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As a web developer [with horses in other races] it's hard to ignore statements like those in your last paragraph. Centralisation that "literally can’t be dupli

As a web developer [with horses in other races] it's hard to ignore statements like those in your last paragraph. Centralisation that "literally can’t be duplicated" is no cause for celebration; it's a broken black-hole monopoly and the more it grows, the more you have to use that platform if you want a "fair" shake against other creators; the harder it is for competition. You're technically right in what you said but I don't think it hurts to give people a little encouragement if they want to strike out and show people there's another way than just paying Patreon 5-12% or OnlyFans their 20%. We need creative solutions for getting away from relying on Amazon, Patreon, etc, etc to find the things we want.

boltzmann-brain 4y ago
Indeed, and it seems like true hubless p2p technology is the only real solution to this. It almost makes me wonder if the crackdown against p2p services that started back in the 90s was secretly motivated by a desire for bolstering blackhole monopolies.
- unity1001 4y ago
  P2p is not a solution to this simply because the problem is not in being able to get a recurring payment. The problems start with fraud, chargebacks, refunds and range all the way to having to collect and pay differing sales taxes that stream in from different economic regions of the OECD. California and other sales taxes in the US. EUVAT for European subscribers. Even Japan has its own VAT scheme. On top of that, you have to maintain a billing system. Its a b*tch. Anyone who tries to do those ends up spending a lot of their time in maintaining and sorting these out than doing their actual activity like art, music and so on. That's why services like Patreon are a godsend to, well, practically anyone. Anyone, because there are a lot of software developers (freeware, shareware, modders) who use Patreon to fund their software development.
  - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
    spoken like a true central banker :)
    - unity1001 4y ago
      Yeah. You turn into someone like that when you start running your own business and get to know the reality of payments, compliance, taxes, fraud, chargebacks and all that sh*t. And it doesn't matter how small is your business.
  - oliwarner 4y ago
    I think they mean P2P for federation, discoverability, searching. Handling payments, subscriptions, fraud, local tax kinks are mostly solved problems with the right intermediaries. Yeah, it's more than letting somebody else handle it, but —depending on your content— it's potentially 15% of your revenue.
    - unity1001 4y ago
      > Handling payments, subscriptions, fraud, local tax kinks are mostly solved problems with the right intermediaries. Yeah. And Patreon is that intermediary. That intermediary service is the difficult thing to do. > depending on your content— it's potentially 15% of your revenue. That's peanuts compared to the effort that goes to doing those stuff by yourself.

boltzmann-brain 4y ago

Indeed, and it seems like true hubless p2p technology is the only real solution to this. It almost makes me wonder if the crackdown against p2p services that started back in the 90s was secretly motivated by a desire for bolstering blackhole monopolies.

unity1001 4y ago
P2p is not a solution to this simply because the problem is not in being able to get a recurring payment. The problems start with fraud, chargebacks, refunds and range all the way to having to collect and pay differing sales taxes that stream in from different economic regions of the OECD. California and other sales taxes in the US. EUVAT for European subscribers. Even Japan has its own VAT scheme. On top of that, you have to maintain a billing system. Its a b*tch. Anyone who tries to do those ends up spending a lot of their time in maintaining and sorting these out than doing their actual activity like art, music and so on. That's why services like Patreon are a godsend to, well, practically anyone. Anyone, because there are a lot of software developers (freeware, shareware, modders) who use Patreon to fund their software development.
- boltzmann-brain 4y ago
  spoken like a true central banker :)
  - unity1001 4y ago
    Yeah. You turn into someone like that when you start running your own business and get to know the reality of payments, compliance, taxes, fraud, chargebacks and all that sh*t. And it doesn't matter how small is your business.
- oliwarner 4y ago
  I think they mean P2P for federation, discoverability, searching. Handling payments, subscriptions, fraud, local tax kinks are mostly solved problems with the right intermediaries. Yeah, it's more than letting somebody else handle it, but —depending on your content— it's potentially 15% of your revenue.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    > Handling payments, subscriptions, fraud, local tax kinks are mostly solved problems with the right intermediaries. Yeah. And Patreon is that intermediary. That intermediary service is the difficult thing to do. > depending on your content— it's potentially 15% of your revenue. That's peanuts compared to the effort that goes to doing those stuff by yourself.