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While the numbers might be a bit hit and miss, the comparison with individual creators is fascinating and definitely hits upon something that keeps me from subs

While the numbers might be a bit hit and miss, the comparison with individual creators is fascinating and definitely hits upon something that keeps me from subscribing to patreons/etc. I don't have just one creator who I would consistently want to support the most, there are probably 10-20 who I would like to support, however I'm not going to pay 10x of them $5/h for content when YouTube is 1x $0.50/h (and has their content). To me, content creation is always going to need to be bundled at some level because I want diversity that no one creator is ever going to provide, and when bundling the price typically reduces because the bundling correctly recognises that consumption does not scale up.

josh-sematic 3y ago
You can support one for a few months, switch to another, etc.. Or just roll a dice and pick one of your favorites to support and leave it to others to support the others you like. Something is better than nothing if you want to keep independent creators around.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  Yeah all of this is just a lot of work and decisions, and rolling a dice just feels weird and unfair. I do pay for YT premium which distributes money across my views which is therefore somewhat fair, and I'm considering a Nebula subscription (if Curiosity Stream's sign up flow doesn't persuade me not to again). I wish that Patreon had a support format where I could pay, say, $20 a month to Patreon and have that spread between whoever I'm supporting in a way that's cost efficient on payment fees and stuff like that. It doesn't help though that individual creators price very highly relative to the amount of their content I consume. Fundamentally, a podcast is just not worth $10 a month to me because if I lost access I'd just listen to a different one.
  - josh-sematic 3y ago
    The dice strategy is only unfair if you look at it from the perspective that you’re the only one doing things that way. But lots of people are likely doing something similar to that so that on average across enough people it works out. I would wager that most people who support at least one creator probably still consume media from far more creators than they can afford to support, so they just pick one or two somehow and call it a day. It’s basically the way I do it.
    - danpalmer 3y ago
      Oh sure I realise rationally that it's fair, but given that my aim is somewhat to support creators and somewhat to feel good about supporting creators, it doesn't really help me on the latter because irrationally it feels unfair. I am not sure lots of people would be doing this though.
      - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
        Seems like you are stuck not supporting creators til you can support all the creators you may reasonably choose to support.
        motoxpro 3y ago
        I always think this is an intersting piece of human behavior. Either having to be perfectly "good" or not do anything at all. People do 0% instead of doing 5% because intellectually they understand what 100% looks like
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    > I'm considering a Nebula subscription (if Curiosity Stream's sign up flow doesn't persuade me not to again) Nebula and Curiosity Stream are in a bit of a "breakup period". Curiosity Stream will no longer bundle Nebula at all starting next month (next year). If you want Nebula, sign up directly with Nebula at this point. Or find a referral code from a channel that you like because they still get paid slightly more for direct referrals. I believe for a few more weeks they are still selling lifetime memberships, as an interesting way to amortize your spread for the next few years (and basically get a long term $/hr deal for a bigger short term investment), if that is something that interests you.
  - saaaaaam 3y ago
    > I wish that Patreon had a support format where I could pay, say, $20 a month to Patreon and have that spread between whoever I'm supporting in a way that's cost efficient on payment fees and stuff like that. This is (effectively) how "user centric" revenue models that have been proposed in music would work. Your monthly subscription would be assigned to creators that you listen to. The challenge in music is that it doesn't necessarily benefit smaller musicians much because people still listen to the big hits from big artists and major labels. In a platform like Patreon it could work quite well, because it's more of a walled garden. Pick a few creators, and then divvy up the revenue based on how much you engage with their content.
bad_user 3y ago
I agree. And for this reason I also think that people show hypocrisy when blocking ads on YouTube, saying that they support creators via other channels. Because everyone cares about price, and supporting creators individually gets expensive fast.
- jgtrosh 3y ago
  You can disagree with the economics of that strategy, but you can't call them hypocrits for put their money where their mouth is
- jtokoph 3y ago
  Someone can want to support an artist but disagree with the monetization strategy.
rglullis 3y ago
I wonder if there would be interest in a non-crypto version of the Brave program. In theory, that's exactly what they do: you set a total monthly donation and which creators you want to support, and the browser keeps track of how much each should get at the end of the month. Unfortunately, what ended up happening is that the program is too complicated for people with disposable income who would be interested and it got stuck in a bad spot between "big enough to attract crypto 'investors' who only care about hodling" and "not big enough to be attractive to high-profile creators".
- danpalmer 3y ago
  There was a startup many years ago that I can't remember the name of this who did a similar micropayment tipping sort of thing. The problem was that they essentially collected money on behalf of creators who had no idea the platform existed and they would have to then go and sign up to retrieve funds. I don't want to support creators through something they don't consent to using like that.
  - edent 3y ago
    There was https://flattr.com/ https://flattr.com/ and, more recently, https://twitter.com/coil https://twitter.com/coil But, yes, a complete chicken-and-egg problem.
    - danpalmer 3y ago
      It was Flattr, thanks edent! Very 2012, I actually shared an office with them but couldn't remember the name all this time later!
  - rglullis 3y ago
