Hacker News Reader

This seems like a feature to me. Patreon helps me support my creators, takes their fee and gets out of my way. That's how things are supposed to work IMO.

View on HN

I suppose I like it as well... but the point being that in the case of these podcasts Patreon is only rent-seeking and not actually "building a community of fans" or hosting/delivering/surfacing the content. (And those aspirations are I'm sure what underpin the $90M investment and entire company growth strategy.)

Podcasters could save ~10% on Patreon fees and maybe even gain some useful dedicated RSS tools and membership perks that would work inside a podcast app.

Why would they save money on fees? Would the podcast-focused company build and maintain this app for free?

Patreon is trying to be a YouTube/Facebook-like community platform that controls the relationship between creators and paying fans. There's no reason to pay an extra 12% on top of credit card fees if you already control your own distribution and membership list, as all RSS podcasts do.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com