Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture
theverge.com
theverge.com
Before Patreon, internet content creators (from the BBC to a little indie band) were in a dangerous place. Paygates couldn't sustain growth but ad-supported free media couldn't sustain revenue (now more than ever with ad-blockers). Now there is an answer.
I am totally convinced Patreon (or the patreon model) is the future of content creation. Ethical, decentralized, economically viable flourishing of the arts.
If anyone at Patreon reads this, I would love to come work for you, please contact me sparrowmaxx at google’s email service. :)
Legit question, because I'm not sure why you bring it up
> Social cohesion is defined as the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper.
Isn't there a Black Mirror episode about this with social capital? [+]
I guess I'm not sure what you mean by that. examples maybe?
On one extreme, you have the Dalai Lama, the latest Pope, and Bernie Sanders. The other: the Kardashians, Kanye West, and Martin Shkreli.
NOTE: I'm mostly talking out of my ass here as I've never really thought much about this subject before. I'd gladly welcome new ways of seeing this issue and facts that counter my view.
It seems to me that Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are causing extreme narcissism to embed itself in younger cohorts, along with workers being more mobile causing family units to fall apart. The shitty parts of human behavior are being exploited by tech companies for obscene profits with no governance of their actions.
Data shows that loneliness kills, but we shun extended family living arrangements in the US (you still live with your parens/grandparents?). Data shows that social media networks trigger the same parts of your brain as cocaine, and are just as addictive.
Just my two cents.
Social media narcissism: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+media+narcissism
Health risks with loneliness: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...
There absolutely are negative aspects to these changes, but I think there's also a lot of good aspects to them as well. Instead of viewing these changes as good or bad, I guess I generally see them as "just different". Additionally, I think a lot of the bad sides to these issues seem to be ones that already existed to one degree or another, and hopefully this will increase our ability to fix them.
> The shitty parts of human behavior are being exploited by tech companies for obscene profits with no governance of their actions.
I absolutely agree with this though, and think that we should be doing a much better job here.
"Millennials are moving significantly less than earlier generations of young adults."
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/13/americans-ar...
However, alienation is about to get a hell of a lot more crushing.
Who gets to decide what commons we all should share?
Record labels and publishers?
Youtube, facebook and twitter are already exercising undue influence in terms of algo changes to suggested videos or auto-play videos.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/1/16072840/youtube-placing-l...
It's a marketplace of ideas. Let them compete. Google deciding what's good and what's not is not fair to the people who want to decide for themselves.
tldrl; eat your own dogfood before telling others to do so.
Youtube is big media? It's only in recent history that Youtube is exercising power to decide what stays and what doesn't, even if it meets the youtube content policy. This is political opinion enforced by youtube.
Given Google is a public company, taking one side or another in a political discussion may not be in their interest, it would be their right of first amendment to change the sites they own as they wish, but it dilutes the usefulness and trustworthiness of their product in the eyes of the customers, and the stock holders may not like it that way. The employees have fiduciary duty to not impose their political views on their product.
I am asking these companies as a fan of their platform that they keep it neutral.
I am not selling any dogfood. I am asking dogfood companies to sell it to all dog owners, don't discriminate if they have a poodle or a pit bull.
The evolution will converge towards content creators being funded through decentralized crypto currency platforms so that the money cannot be prevented from getting to creators if someone wants to pay them.
Something more along the lines of https://lbry.io/ and similar..
Currently BTC and the like are push vs pull payment systems, so until smart contracts are widely used to enable subscription payments, this will be a blocker.
I much prefer having sensible humans at the helm than have something purely anonymous.
More Iain Banks "Culture", that's the universe I'd choose out of all sci-fi to live in I think.
The core problem is that you're interacting with entities you can't control. It's almost tautological; if you can't control them, by definition they can do things you don't like.
I've only read the first Culture book, but I'm pretty sure the Idirans didn't feel like the Culture AIs were "sensible".
The machines invented the matrix because humans would riot if the simulation was too perfect or too shitty, so instead it was made perfectly normal. The machines didn't care either way, they just wanted to prevent more random "wakeup" events that were caused when the world was unrealistic.
So we can't know what is good for a dog other than what they tell us. Dog is biting us or whining, we're probably doing the right thing. Sure, you can throw in a bit of human empathy to account for the fact that we cuddle and pet our dogs, but we still know what they like based on what they're telling us.
In the beginning perhaps humans used dogs in an exploitative way, but many of the relationships now are mutual. Most dogs owners I know treat their dog as if it were "man's best friend", and they generally seem to reciprocate. The machines in the matrix wanted us for our value as a resource not for companionship and they certainly didn't respect us.
I think exploitation and benevolence are opposed if not mutually exclusive.
Luckily we live in bodies that are almost exactly the same as dogs.
The reason why you empathize with a dog more than an octopus is precisely because our bodies are similar.
Do you have another theory as to why we empathize with dogs more than, say, a forest, or a hive of ants?
We could choose to be benevolent to octupi in a number of ways. We know killing them is bad from their perspective. We know that some like making homes and all like eating certain eating food and we know many other things. We could get very far by acting in accordance with their apparent desires and simply not exploiting them or their environment.
You can only even perceive their apparent desires to the extent you can map them onto your own experiences.
You could offer them language for controlling you, and they could learn to use it according to their desires, through trial and error, but without shared bodily experience you cant understand those desires.
And them being able to control you doesn't solve the benevolence problem. Because benevolence is understanding without ceding control. For you to be benevolent you need to actually understand them, which requires shared experience.
This is why I think consent is a much better basis for social coordination than benevolence.
In the case of AIs it is somewhat moot, because the first general/hard AIs will be clones of humans in humanoid bodies.
A large scale ship's AI reduced to a single ancillary, having to deal with humans on their level
I know it won a bunch of awards.
If he had angels any system could work. If we had devils no system could work. The reality is in between.
You should probably read into the history on that one too...
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
It's identical conceptually to walking up to someone and blasting an airhorn in their ear. That too is an act of physical violence, not free speech, and you're responsible for the consequences (such as hearing damage) just as with the act of shouting "Fire!".
but rather, restrictions on telling the truth, such as outlawing shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there's actually a fire.
This is what defining "right think" means, where you have to confine your discourse to what is socially acceptable, whether or not what you're saying is true.
This is the real problem, and vague corporate or government policies outlawing "hate speech" are vague, subjective, Orwellian, and don't event attempt to assess truthiness or falsiness.. they appeal to hurt feelings. Which are always and forever in the eye of the beholder. A hecklers veto to ideas one disagrees with.
It's beyond scary that so many smart people here and around the country & world are perfectly fine to go down this road...
The screaming lunatics are free to host their own bake sale at their house.
Government is a sufficient but not necessary condition for upholding free speech.
Ok, and. Do you believe only governments are a threat to free speech?
Free Speech is a concept that every person, every company, every government should work to up hold.
While governments can and have been the source of censorship, that is not the only source.
Today free speech is under massive assault not by Government but by Society at large, society it seems have lost all respect for the concept, instead of holding the position of "I disagree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it" people instead hold the idea "I disagree with what you say so I will boycott companies that hire you, or allow you to speak, or do anything to even tangentially associate themselves with you" and increasingly people have the position of "I disagree with you so I will punch you in the face"
This is very very scary and is direct assault on free speech.
Barring a legally binding contract or criminal activity, no one is under any obligation to protect the civil rights of those on their property. If I wanted to hold a "whites only" house party and turn away minorities at the door, I can do that. If I refuse to allow protesters to use my front lawn as a staging area, I can do that. If I own a website and someone says something I don't like, I can ban them. If someone doesn't like Patreon's policies then they are welcome to start Conservatreon.