    To be honest, I don't mind if the middleman is actually holding the funds and gives them out when the taker signs up. Creating a totally new market where you need to develop both sides of the transaction is not an easy task.
  - noirscape 3y ago
jorvi 3y ago
Brave figured this out long ago with their BAT system IMO. Basically automated micropayments for content consumption (I mean, Basic Attention Token, what's in a name). You can either buy BAT directly or watch private-by-default ads, which takes away one of the biggest ethical qualms one can have with adblocking too. I know that HN has a prety small but ultra-vocal minority that will hate on Brave any chance they get, so expect a lot of disparaging comments.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  I do have a problem with the Brave/BAT system here, because it lacks consent from the creators. Brave show the user ads and grants them BAT, the user "gives" the BAT to the creator, and almost all creators won't know about this so it's in a black hole (controlled by Brave?). If I were a creator I'm not sure I'd like that, specifically not being able to opt-out at all(?) or at least not without signing up and giving my details.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    The BAT only leaves the user wallet if the creators joins the program. There is no black hole.
    - danpalmer 3y ago
      Ah good, that's better than Flattr and previous attempts at this then. Does this mean that if none of the creators you support accept BAT then you aren't paying anything? Does it mean that if just one of them accepts it then you're paying all of your BAT to them? What if you mostly watch YouTube channels of people who wouldn't be onboard with it, but get linked one video by someone you don't like but they do accept it, do they get all your BAT that month? Perhaps there are good answers to all of this, but getting it right sounds tricky!
      - pcthrowaway 3y ago
        See my other comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38685162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38685162 It's impossible for many creators to actually benefit from the program (but this isn't straightforward when they sign up, which does in fact leave a black hole)
eliblock 3y ago
I had an idea for a pay-per-minute youtube, where your time watched gets credited to the creator. I would rather just pay per use than worry about whether I'm using my subscriptions enough to be worth it.
- readams 3y ago
  That's sort of how YouTube premium actually works; creators are paid an allocation based on time watched for premium users to replace ad revenue.
  - eliblock 3y ago
    Yeah I guess in general I would just rather pay per use for streaming. Also it might feel more like directly supporting the creator.
    - nkohari 3y ago
      Most people aren't like you FWIW; there's a lot of research that suggests consumers prefer higher fixed prices to lower variable prices. The trouble with PPV (even if it's much cheaper than something like YouTube Premium) is that now before I watch any video, I have to consider whether that particular video is worth watching. For lots of content on YouTube, that bar would be too high to clear. It's much more comfortable knowing I've already paid for the service and don't need to think twice.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        > research that suggests consumers prefer higher fixed prices to lower variable prices. I'm one of them. I value predictability pretty highly when it comes to expenses. The less mental energy I have to spend on money-related things, the happier I am.
        nkohari 3y ago
        Me too. I'd imagine anyone who values time more than money would prefer the fixed-cost option. (And I learned a long time back buying time is the best possible use of money!)
notatoad 3y ago
> I would like to support This is the attitude that makes people fork over $70/hr to CGPGrey. I like these people's content, and want to support them too. But they don't need my financial support. They're all making way more money than me and probably you. If they wanted some sort of micropayment they could ask for it, but they're all pushing for the $10/month rate instead. Your $1/mo is so inconsequential to them that they don't actually want it. So don't worry about it. Just support them by thumbs-up-ing their videos and don't worry too much about their finances. They're fine.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  So tldr: "don't forget to like and subscribe"? /s
- caslon 3y ago
  Micropayments on the internet don't work. Payment processors charge 30¢ per transaction, plus a percentage. We are not in a system that allows for micropayments to work. You list a very famous content creator. On the other hand, there are lots of content creators who actually are struggling, and not making half as much as a minimum wage worker despite working longer hours than full-time. If you look at the Twitch leaks, the payment curve has a long tail; the vast majority of creators do not make very much at all, while the top creators tend to make out with multigenerational wealth in a year. This is especially true with CS-sphere content creators, because computer scientists seem especially reluctant to spend money, ever, if it isn't required of them, as they are very good at justifying not doing so with "They'll be fine!" In many cases, a sentiment that's right. In other cases, not so much. There are lots of Twitch streamers, open source software developers, and YouTubers that can't seem to find ways to monetize their content that work well. Oftentimes, these are some of the people that have the most interesting content! If a person likes someone's content, they should find a way to financially support that, if they're able.
  - gruez 3y ago
    > Micropayments on the internet don't work. Payment processors charge 30¢ per transaction, plus a percentage. Paypal micropayments has it down to 5% + 9 cents. https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees#micropaymentfixedfee https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees#micropay...
westurner 3y ago
> To me, content creation is always going to need to be bundled at some level W3C Web Monetization does micropayments with <$0.01 tx fee, but not KYC or AML. It is an open spec: https://webmonetization.org/specification/ https://webmonetization.org/specification/ Micropayments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment Upcoming, Subscribing, and Word of Mouth get creators more viewers and thus ad revenue.
JohnFen 3y ago
I pay pretty much all of the people whose stuff I use on a regular basis, but I don't pay any of them automatically or monthly. I just drop each of them a one-time $20 payment every so often.
mattmaroon 3y ago
I’ve debated a solution to this, at least with respect to podcasts.

