and so I make open source software supporting 'em. I get excited when I can support a new platform like the new Raspberry Pi, not about thinking up stuff to excite about three of my audience who could throw me a hundred bucks a month. If I go over to serving only them I'll be doing only as they direct, and they absolutely don't have the vision to run my show and get anywhere worthwhile with it. This doesn't make the article worthless. I've been thinking very hard about how I can expand into hardware DIY and the article hints at possibilities there. I can try to come up with a DIY synth module that comes in under $20 for my primary base… or, apparently, if I can make the ultimate speaker cabinet using all my tricks and sell it to someone for $200, I could also execute it in the most sophisticated possible way, and sell it for $2000 to a superfan who is that kind of wealthy. The $20 guy can't afford either, but the $2000 guy doesn't need me to hold it to $200, they need me to make it special for them. Risk of course is if the $2000 guy doesn't exist or doesn't show up. Trying to target only the wealthy is dangerous. They are as fickle as your attitude towards them is. There's exactly one guy out there who randomly gave me $1000, and rather than demand a product, he wanted me to think about spherical harmonics in the belief that I might come up with something helpful in the field that interested him. I suspect there are guys out there who would likewise give me $1000 on the condition that I abandon what I do and start doing what they would do if they were me…

ryanbrunner 4y ago
I think the difference between what you're saying and this article is that you have customers, not patrons (or you're treating your patrons like customers). The people who shell out $1K a year aren't generally doing it because they are getting a product or service in return that is worth $1K / year to them, they're doing it because they believe in the mission of the creator and want to help support that. Most of our creators that have a "crazy amount of money" plan generally don't offer anything extra beyond gratitude to the big spenders (public gratitude, but still just gratitude). And oddly enough, the big spenders tend to be the least demanding. So long as you don't overcharge them or something, they don't have many demands, because they were never thinking of it as purchasing something in the first place.
- Applejinx 4y ago
  No, you've got it backwards. 'your creators'? Are you affiliated with this type of payment system? I'm in the top 100 music creators worldwide on Patreon, so I figure my observations are salient: it's working for me. I only have patrons. There's a set of tiers that are all voluntary, and a one dollar and two dollar tier that are very popular because people want to be doing something, especially when they have nothing and I'm helping them out. In my experience there are two kinds of 'whales': randomly appearing ones who throw money commensurate to THEIR resources (which will appear like a large sum to me), and the ones who want to throw money to get me to do something specific, and they have demands and often go away again if I don't comply. I enjoy the former and am not really interested in the latter. It's not that I'm mad at them, but if their ideas were that great they would be me… the reason I do as well as I do on Patreon with zero 'extra' and zero 'customers' is because I've got a vision and I'm executing on it. I'm not there to take requests, I'm there to show people something they have not seen, and also to give free opensource tools by way of executing on that vision. I'm not at all sure the 'people who shell out 1K a year because they believe in the mission' exist. Can't prove it by me, I don't have any of those. I do think there are people out there steering indie media figures politically in that way, but I don't think that counts, I think it's money laundering and a backchannel way of funding influencers to deliver specific messages. That's far from philanthropy, that's business (in the form of politics, usually, but probably there are examples that are more directly just business)

ryanbrunner 4y ago

I think the difference between what you're saying and this article is that you have customers, not patrons (or you're treating your patrons like customers). The people who shell out $1K a year aren't generally doing it because they are getting a product or service in return that is worth $1K / year to them, they're doing it because they believe in the mission of the creator and want to help support that. Most of our creators that have a "crazy amount of money" plan generally don't offer anything extra beyond gratitude to the big spenders (public gratitude, but still just gratitude). And oddly enough, the big spenders tend to be the least demanding. So long as you don't overcharge them or something, they don't have many demands, because they were never thinking of it as purchasing something in the first place.

Applejinx 4y ago
No, you've got it backwards. 'your creators'? Are you affiliated with this type of payment system? I'm in the top 100 music creators worldwide on Patreon, so I figure my observations are salient: it's working for me. I only have patrons. There's a set of tiers that are all voluntary, and a one dollar and two dollar tier that are very popular because people want to be doing something, especially when they have nothing and I'm helping them out. In my experience there are two kinds of 'whales': randomly appearing ones who throw money commensurate to THEIR resources (which will appear like a large sum to me), and the ones who want to throw money to get me to do something specific, and they have demands and often go away again if I don't comply. I enjoy the former and am not really interested in the latter. It's not that I'm mad at them, but if their ideas were that great they would be me… the reason I do as well as I do on Patreon with zero 'extra' and zero 'customers' is because I've got a vision and I'm executing on it. I'm not there to take requests, I'm there to show people something they have not seen, and also to give free opensource tools by way of executing on that vision. I'm not at all sure the 'people who shell out 1K a year because they believe in the mission' exist. Can't prove it by me, I don't have any of those. I do think there are people out there steering indie media figures politically in that way, but I don't think that counts, I think it's money laundering and a backchannel way of funding influencers to deliver specific messages. That's far from philanthropy, that's business (in the form of politics, usually, but probably there are examples that are more directly just business)