I think the scarier prospect is people thinking that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement within their domains, and to make determinations about civil rights. Sure it may seem rosy for free speech, but you're opening the flood gates with that one.
Free speech simply says that you can't be arrested for speaking. It doesn't say people have to listen, and forcing people to listen is only going to worsen the situation you describe.
Refusing to rebroadcast or support the opinions of someone you don't like is at present not a crime, and I sincerely hope it stays that way. Because otherwise you have to apply the same logic to other rights. And that sort of extremism leads to some crazy outcomes.
For example, in the US the 2nd amendment is, under the law, of equal importance as the 1st. So should I, as a gun owner, demand that I should be allowed to carry my firearm anywhere, on anyone's property; and claim that for them to deny me that right is a violation of my 2nd amendment rights? I'm pro-gun and even to me that sounds crazy, as it would to many pro-gunners who are usually big on personal property rights. There's a reason Full30.com exists.
Or how about the right to freedom of assembly (also part of the first amendment)? Should I be forced to allow protesters to use my property, as disallowing them violates their first amendment rights?
There are many, many gun owners who argue exactly that. That "gun free zones" are anti-Constitutional, be those zones publicly owned, or privately owned.
This shouldn't be news to you.
It's directly analogous to my previous example. It is illegal for businesses to deny service on the basis of skin color. It isn't, however, illegal for a private residence to do so.
You do know there are many gun owners that advocate for passing laws that make signs stating a property is "gun free" to be unenforceable as a matter of law right?
And view "gun free" government buildings to be unconstitutional
For my part I see the signs as useful. If I see a "gun free" sign on a business that just tells me to spend my money elsewhere if possible.
Even when the shoe is on the other foot, e.g. a baker who does not want to disseminate interracial or same-sex wedding cake?
Deferring to "that is a crime" is no help because your argument is that it should not be a crime to refuse to disseminate speech you don't like.
There is no principled way to draw a line here. Either you don't compel speech or you do.
Sure the Right of association, and I suppose property rights give them the legal ability to this.
However most of these platform publicly and loudly proclaim themselves as "Free Speech Platform", open to all points of view, open to all. Even in the public responses to the outcry over the bannings on Patreon their first statement was "See support free speech but...."
Once they add the but, they show themselves to not be supporters of free speech, instead they show themselves to be supporters of limited speech as defined by theit terms of that is acceptable speech.
Saying "We Support limited acceptable speech" however does not make for a good sound bite.
Claiming to support free speech while imposing speech codes, rules and terms is Fraud IMO.
So if platforms want to censor, want to limit speech fine, they need to stop claiming they support free speech when they do not. To do otherwise should be considered fraud
Most of these platform get to be very very large to the point of more or less monopolistic due to their claims of supporting free speech, then once they are the market dominate force they bait and switch their users and become a limited speech platform. That is a classic old as time form of fraud.
>>I think the scarier prospect is people thinking that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement within their domains, and to make determinations about civil rights.
I am not even sure what that means or the point you are attempting to convey here, Nothing I stated indicated that property holders should be forced to act as law enforcement.....
>>Free speech simply says that you can't be arrested for speaking.
No, that is not what "free speech simply says" Free Speech is a ethical axiom. Even wikipedia does not have such a limited view of the concept, the first line in the Wikipedia entry on Freedom of Speech is "Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction" See the "or societal sanction" part.
As for the rest, it would appear I'm thinking more from an (American) legal perspective and the implications of various measures that might be taken, whereas you're thinking from a more philosophical perspective. If you have a way to prevent "societal sanction" without violating other rights in the process then I suggest you find a way to get nominated for a Nobel.
It's all well and good to state that everyone should listen to everyone else and that not to do so is a violation of free speech. I'm just not sure how that goes beyond theory. Even in the most benign case, that of time, people have to sleep. Am I violating someone's right to free speech if I refuse to listen on account of exhaustion? Would my old college dormitory's "quiet hours" be considered "societal sanction"?
No you are seeing me state that is a violation of Freedom of Speech and jump the erroneous conclusion that I desire some kind of law, or legal penalty for that violation. I do not.
I merely want to people recognize that it is infact a violation of the concept and stop defending companies when they violate the concept or at least stop saying that is "not a free speech violation" when it clearly is.
If you support the censorious actions have the balls to call them censorious and stand by them.
> Am I violating someone's right to free speech if I refuse to listen on account of exhaustion? Would my old college dormitory's "quiet hours" be considered "societal sanction"?
Aside from the fact this is strawman lets address it anyone
Inaction on your personal part of not listening would not violating the other persons right to express themselves.
You showing up where the person is speaking with a bull horn to suppress their speech is, setting fire to a building to shut down speech is, blocking the entrances to building where speech is taking place is, boycotting advertisers is, calling employers and getting people fired is.
See all of the examples I give are POSITIVE actions people use to SUPPRESS the speech of others.
As to your college dorm "quit hours", this likely would not be a free speech violation either provided the dorms where not promoted or advertised a public space where people free to express themselves and that the hours where clearly known , established and enforced uniformly. How if there were not published quite hours, and tue night there was a vegan rally that was allowed to occur, but then on wed night there was gun rights rally that was shut down because of "quite hours" then yes I would consider that to be free speech violation.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it up to them who they want to do business with? What is the obligation this non-governmental entity has to act as host?
In a sense, wouldn't forcing Patreon to be open to all (again including groups with a message of hate and inciting violence) be a violation of their rights?
Personally I don't think these companies should be legally forced to support freedom of discourse on their platforms by the government.
I think that consumers should force the companies to support free speech, and they should punish companies that support censorship by boycotting those companies into bankruptcy.
The world is a better place when it is free from censorship. Censorship is still bad, even if it is legal and done by private parties. Censorship supporting people and companies should be bankrupted by the market.
This site itself is highly censored (in the form of rules and moderation) so you aren't even upholding your own ideals by commenting here.
That's not how boycotts work.
If I were able to convince millions of people to my side, THEN I would start doing the boycott stuff.
That is the only way to have boycotts work. You have to get millions of people to be on your side and everyone has to do it all at once.
But if I had a magic wand that I could wave that would make this happen, then I'd absolutely do so.
It'd be like if I criticized a dictator and you responded by saying "well, if you hate our Supreme leader so much, then why don't you form a revolutionary movement and see how THAT works for you".
Not sure what you mean by highly censored, I've seen plenty of unpopular opinions on HN and people that were expressing them were never banned, in fact those users were fairly rude without being personal. Not allowing personal attacks on HN is not just a common courtesy, it protects it users from defamation, falsehoods about their life and kidnapping of topics; those are all reasons that are perfectly compatible with freedom of speech. Detaching a tread is not censoring, I never seen it happen because of uncomfortable opinions but when it becomes hugely off topic it's clearly a valid thing to do.
Not to mention that doxxing and harassment are not free speech in the first place.
E.g. Anita Sarkeesian publicly calling one of her online political opponents a shithead and garbage human from the stage at a conference. He was sitting in the audience quietly. Result: he (not she) gets barred from returning on the grounds that his presence was somehow threatening, while her open vicious insults are passed over.
E.g. Zoe Quinn's crash override network had a chat log leaked where they were organizing harassment and doxing. No consequence.
Double standards everywhere.
This is why they like super vague terms like harassment and hate speech. If the term has huge flexibility, the people with power have huge arbitrary power to apply it.
As for the other one, you're gonna have to provide proof.
Maybe you need to read unbiased news because they were not, nor did they do anything that could even remotely considered harassment. Attending a talk of your political opposite is not harassment
Though I do think they went WAY over board on the reaction to being called "Garbage Human" but I understand why as they are correct if the roles where reversed the SJW reaction would have been FAR FAR more dramatic...
>>and I cannot be upset that he was banned.
He was banned? From where?