josh-sematic 3y ago

You can support one for a few months, switch to another, etc.. Or just roll a dice and pick one of your favorites to support and leave it to others to support the others you like. Something is better than nothing if you want to keep independent creators around.

danpalmer 3y ago
Yeah all of this is just a lot of work and decisions, and rolling a dice just feels weird and unfair. I do pay for YT premium which distributes money across my views which is therefore somewhat fair, and I'm considering a Nebula subscription (if Curiosity Stream's sign up flow doesn't persuade me not to again). I wish that Patreon had a support format where I could pay, say, $20 a month to Patreon and have that spread between whoever I'm supporting in a way that's cost efficient on payment fees and stuff like that. It doesn't help though that individual creators price very highly relative to the amount of their content I consume. Fundamentally, a podcast is just not worth $10 a month to me because if I lost access I'd just listen to a different one.
- josh-sematic 3y ago
  The dice strategy is only unfair if you look at it from the perspective that you’re the only one doing things that way. But lots of people are likely doing something similar to that so that on average across enough people it works out. I would wager that most people who support at least one creator probably still consume media from far more creators than they can afford to support, so they just pick one or two somehow and call it a day. It’s basically the way I do it.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    Oh sure I realise rationally that it's fair, but given that my aim is somewhat to support creators and somewhat to feel good about supporting creators, it doesn't really help me on the latter because irrationally it feels unfair. I am not sure lots of people would be doing this though.
    - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
      Seems like you are stuck not supporting creators til you can support all the creators you may reasonably choose to support.
      - motoxpro 3y ago
        I always think this is an intersting piece of human behavior. Either having to be perfectly "good" or not do anything at all. People do 0% instead of doing 5% because intellectually they understand what 100% looks like
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  > I'm considering a Nebula subscription (if Curiosity Stream's sign up flow doesn't persuade me not to again) Nebula and Curiosity Stream are in a bit of a "breakup period". Curiosity Stream will no longer bundle Nebula at all starting next month (next year). If you want Nebula, sign up directly with Nebula at this point. Or find a referral code from a channel that you like because they still get paid slightly more for direct referrals. I believe for a few more weeks they are still selling lifetime memberships, as an interesting way to amortize your spread for the next few years (and basically get a long term $/hr deal for a bigger short term investment), if that is something that interests you.
- saaaaaam 3y ago
  > I wish that Patreon had a support format where I could pay, say, $20 a month to Patreon and have that spread between whoever I'm supporting in a way that's cost efficient on payment fees and stuff like that. This is (effectively) how "user centric" revenue models that have been proposed in music would work. Your monthly subscription would be assigned to creators that you listen to. The challenge in music is that it doesn't necessarily benefit smaller musicians much because people still listen to the big hits from big artists and major labels. In a platform like Patreon it could work quite well, because it's more of a walled garden. Pick a few creators, and then divvy up the revenue based on how much you engage with their content.