For one, if they were there to harass, you would expect them to have done some harassing. I have seen no examples of that. The only possible thing that could be construed as harassing behaviour was them being there in the first place - and I don't think that's a very high bar to set for harassment.
I mean, you can watch the videos[0] of the event yourself. None of it looked particularly harassing to me, until Sarkeesian started attacking the audience.
Not sure what exactly you're referring to when you say 'the story' but the articles I've seen don't seem to paint the same picture ([1] for example).
[0] First video I found, shows the whole talk. The point in question comes about 2:30 into the video.
https://youtu.be/XwcRc5LuElA?t=151
[1] https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/3946095/youtuber-sargon-of-akk...
Yes, their is. Their behavior, both at the event and their prior behavior online towards her both suggest that is the entire reason for them being there.
This is a lie. And you don't have a fact to back it up.
https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/6/27/15880582/anita-sa...
now we have large mainstream internet communities like reddit that also put justifiable limits on what can be said. no one is saying you cant start a racist irc channel or bbs board, they are saying that horrible things shouldn't be said on a massive platform that millions of people see
The New York times also never publicly advertised themselves as a "Free Speech Platform" that was "open to all persons and views"
>they are saying that horrible things shouldn't be said on a massive platform that millions of people see
Well one, it is clear you yourself are not a supporter of Freedom of Speech.
Two, so do you believe that a massive platform with millions of people should be forced to sensor speech you find to be "horrible"
One of the things I always question when people start classify speech as "horrible" is who subjective it is. For example I think it is "horrible" that the christian region is given prominent placement in society. I believe the views of the Christian Region to be "horrible" and I consider indoctrinating children into said religion to be abuse. Would you support a massive platform banning all references to Christianity? And if they did would support them calling themselves "Supporters of Free Speech" while doing so?
//and before the Christians get all butt hurt, I oppose any and all organized religions, I think they are all bullshit. Christianity however is the most popular religion in America so I use it to highlight my point
i think you're wrong about christianity, and we can debate whether or not advocacy of it should be allowed on a public platform. i think comparing it to nazism, targeted harassment, child porn/revenge porn, and hate speech (really the only things banned on reddit for example) is delusional
There is no way for you to make up a rule about what should be banned besides "I don't agree with it".
I'm all in favor of that.
Do you support them?
The quotes from Alexander Hamilton and J.S. Mill in the below link sums it up well, IMHO: http://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/
If it's an online platform dedicated to bake sales, then it's fine to limit it to that. But things like Youtube aren't -- they are a dominant platform and it's at least immoral or an affront to Enlightenment ideals to selectively limit from speech they disagree with based on political views.
Want to talk politics from a moderate, conservative, liberal, socialist, or libertarian perspective? Sure. But advocating violent revolution is something different.
There's a lot of room between a totalitarian Ministry of Thought and enabling actively harmful extremism.
If a someone shows up and orders 5 tons of ammonium nitrate in December and want's it shipped to Washington DC that's very much a reason to decline and possibly contact law enforcement even as a private citizen. Similarly, free speech has never been an invitation to say anything in any way at any time.
In this analogy, you're probably suspected of fruit-related crimes. Patreon isn't obligated to enable criminal behavior.
Actually you likely can
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_t...
Is also illegal
Further the entire concept of "hate Speech" is rife for abuse and is antithesis of Free Speech.
How do you objectively define "Hate Speech", do you trust government to define this, that is a scary thought if you do...
How did it make you feel?
With that being said, having been the victim of assault multiple times in my life, once needing extensive hospitalization due to the injuries sustained, I can comfortably say that I don't view these two things as being remotely analogous and wholly reject the notion that speech, even speech that I find hurtful or distasteful, is assault.
Edit: I'll also add that while I personally disagree with your premise that speech can be categorized as assault, I don't think that your position is necessarily unreasonable. Again, I'm not in agreement but it isn't so outrageous a view that I think well meaning and thoughtful people couldn't hold those same views. However, when you start off your argument by stating that anyone holding a contrary opinion must be puerile(I'm not very smart so I had to make sure I remembered the correct definition) it doesn't lend itself to any meaningful discussion.
Individuals are free to choose the way they process the information and commentary they receive. When someone physically assaults you, there is no choice involved, and your life is legitimately and immediately threatened by such activity in the real, physical, and non-abstract sense.
It is great that we are all thinking about what we say, but speech is unequivocally not the same as physical assault, and it's farcical to suggest it should be.
Some individuals fight tooth and nail to silence this idea because they're threatened by the implication that their own choices have any role to play in their misery. Life requires a lot less effort when everything bad is somebody else's fault.
Because it's false. Words can and do hurt people, and it's not necessarily a result of their choices.
You can argue that this harm is less severe, or that preventing it isn't worth limiting speech, but to suggest it doesn't exist is just myopic.
The old cliche you speak of only works in a few situations. Someone calling you names or saying mean things on the street don't really hurt you if they are isolated incidents. This is the usual context when this is used. But in a broader sense? It simply doesn't pan out. It isn't the same thing, no, but I'm not sure why that matters. A slap on the rear someone should be able to get over, a punch maybe not. I'm pretty sure both can be prosecuted as physical assult in some situations yet in others, be perfectly acceptable courses of action. Same with words, it depends on how you use them to how much damage it will do.
It's true in the ways that are pertinent to this discussion. Another poster equated speech with assault. I would guess most with that worldview haven't spent much time being assaulted in the physical sense.
No one is saying that words don't have significance or power. The point is that, in a very literal way, words can never hurt, physically hurt, those who hear them. The listener has time to collect their thoughts, understand the circumstances, and choose an interpretation and a reaction. We hope they will choose healthy interpretations and reactions, even if the original speaker did not.
Meanwhile, a victim of a true violent crime like a mugging, carjacking, or politically-motivated beating doesn't have time to think down the road about how badly someone's words hurt their psyche, because they're busy bleeding and dying, in the literal sense that their body may permanently cease to function, if they aren't treated within minutes or hours. They were attacked without choice or option, and their body is reacting to the physical realities thrust upon it, and all the victim can really do is try to remain optimistic about things.
Yes, it is sad when someone is bullied or otherwise made to feel bad about themselves. But it isn't anywhere near the same thing as a person who has undergone an actual assault.
The saying really is not really hard to grasp, and it's widely applicable. That's why it's a tired old cliche. :)
But now we know better. How you talk changes how you think. Violent rhetoric normalizes that behavior. Refuting misbeliefs cements the falsehood. Propaganda works.
Worse, the hate speech has become a virtue signal, a tribal identifier. It's become overtly political, a bludgeon.
I now prefer to think of free speech as a form of hygiene. Sure, feel free to poop on the sidewalk, but don't expect me to accept that as permissible behavior.
> Violent rhetoric normalizes that behavior.
Consider "A Modest Proposal" where Swift normalizes eating babies http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
I see this trend as deeply disturbing where only those official journalist are allowed to write satirical essays online and common persons are banned because they become labeled as racists, mysogenists etc. Heck even PewDiePie was kicked from youtube red because some journalists blatantly mislabeled his satire as racism.
Who's right? Who's wrong? I don't care. I'm fresh out of goodwill.
My only desire is that society stop enabling the bickering. Which will continue as long as clickbaiting (selling advertisement) makes money.
I think that one should be clear here and distinguish between slander/defamation of a person and speech that "hurts someones feelings". If I criticize the ideas that you hold and it hurts your feelings it's is not a mental abuse if you start to interpret it that way it's your fault and should seek the psychiatrist. There is a real danger that we keep redefining words: hateful speech, mental abuse. Ideas are not people, religion is not an ethnicity, your beliefs are not sacred. What is a form of mental abuse btw is indoctrinating your (or someones) children, meaning religious schools are a form of mental abuse, sending your kids to a political party camp or enforcing your particular ideology on them is a form of mental abuse etc. But somehow everyone keeps ignoring it, it's not my kids so why should I care; I regard it as deeply hurtful for society.
The liberal democratic nations have separation of powers: legislature, courts, law enforcement, civil society.
Through these institutions we attempt to develop laws, regulations, and codes of conduct, that attempt to define acceptable behaviour, rights and responsibilities, protections, and punishments.
This is all in a constant state of flux, there is no end-point, no "this is how it is, for all time and places and circumstances".
We should probably, at a minimum, be vocal about what we believe and support.
There is no right answer here, only opinions, and attempts at persuasive argument. That's all we have.
This is where I disagree. I am proponent of Lockean natural or self evident rights. Government's sole purpose it is protect my individual rights that I have simply because I exist. These rights are an extension of my Self Agency or Self Ownership.
Government is not to define what is "accptable behaviour" or to define what my rights are, or what codes of conduct is to be.
Law should simply be the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. This common force is to only protect persons, liberty and property.
Who gets to decide draw the line between the sincere desire for free speech, and extending the line to include disingenuous calls for "free speech" which are designed to shelter forms of toxic and manipulative behavior that people are just using as a tool to push their preferred ideology?
Are there any legal precedents upholding this? Being the inciting ring-leader of a violent mob is one thing, but if someone called me a mick for spilling their Guinness, I wouldn't call that an assault
"Hate speech is speech which attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender. In the law of some countries, hate speech is described as speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it incites violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected group, or individual on the basis of their membership of the group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected group, or individual on the basis of their membership of the group."
It times past, I'd just use LMGTFY. But now? I dunno. Maybe I've lost the will to live.
It's when you yell "fire" in a crowded theater when there is a fire, and that is outlawed.
"Hate speech" is a hecklers veto on telling the truth. On speaking truth to power. On criticizing, mocking, disagreeing, debating about ideas, people, groups, political policies, governments, special interests, religions etc.. that are off limits from scrutiny and insult.
It has no limiting principle, is not well defined, is subjective to an absurd degree, and essentially nullifies the 1st amendment.. because almost anything controversial can be labeled hate speech. As if hurt feelings or even deplorable points of view are the ultimate crimes to be legislated against.
Throughout human history, when totalitarian regimes have oppressed millions of people, there was no limit to what could have been labeled hate speech when professing views against the government.
Free exchange and debate in a free marketplace of ideas should allow anyones stupid point of view to be presented and defeated / opposed, supported, agreed with, or not.
Why people should be outlawed from hating things that they want to hate is beyond me. Professing an opinion or belief about something or someone in and of itself should not be restricted, as long as their actions or presentation of said ideas is consistent with allowing others to do the same. So bullying and intimidation and other forms of such...no.
Freedom above all else. Give me liberty or death..
I personally love this analogy because it makes it so much easier to identify when someone is unfamiliar with how US 1st amendment law works.
As to focusing on hate speech in particular, I see two major issues at play. What exactly counts as hate speech and who is protected from it. Disagreements on these lead to some people saying hate speech should because they are viewing a definition of hate speech they don't agree with.
free speech means everyone can participate in a marketplace of ideas, where competing perspectives challenge each other to expose the truth. i don't think you could defend targeted harassment and advocacy of violence by that measure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_t...
Private organizations or communities can do whatever they want. It's frustrating to constantly see the same argument as if everyone must be allowed on every platform - that's simply not the case.
Decentralized uncensorable platforms will take their place, funded by currency that cannot by blocked.
If we reduce free speech to a binary yes/no, then almost no where has free speech because everywhere has limits on what it will allow. They might have as free of speech as legally possible. They may even allow some illegal content (stuff that is technically illegal but three letter agencies won't spend time hunting you down for hosting). But if we have it as a binary option, then no where has free speech.
Also, to somewhat contradict what I just said, most places don't even have 'as allowed to the maximum extent of the law' free speech. A really good test, would a website support nude non-pornographic images that aren't illegal (at least by federal US statute) but which most everyone will assume are illegal at first glance? I'm willing to bet they won't.
And currently, Patreon can only stop you from using their platform; they can not stop you from being paid. I can see an argument eventually being able to be formed behind "people effectively only use Patreon, so not being on it is a death knell" (like YouTube), but it's nowhere near that point yet.
Even if it was as low as patreon dollars would be superior for 99% of people. When you need dinner on the table, dollars getting direct deposited into your account > worrying about bitcoin prices and selling coins. The only people who have any reason to switch are those who are producing content that is seen as intolerable, people trying to avoid taxes or the law, and people making moral stands.
Despite all of that, I don't think you need crypto for this. Patreon dropping people out of distaste is giving money to competitors who don't care. What would stop that is credit card companies refusing processing to these companies.
The pressure will always be to the biggest platforms, and those are conventional ones. Creators will be easier to discover on the bigger platform- if you already support someone on patreon, you can find similar creators, incentivizing creators to join patreon. Bigger platforms also have economies of scale and head starts on making beautiful, convenient interfaces.
The pressure towards established platforms will always be greater than the pressure towards permissive, decentralized platforms. Patreon just has to not fuck up too bad and they will still have the monetary advantage on 99% of creators (well... unless they kick off all of the camgirls).
A more interesting question is whether Patreon would ever switch to bitcoin. They could take a much bigger percentage. They could leverage their size to provide more stable prices, or even just force creators to accept bitcoin's volatility. The platform would still be central and moderated, and if someone managed to create a decentralized alternative with good bitcoin pricing, Patreon would be able to outprice them. There would be basically no path towards a decentralized alternative at that point.
The risk/reward is still too low for Patreon, I think. As is, a patron decides how much money the creator gets and is basically blind to how much they pay unless they check their statements. Neither party would really see an advantage to switching to bitcoin, since Patreon and the creators would still get the same amount of money, and the Patrons mostly aren't aware of the potential extra 30 cents. They're also very unlikely to care.
Have you? Are you thinking of Lauren Southern? Or maybe It's Going Down? The explanation from Patreon is very reasonable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmcK6GvgVPs
The free speech is not necessary for the speech you agree with. It is for the speech, you don't agree with. Just because Patreon guys are fans of Antifa does not mean, they should bring their ideology to the business.
Speaking as a decently-large Patreon user and one that has advocated for it to the point of probably sounding almost like a shill on HN despite not being connected to them other than as customer... I don't use Patreon to use Patreon qua Patreon, nor do I do use any of their site discovery mechanisms to discover anyone. YMMV. I support the artists. If and when the artists I follow move around, I will follow them; I've already got a couple of recurring Paypal payments for people who work that way.
Ultimately Patreon's political preferences won't matter for much. It may superficially resemble the debate about Facebook/Google news filtering algorithms, but the situation is actually entirely different and the question isn't all that relevant in the long term. I think the fact that we're not talking about "free" here helps a lot.
The video literally shows clips of behavior. The common theme of the video is “manifest observable behavior”. The video explains how actions, not speech, are what broke the terms of service. I really recommend you watch it. (Odd use of quotation marks – you directly quoted me, but completely made up what Patreon said.)
> Just because the Patreon guys are fans of Antifa […]
If they were such fans, I'm not sure they'd have removed IGD.
I see you are new to the game of presenting video clips out of context and manipulating the audience.
> The common theme of the video is “manifest observable behavior”. The video explains how actions, not speech, are what broke the terms of service. I really recommend you watch it. (Odd use of quotation marks – you directly quoted me, but completely made up what Patreon said.)
That video was widely commented, for example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_yIp7eQO1c
That odd quotation said what exactly Patreon did, not what they said they are doing.
This is a meaningless accusation without evidence.