bad_user 3y ago

I agree. And for this reason I also think that people show hypocrisy when blocking ads on YouTube, saying that they support creators via other channels. Because everyone cares about price, and supporting creators individually gets expensive fast.

jgtrosh 3y ago
You can disagree with the economics of that strategy, but you can't call them hypocrits for put their money where their mouth is
jtokoph 3y ago
Someone can want to support an artist but disagree with the monetization strategy.

rglullis 3y ago

I wonder if there would be interest in a non-crypto version of the Brave program. In theory, that's exactly what they do: you set a total monthly donation and which creators you want to support, and the browser keeps track of how much each should get at the end of the month. Unfortunately, what ended up happening is that the program is too complicated for people with disposable income who would be interested and it got stuck in a bad spot between "big enough to attract crypto 'investors' who only care about hodling" and "not big enough to be attractive to high-profile creators".

danpalmer 3y ago
There was a startup many years ago that I can't remember the name of this who did a similar micropayment tipping sort of thing. The problem was that they essentially collected money on behalf of creators who had no idea the platform existed and they would have to then go and sign up to retrieve funds. I don't want to support creators through something they don't consent to using like that.
- edent 3y ago
  There was https://flattr.com/ https://flattr.com/ and, more recently, https://twitter.com/coil https://twitter.com/coil But, yes, a complete chicken-and-egg problem.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    It was Flattr, thanks edent! Very 2012, I actually shared an office with them but couldn't remember the name all this time later!
- rglullis 3y ago
  To be honest, I don't mind if the middleman is actually holding the funds and gives them out when the taker signs up. Creating a totally new market where you need to develop both sides of the transaction is not an easy task.
- noirscape 3y ago

jorvi 3y ago

Brave figured this out long ago with their BAT system IMO. Basically automated micropayments for content consumption (I mean, Basic Attention Token, what's in a name). You can either buy BAT directly or watch private-by-default ads, which takes away one of the biggest ethical qualms one can have with adblocking too. I know that HN has a prety small but ultra-vocal minority that will hate on Brave any chance they get, so expect a lot of disparaging comments.

danpalmer 3y ago
I do have a problem with the Brave/BAT system here, because it lacks consent from the creators. Brave show the user ads and grants them BAT, the user "gives" the BAT to the creator, and almost all creators won't know about this so it's in a black hole (controlled by Brave?). If I were a creator I'm not sure I'd like that, specifically not being able to opt-out at all(?) or at least not without signing up and giving my details.
- rglullis 3y ago
  The BAT only leaves the user wallet if the creators joins the program. There is no black hole.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    Ah good, that's better than Flattr and previous attempts at this then. Does this mean that if none of the creators you support accept BAT then you aren't paying anything? Does it mean that if just one of them accepts it then you're paying all of your BAT to them? What if you mostly watch YouTube channels of people who wouldn't be onboard with it, but get linked one video by someone you don't like but they do accept it, do they get all your BAT that month? Perhaps there are good answers to all of this, but getting it right sounds tricky!
    - pcthrowaway 3y ago
      See my other comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38685162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38685162 It's impossible for many creators to actually benefit from the program (but this isn't straightforward when they sign up, which does in fact leave a black hole)

eliblock 3y ago

I had an idea for a pay-per-minute youtube, where your time watched gets credited to the creator. I would rather just pay per use than worry about whether I'm using my subscriptions enough to be worth it.