Yeah, right. Lauren Southern, complaining about being removed: "I was in no way a part of Defend Europe. I was merely an observer".
Lauren Southern, ON Defend Europe: "Go go go, get in front of them! You need to get in front, come around, block them and they'll have to stop", "And if the politicians won't stop them, then we will!"
Yeah. "Observer".
But tell us all about how our "context" is wrong, and Lauren was maligned.
http://steemit.com is an example of precisely this. Will check out lbry.io.
Ads is a good business model, very unfortunate that greed created this current toxic ads crash browsers and waste way to much CPU cycles - Google & co need to step in and throttle the ads.
See the example in the original article for a great example: Peter Hollens was originally only ad supported, and was living the raman/couchsurfing life. He is now Patreon supported and making enough to support a family and touring.
I don't know of any solely ad supported channels making over $11k a month for 1-2 videos.
Ads are also lovely, I get your point... but let's not pretend it's not great to see an alternative which doesn't suffer (as much) from the above issues, and can build genuine interaction/support/community between creators and users of content.
On one hand, patronage perfectly replaces all the draconian reasons modern IP exists as it does. Paying people to make the stuff you want them to make versus having them paid by someone looking to profit off government enforced scarcity on the produced work is much, much better for everyone involved (except the middle men).
On the other, unless Patreon itself goes non-profit / public benefit like Kickstarter / decentralizes their platform it would be insane to let a private company dictate who gets to use the platform and who gets their supporters money, on top of the cut Patreon is taking - for some parties, the 5% Patreon fee only exists to get the lowered resistance to using the platform. Users who already have Patreon accounts set up are extremely more likely to support you there than on alternatives, and they then have mindshare. But that is all you are paying for if you don't also use Patreon as a content host - the mindshare effect. All the major tech companies now, all the investors, so much effort goes into creating a captive audience / market / userbase to extort. Patreon is no exception.
But the stakes are much, much higher with Patreon than with the mindshare factor around Facebook et al. For the same reasons I'd argue the stakes are higher with github. Livelihoods depend on these platforms. Entire business models are being built for individuals to live their lives with work involving what these services provide. And unlike Facebook, their whole point is this model, where people do their jobs on web services - either as payment providers or infrastructure. The same applies to etsy and ebay, pretty much. I'm extraordinarily against how proprietary and controlling the companies behind these ecosystems behave, because they dictate what is a viable business and what is not.
I'm a security engineer at Patreon. Like most companies we take security reports from folks via security@patreon.com and support@patreon.com. The dedicated security email is the quickest route to the security team.
We also have an invite only HackerOne program where we've invited the top reporters on HackerOne. When folks send us a valid report via email we also add them to our HackerOne program for reward (we've paid out >$17,000 to security researchers to date). As with any developing bug bounty program we're still improving it and we plan to open up our HackerOne program soon.
If this guy has been screaming into the void on Twitter waiting for an email address, then the problem is probably that he's using twitter.
It would be absurdly easy for anyone who has problems with Patreon to set up an alternative place. Though you still have to deal with payment processors.
Patreon is less a platform, and more just a hosting service. Saying someone banned from Patreon is shut off from this sort of service might be a bit of a stretch IMO.
It isn't that bad yet. It hasn't taken off massively and conquered the universe like Facebook. But it is currently on track to. The only saving grace is that the usual onboarding is content discovery -> patreon rather than patreon -> content, but if they ever become a content platform and creators stop releasing their work anywhere but on patreon it spells the death of competition.
That said, patreon is centralised. What happens if you're a creator and that $2000 a month stops coming from patreon? I trust and believe in the now, but who knows where they'll be 5 or 10 years.
PS. Patreon, please make a Japanese version of your site!
For now you sue them.
If they get large enough and it happens often enough some form of regulation will likely be enacted.
So you know, https://enty.jp/ is largely this. Some of the creators I follow there are moving to Patreon though, interestingly.
The Japanese creators I see (mostly visual artists) also don't seem like super huge fans of the idea of digital content, which is what Western folks on Patreon largely expect. Japanese creators seem to like selling books and such at conventions and rarely sell their books digitally, which is a bummer for someone who doesn't want to pay international postage. I have seen some change this though (the ones who moved to Patreon).
That's no different from your employer shutting down, it happens, people move on.
You'll probably lose some portion of your income due to the friction, but given that your patrons are likely to be fairly devoted fans, I'd imagine the retention will probably be pretty good.
I agree. It's interesting to contrast this approach with other attempts, such as App.net for social media and Vessel for video.
On those platforms, it always felt like the paywall was first, and the content was second. When you signed up, you would feel fleeced -- as if you were paying the platform creators first and the content creators second. There was no mechanism for content discovery until after you paid to be part of the network. That isn't going to motivate people to join the network.
On Patreon it's the polar opposite. I find interesting content on Youtube, pick a handful that I like enough to keep watching, and eventually decide that I like some of then enough to pay the creators for their work. I'm still paying the platform creators, but I'm motivated by the content. And content discovery is exactly as accessible as the get-all-your-content-for-free approach.
You're making that too permanent, and too general. Right now, most of your viewers aren't contributing even though some of them love your content.
If you want people to contribute, you need to do specific things to get them to convert. It's the same as any other funnel optimization. Look at other successful channels, form hypotheses about conversion, and then test them.
If you already have a witty zinger answer to those first two questions; how do you quantify "love your content"?
Scott McCloud called this in the early 2000's. (Then the Penny Arcade guys lambasted him and his ideas.)
http://scottmccloud.com/3-home/essays/2003-09-micros/micros....
It's just marketing. Not all artists on Patreon provide this kind of interaction, and a number of artists on YouTube do. Peter Hollens' opinions are amplified because of his popularity, but his is not the only model of operation.
And ultimately, if a personal interaction is what the audience wants, aren't those artists simply playing to those desires? If I'm paying for a ticket to a rock festival, I'd like to hear rock, not country.
There are tons of edm producers who don't cultivate much of a public personality, but even then, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes networking that goes on.
Being a professional artist has always been about cultivating relationships with people who have money. Whether it's wealthy patrons, or people who own record labels or galleries, or event promoters, etc.
I have next to no interaction with my patrons. It's pretty awesome. If I ask a question in a post I'll get a few replies, that's about it.
I mean they know something of who I am from following my Twitter or whatever, I'm no Pynchon, but every now and then Patreon sends out emails suggesting ways to make more patrons by livestreaming or whatever and I'm all "oh fuck that".
I'm not charging for time with me. Im not selling the illusion of companionship. I'm just charging for my comics.
Either can work.
It's probably depended on content type; a lot of the value of some art - say, paintings - comes from the artist; whereas the value of the genre fiction is entirely contained within the fiction.
So one group pretty much does need to market themselves as an artist, whereas the other just needs to market their art.
> “I don’t think the reclusive thing is going to happen anymore. That’s not the world we live in."
I think that's true for most creators but I also don't think it's impossible for an artist to just throw up music tracks, videos or artworks with no title, no description and no interaction and still have people support them.
Personas are more popular but it's not the only way to go about it.
You have to find your niche.
Bundling together payments for different creators into one place is handy and I'm guessing helps reduce fees, so smaller payments work better.
I only have to provide payment details to one site, so that's nice and easy too.
I get to support creators who's work I enjoy without having to endure web ads, which I dislike.
From the creators standpoint it seems to provide a nice even revenue stream. Whilst I don't know any personally, I'd guess it must be nice to have an idea of the base income you're going to get in a month, rather than relying on something more variable like advertising or ad-hoc tips.
There are many times where I find a content creator helpful (for example a video tutorial on how to fix my broken washing machine), and I'd like to reward them. But I don't want to do it monthly, as I'll probably never watch another thing from them. So I'd like to be able to easily leave a one-time tip.
Can Patreon do this, and it's just not obvious?
By default this is not how Patreon works. For most creators you are not charged until the end of the month, so if you sign up on August 2nd you are not charged any money, and the money doesn't go to the creator, until September 1st.
They do have a new setting for Patreon campaigns that lets the creators change this, but many have not.
Disclaimer: quit my job to contribute to Gittip community, and have lots of a thoughts and feels on the patron/gratitude economy
That kind of thing isn't useful enough for patronage. But it would be nice to be able to throw a nice little tip.
Anyhow, guess I was being too simplistic. In the ideal world, I'd hope we'd all have more early (high school) literacy on what these approaches mean, and which works best for which sort of value creation...!
While it may be more sustainable, I have to say that personally I strongly associate the subscription model with all sorts of late-capitalist scams, from gym memberships to Juicero. Which isn't to say that I am opposed to supporting people creating cool, ongoing work, but that's the exception, not the rule, to that model.
Most gym membership are auto renewing fixed length contacts with hidden terms that are impossible to get out of early. Even if you want to cancel at the prescribed time they make you do things like come in in person to get the cancellation form and then you have to mail it certified mail rather than handing it to someone.
Obviously, you lose money by not providing a mechanism for donors like me. However, I can see the argument that if you DID provide such an option, you might lose money from donors who otherwise would have pledged monthly. So which direction provides the best trade-off? I don't know, and this would probably call for some actual research to come up with real numbers rather than gut feelings. But it's definitely not an obvious no-brainer, regardless.
I wryly note that this community tends to look down upon salaried employment, and seems to think that everyone with any merit should be quick-gig consultants or startup entrepreneurs. Start talking about self-employed artists though, and suddenly people want a safe predictable salary again.
I know there is an option to cancel subscription at any time, but it just doesn't feel right. I would prefer a limited time subscription, similar to the physical magazines. If I like someone, I will sign up for 12 months of support. The author could count on a steady (to a degree) income for the next year and plan accordingly. If a year later I am still interested I will renew my subscription. And the platform could provide an insight on both current and a projected revenue, so consistency aspect is still there.
In particular, look at the gig economy. Thousands of freelance programmers, designers, artists, and tradesmen are making a living through one-time invoices.
I may be an outlier, as I don't subscribe to much of anything on a recurring basis except Netflix and Google Apps. In the real world, I have a mortgage, not rent, and I own my car, I don't lease it.
And to GP: Patreon does give you a "guilt trip" asking for a cause for your cancellation of a monthly subscription immediately after donating, but it's easy and it works.
Fortunately, that person followed up by launching a Kindle book, and then a paid email series, so I've now sent them far more money than I would have as just a Patreon contributor (approx 3yrs worth so far). Maybe it's best if Patreon is just one of many revenue streams people offer.
There are two flavors of monthly payments - $x every month, and $y for every post the creator marks as a paid thing, up to a maximum of $z - but you can't leave someone a tip for that one cool thing.
If a creator is on the $x every month scheme, then you could sign up for that, and then turn it off again. Patreon charges you immediately, so that you can't raid someone's paywalled content for free.
You sign up for a 'month' at the tip value, then cancel right away.
You should still be charged, they should still get their cut, and the subscription is canceled.
[1] https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/01/can-we-chat-hello-sup...
Patreon works because people pay for the possibility of future stuff.
It works pretty well for the ones I follow, but I guess it could be open to abuse if someone churned out a lot of stuff quickly (although I'd bet they'd lose a load of subscribers if they did that...)
Highly, highly recommend his channel as well. Some of the most fascinating stuff online.
And it's all effectively funded by Patreon. $3 a video is well worth it.
I started the Patreon page two months ago and it was pushing $100/mo within a week, and without any noticable disruption to my FOSS donations - it effectively increases my donation flow 3x-4x. Patreon is a platform people already trust with their CC# and people are already supporting other creators on. Reducing the barrier of entry can get you way more money, which makes a big difference. Patreon also makes it clear that your support is meant to be recurring, which has a big impact on the long term viability of the income stream.
I still accept donations through the FOSS portal, and point people there first if they ask me directly how to donate. But it doesn't make sense to turn down Patreon, either.
Aside: I'm working on an open source git platform too, I feel you wrt GitHub.
For sure! I will send you an email.
A) Given the community supporting you as patrons, fully free/libre/open productions are the only ones that really deserve support. What justice is there for creators to retain All-Rights-Reserved monopoly when they are already getting paid up front? The works ought to all be free/libre/open.
B) Patreon itself ought to be fully free/libre/open and run democratically as a cooperative (too late now, VC business model etc)
Yes, every additional $ to FLO projects is a good thing. I don't think Patreon as a middle-man capturing $'s that would go to the projects anyway is good though. Hard to know what's the case often. The $'s are more a result of the project making a concerted effort to fundraise and would likely happen with the same concerted effort whether they use Patreon or another payment method.
Yes, they're on Patreon proper. Patreon isn't constrained to entertainment.
> Any links to coder patreons I can look at?
A few I know or Googled:
- https://www.patreon.com/bcachefs - Works on a new filesystem
- https://www.patreon.com/cemu - A WiiU emulation project
- https://www.patreon.com/ShareX - An open source Windows application for sharing stuff
- https://www.patreon.com/evanyou - Works on Vue.js
- https://www.patreon.com/alanstorm - Works on lots of open source stuff in the PHP community
There are a ton for game projects and such.
Just go to Patreon and search for "Open Source" and you'll see a bunch.
I just opened it a couple of days ago, still have to polish the story and probably be more active on social media (I don't have Twitter, etc... I really despise Twitter but I kind of feel I am missing huge opportunities to get visibility...)
I definitely don't want politically driven judgement calls made on my behalf as to whether or not that creator should even be allowed to have my money, when that person hasn't actually done anything illegal. It's my money, and no business has any business telling me who I can and can't give money to, or why, and to step into that position is to trivialize competition. It's a bad move on Patreon's part, and it's completely antithetical to the service they should be providing: making it easier to find content you like by creators you like and then fund it so there's more. They don't do the former, and the latter is more and more only for "Patreon approved" creators. What is it they do that makes them invaluable or irreplaceable, because I'm not seeing it.
I've given thousands through Patreon but I've stopped using it for many reasons. I feel pretty justified in that decision just looking at their behavior, both lately and in the past. They've allowed pages to remain up for people who are provably doing nothing but harassing others (and advertising that behavior as the "activism" their Patreon page is funding), but taken others down just because they run a service which on principle refuses to police discussion but which isn't breaking any law because Patreon dislikes what people on that service say/do. Now they've removed someone because they disagree with something that person has done unrelated to their content creation being funded through Patreon (again, not even illegal behavior), and it looks entirely politically motivated.
I don't support Lauren and never have, but this kind of moral grandstanding and virtue signaling from Patreon just isn't acceptable to me, and definitely not from what is a glorified payment processing web interface. Tim Pool as usual has a fairly solid take on it, and I mostly agree with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_yIp7eQO1c.
This piece looks like a pretty desperate PR move.
1. To those who donate to Patreons, how do you budget/think about/justify your donations?
2. Do you have a set budget? What if you really want to support someone suddenly, do you stop supporting someone else to do so, or reduce how much you give them?
3. When do you stop/reduce Patreon support? How long do you typically support someone? Until you feel they no longer need it?
2) The amounts I donate are so small on a monthly basis - around $3 per artist - that adding a new artist isn't a pain point in my entertainment budget.
3) When I stop consuming the content. Usually after getting the monthly breakdown of my contributions in my email, I say "I'm not listening to/watching this anymore, so I'll go ahead and cancel it."
2. I have a budget that changes. But if I cannot afford to support someone new I will wait until I have more income or less expenses.