readams 3y ago
That's sort of how YouTube premium actually works; creators are paid an allocation based on time watched for premium users to replace ad revenue.
- eliblock 3y ago
  Yeah I guess in general I would just rather pay per use for streaming. Also it might feel more like directly supporting the creator.
  - nkohari 3y ago
    Most people aren't like you FWIW; there's a lot of research that suggests consumers prefer higher fixed prices to lower variable prices. The trouble with PPV (even if it's much cheaper than something like YouTube Premium) is that now before I watch any video, I have to consider whether that particular video is worth watching. For lots of content on YouTube, that bar would be too high to clear. It's much more comfortable knowing I've already paid for the service and don't need to think twice.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > research that suggests consumers prefer higher fixed prices to lower variable prices. I'm one of them. I value predictability pretty highly when it comes to expenses. The less mental energy I have to spend on money-related things, the happier I am.
      - nkohari 3y ago
        Me too. I'd imagine anyone who values time more than money would prefer the fixed-cost option. (And I learned a long time back buying time is the best possible use of money!)

notatoad 3y ago

> I would like to support This is the attitude that makes people fork over $70/hr to CGPGrey. I like these people's content, and want to support them too. But they don't need my financial support. They're all making way more money than me and probably you. If they wanted some sort of micropayment they could ask for it, but they're all pushing for the $10/month rate instead. Your $1/mo is so inconsequential to them that they don't actually want it. So don't worry about it. Just support them by thumbs-up-ing their videos and don't worry too much about their finances. They're fine.

danpalmer 3y ago
So tldr: "don't forget to like and subscribe"? /s
caslon 3y ago
Micropayments on the internet don't work. Payment processors charge 30¢ per transaction, plus a percentage. We are not in a system that allows for micropayments to work. You list a very famous content creator. On the other hand, there are lots of content creators who actually are struggling, and not making half as much as a minimum wage worker despite working longer hours than full-time. If you look at the Twitch leaks, the payment curve has a long tail; the vast majority of creators do not make very much at all, while the top creators tend to make out with multigenerational wealth in a year. This is especially true with CS-sphere content creators, because computer scientists seem especially reluctant to spend money, ever, if it isn't required of them, as they are very good at justifying not doing so with "They'll be fine!" In many cases, a sentiment that's right. In other cases, not so much. There are lots of Twitch streamers, open source software developers, and YouTubers that can't seem to find ways to monetize their content that work well. Oftentimes, these are some of the people that have the most interesting content! If a person likes someone's content, they should find a way to financially support that, if they're able.
- gruez 3y ago
  > Micropayments on the internet don't work. Payment processors charge 30¢ per transaction, plus a percentage. Paypal micropayments has it down to 5% + 9 cents. https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees#micropaymentfixedfee https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees#micropay...

westurner 3y ago

> To me, content creation is always going to need to be bundled at some level W3C Web Monetization does micropayments with <$0.01 tx fee, but not KYC or AML. It is an open spec: https://webmonetization.org/specification/ https://webmonetization.org/specification/ Micropayments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment Upcoming, Subscribing, and Word of Mouth get creators more viewers and thus ad revenue.

JohnFen 3y ago

I pay pretty much all of the people whose stuff I use on a regular basis, but I don't pay any of them automatically or monthly. I just drop each of them a one-time $20 payment every so often.

mattmaroon 3y ago

I’ve debated a solution to this, at least with respect to podcasts.