3. I support people until I feel I no longer get value from them or can no longer afford to support them. Money gets tight sometimes.
2. I like to compare it to my Netflix subscription. I'm pretty sure I watch this certain YT channel more than Netflix, so the $1 a month I give is a good deal IMO.
3. For most patrons, the goal is to enable the content to be created. My money goes towards the creator paying their bills (YT is their only job). Unless I stop caring about the content, or the creator finds an alternative revenue stream that lets them create full-time, I don't see myself cancelling.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ManyATrueNerd
https://www.reddit.com/r/ManyATrueNerd/
He puts out 2 videos a day, most averaging 45 min. Lots of good series plus frequent new game previews.
I don't have a set budget but I don't tend to go for higher tiers.
I support someone as long as I'm enjoying the content they're creating. So for webcomics, if they're still creating and I'm still reading, I'm happy to keep paying.
2) The total amount so far has stayed small enough that I haven't needed to set a budget. If I needed to, I might ask myself questions like: whose content would I miss the most if they stopped making it? Which creators do I know to be trying (reasonably plausibly) to make a living from their creations, vs. those doing it as a hobby who would probably continue without Patreon contributions?
3) I have reduced or stopped contributions when I stop enjoying (and therefore stop consuming) a creator's content, or when the amount of enjoyable content they produce goes down. (I know the latter reason for reducing contributions can create a vicious circle, I don't have a good answer for it.) If the person is trying to make a living off their art, and they aren't a megastar, they will never really stop "needing" contributions from some minimal number of fans.
Some creators I support don't easily fit into the above framework. For instance, for Every Frame a Painting I contribute $1 per video. His videos are rare (one every few months), far less than an hour long, make over $7000/video (so I don't feel like my personal contribution is particularly "needed"), and (so far as I can tell) are not a source of income he depends on. But I enjoy them so much that I often find myself watching them repeatedly and find I want to contribute.
Some creators I support just because I like their stuff and want more of it. I usually think about this in terms of the impact my contribution will have on the creator and how much I'll end up enjoying it. For example a guy who makes hours of video in his living room that I watch every month and love (personally, Lindybeige) is worth more to me than someone who makes super high production value stuff very infrequently (e.g. CGPGrey).
Others I'll support for the rewards. I know Patreon is meant to be a "support people out of the goodness of your heart" kind of thing but a lot of creators I just want "stuff" from. Typically for me this is high resolution digital art or physical pieces of original art mailed to me.
Sometimes it's a combination of both.
2. Nope. I just think about how much money I'm spending on Patreon when I do it. I mostly think of creators as individuals, not a big bucket of stuff and I consider my monthly expenses as a whole. If I think I'm spending too much I might cancel a Patreon contribution because I've lost interest in that creator or I might cancel a software subscription or something.
3. See point 1. When the value I place on the support/rewards goes down, the contribution goes down with it. This can be because a creator no longer interests me, a creator has so many contributions from others that I feel mine no longer have impact or because the rewards no longer satisfy me.
I spend maybe $20 a month on Patreon. The main thing keeping me from spending more is the interface makes artists appear more money-grubbing than they might want to.
I don't want to scroll down someone's feed only to find half of the content is locked. This is a negative user experience and makes me want to click off the site and go do something else.
Suggested fix is a checkbox or setting that allows me to hide content that I'm not at the right patron level to see.
On the other hand, you could have said the same thing about Kickstarter a few years ago, but then it hit its growth limits and became just another, still slowly growing but no longer earth changing, feature of the internet landscape.
(Unlikely to be anything without marketing, but, why not? Cost of the effort is low.)
Most adult credit card processing takes 10-15% before the business even sees anything, and they are only taking 5% total and providing a service.
In many ways it's an anti-trust issue because competitor platforms geared specifically towards adult content can't get those same rates.
Better have the The Verge write a puff piece on them.
This has given pause to some people -- for example, Sam Harris, one of the top artists on Patreon, is evacuating the service (even though this is likely to cost him a fair bit of money) to avoid the future potential to be financially pressured over ideology.
We've met a couple times, Jon, and I've heard you speak; despite your public persona being prickly, I kind of got the feeling you were wiser than this.
Not sure if it's against international law when conducted in international waters, but that's definitely against Patreon's content policy of fundraising for activities that endanger human life.
This is not good news for creators who are looking for a way to do something controversial, having been turned down by other providers like Youtube.
"If the politicians won't stop the boats, we'll stop the boats… and we'll be back with more boats..."
She was arrested by the Italian Coastguard for attempting to block a boat, she wasn't just reporting that someone else was doing it. She was clearly participating.
paulgb: Lauren Southern was attempting to block ships.
bluthru: No, she was just reporting on an attempt to block ships.
learc83: No, she participated. Here's a quote from her saying she participated.
bluthru: You can't inhibit human trafficking?
However, my question still stands: what law or policy did Lauren break?
The ship had no cargo at the time, but even if it was carrying tons of heroin and literal slaves, trying to block a large ship at night with a small boat is dangerous vigelantee behavior at best.
And it's most definitely illegal. Call the coast guard if you think something illegal is going on. The minute you start forcing ships to maneuver around you at night, your risking the lives on that ship and any ships they might hit trying to avoid you.
The rediculous part is that she was there to supposedly stop "human trafficking", but her and her boatmates were chanting "no illegal immigration" the entire time.
No one except these far right groups think that NGOs are working with smugglers to get people into Europe. And the far right groups don't care about it either as evidenced by what they were chanting and what they say on their website. They've just latched onto something they think they can use to justify their anti illegal immigrant stance.
There's no evidence of it. It's like an Italian renting a car and pulling out in front of trucks headed into the US because she says she thinks they might underage prostitutes in them.
It's not your job to enforce a foreign country's immigration policies, and it's definitely illegal to try to do it by endangering yourself and the crew of another ship.
The even more rediculous part is that the group she was working with has actually been accused of human trafficking after several of the crew of their ship requested asylum and said they paid to access the boat.
"If the politicians won't stop the boats, we'll stop the boats… and we'll be back with more boats..."
This kind of misuse of labels suggests that either you are ignorant of the subject matter or you wish to smear your ideological opponents by associating them with a group that doesn't hold their values.
We really need a more diversity media landscape. It's entirely liberal with pockets of conservatism. We need less liberal, more conservative and much more moderate media.
It's unhealthy for the media to be heavily skewed to one or the other side.
Not only that, we need this is academia and corporations and the banking sector. More diversity. More competing thoughts/ideas.
If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; otherwise please don't comment until you do.
For example, some people use unlisted videos in thei Ycombinator or startup accelerator applications. Or on pages on their own sites where the video merely compliments the content and is useless on its own.
Removing that sort of thing seems illogical.
Another example is prepping for launch day, upload and test everything then change private to public on the big day.
I suspect google can't monetize private videos because it would bring an uncomfortable discussion about income inequality at youtube (much like patreon, almost all users make essentially no money, which is not going to help content provider recruitment if it becomes noticed in wider public eye)
I'm in the top 3.2% of all Patreon, sitewide. That amounts to only a little over $700 a month (I'm using it to replace a for-pay business model that wildly oscillated from $400 to $3000 a month). It's growing.
I'm having to put out twice or three times the work, but I'm happier with a 'free/patronage' model because what was happening to me under the for-pay model was, I got locked into a 'hype cycle' versus other developers and companies. The sense I had was, my industry sector is dying. The way we treat customers is worsening, and it's a race to DRM-based, extremely invasive monthly software rental and a degree of dishonesty that didn't sit well with me. I feel that I bailed 'in time' to turn my ten years of reputation and experience into just-barely a subsistence using Patreon, and that if I hadn't done so, I would have been run out of business by competitors using every sort of deceptive and customer-abusing practice, and the epitaph would've been 'A shame, he was one of the good ones. Tough business'.
As such I feel I have a real-world view of what Patreon actually is. It's a form of payment processor that can let you bill for basically 'goodwill': the strong point is, it lets you render your income more predictable, at the cost of not being able to exploit individual creations which might be more valuable.
Never, NEVER get sucked into the 'just 0.1% of all living humans donating one cent a month will make you rich!' argument. If you have a hundred thousand known fans, MAYBE you can get a hundredth of them to give to you. You've got no control over what 'the crowd' will do. I don't know how many times I've revealed on HN that I'm creating mass quantities of code with an open-source (planned MIT license) future, on Patreon, and of the 347 patrons I've got, ALL of them are from my existing connections who already use my software. I'm looking to do an experiment with Facebook ads where I literally link to my entire library as a free zip to download and say 'I'm paying Facebook to tell you that I made this for you'. Haven't done it yet, don't have high hopes for it.
ALL your traction on Patreon comes organically from what you're already doing. In no way does it find you patrons: it's your shopping cart software. That does have one unusual consequence: since they aggregate patronage together and bill people in a lump sum, I've never seen anything more effective at enabling content that is routinely censored by credit card companies. Anyone who knows anyone who's tried to run an internet content business with NSFW material as part of the mix (I know a bunch of cartoonists) knows the dangers of getting banned by Visa and Mastercard (IIRC, particularly Visa won't touch you if you're dirty-minded). Patreon is a layer of abstraction that has enabled a startling opening up of opportunity for censored content, and that's shown in the NSFW side of Patreon. It's still not a 'free ticket to money' as you still have to generate your own attention, but obviously if you're good at NSFW content and distributing it free then the internet will beat a path to your door, and Patreon is accepted (in fact, the paywall model seems popular among NSFW creators with few objections to the idea. Premium content may not last long before being 'liberated' but I rarely see objection to the basic concept of a paywall around the freshest source of the creator's output).
I've been keeping records of what constitutes the top 1% of all Patreon, because I was keeping records of where I stood (started out at top 10% almost immediately because I had ten years of existing relationships w. customers). About a year ago, the 1% mark sat at around $2350 a month, with total creators between 41,000 and 45,000. It's been dropping, and as Patreon approaches 78,000 creators the 1% mark is dropping below $1890. This is while key patreon accounts are hitting new records for monthly income. It's definitely the internet power-law thing in action: the number of participants doubles, but most people are doing worse: the distribution is NOT staying the same, it's getting more skewed towards the outliers. I'm guessing this is partly caused by a flood of people who think it's an internet lottery ticket and not a way to bill masses of existing customers…
Summary: Patreon is probably even less prone to 'discovery of worthwhile projects' than Kickstarter, because the mode of engagement is different: rather than seek out 'discoveries' it's a method of inserting benevolent digital leeches onto people's credit cards, very much like DRM-based rental schemes but less coercive. Because it can be used in a 'strictly voluntary' way, the revenue you'll get seems to be a quarter to a tenth what you'd get on a 'direct sales' model, but the consistency of a massed small-donation model combined with billing people's credit cards gives you a steadiness of income that is a LOT more easy to live with than boom-and-bust product development (which I did for a decade, pre-Patreon).
If you can budget for a growth month-over-month that's a little better than, say, the growth of index funds, and you've got created product with a decent number of people already aware of what you do, it's great. I have no regrets about going Patreon. I passed up an opportunity to do my whole 'for-pay' model over again to a market at least twice the size of my original (my whole decade of for-pay work was Mac only, and I relaunched targeting PC VST) but I'm glad I did. It let me double down on my positioning as a product maker, and completely avoid spending any time on being an internet cop. I just give everything away now, and the patronage gradually gets closer to minimum wage ;)
For now, I am your audio DSP waitress, on roller-skates. I always figured that was what ten years of creative work was worth ;)
I found that article physically repulsive.
Patreon, if you are listening, don't buy into all the power that the article wants to shower upon you. They want you to influence your exercise of that power, and they want you to use that power to do their bidding in limiting free debate of ideas.
Patrons and the person that they support, that's it, that's all there is to it. The silver coin is being given by hands of patrons and taken by hands of one that is being supported, that silver coin shouldn't have opinions, emotions and desires. Stay neutral, that is the greatest challenge of our time, stay neutral. If a crime is being committed then co-operate fully with law enforcement, but don't give in to the pressures from lobbying groups with their own agenda.
Don't get carried away into the corrupting power the platforms like youtube, facebook, twitter exercise on the discussion carried out on these platforms. They have absolute power, and you can see that once you use it, it's addictively corrupting. Stay neutral, it is going to be hard to do, I hope you find the power within you to do so.
Good luck.
Here's an hour long interview with Patreon's CEO, Jack Conte, where he goes through some ridiculous mental gymnastics trying to justify why it's ok he is kicking conservative journalists off his platform.
The CEO states in the first couple of minutes that they wouldn't be supporting that kind of activity and is apparently against their terms of service. This seems pretty obviously not about freedom of speech but about what illegal activities Patreon could be accused of supporting financially.*
Does he go on later in the video to justify removing other accounts because of political beliefs? I haven't made it much further in.
*EDIT: So after watching another video on the subject, the official statement has less to do with what Patreon doesn't want to be seen funding but more about a section of their content policy stating they will not allow action that might endanger the life of another person, i.e. blockading search and rescue vessels.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-rescue-ita...
But this is apparently out of the question, for reasons of "humanity".
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/27/anti-migrant-b...
I'll give you this, though, the man is devious -- can you imagine the mental gymnastics involved in watching a video proudly filmed and posted online by these people of them doing a thing and discussing that very thing in the middle of doing it? And using that as evidence? Truly disgusting.
This kind of gross distortion is counterproductive. (Unless your goal is to alienate others and hurt your own credibility.)
I think something like Patreon is a great idea, but having a centralized company handle it and take a cut is not the way to go about it.
This doesn't seem unreasonable, particularly since many offer early access to content, and these emails are the gateway to that content.
Any suggestions, given the "tipjar" model doesn't seem to cut it (as per the article)?
Personally, I like it (especially as a consumer). One bill per month for as many artists I want to support on the platform, one location to look up updates, and emails only when the artist themselves posts something (and the monthly bill). I imagine that, as an artist, losing that 5% cut is fine for not having to deal with CC fees, chargebacks, account transfers, and so forth.
I dont' find the emails I receive via Patreon onerous, myself. Especially when I'm explicitly supporting the artists triggering the emails. Perhaps I'm just supporting fewer artists, or clicked the right account boxes.
- Payment processing: Patreon consolidates all payments under one gateway account so fees are low for everyone.
- Support: What happens if the payment fails? Creators don't want to deal with that mess every month, it's less time to do useful stuff.
- Abuse handling: Patreon can deal with spam comments and the like.
- Service hosting: They integrate all this stuff in one place that creators don't have to host themselves.
- Consolidated management for Patrons: As a subscriber it's nice to see all the stuff I'm supporting and how much I'm paying for it in one place.
I have had to help several of my Patrons with basic tech support issues, like setting up RSS feeds in their podcast app. And I doubt that they would be able/comfortable with working with a service that is not as easy and straight forward as Patreon.
And when you try to do that, you have suddenly alienated 99% of your potential audience of supporters.
That's huge misinterpretation. What they wouldn't do is to ferry the migrants from Libyan coast to Italy. They would return them back to Libya.
That's not advocating the death of migrants. That's exactly what the coast guard of Italy should be doing!
Stop saying that people literally advocate for death. This is something that has happened in the past, something that will probably happen in the future, and being a sensationalist about it just makes you an asshole.