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Comment by aquir | Hacker News Reader

I’m following her progress on Patreon and the fact that she’s getting better is great! Can’t wait her comeback video!

I find it interesting that she's both kept her Patreon up during this time and has also become far more successful https://graphtreon.com/creator/physicsgirl, in spite of posting no content.

This is honestly shocking and I don't know how to process this information.

Why is that shocking? Her existing subscribers continued to support her, but also multiple other famous youtubers talked about her which got her new attention/subscribers. I've seen at least 3 other channels giving her a dedicated video and YouTube is still serving me her shorts.

Subscriber is the technical term but really it's donor, because they aren't paying for access to new work product.

Most people who suffer a GoFundMe-type catastrophe don't attract new long-term financial backers over time.

What’s more “shocking” is how these services (patreon,gofundme) essentially acts as long term disability and health insurance plans.

American healthcare is a massive price fixing scam and a complete joke.

I'm not saying it's a grift, but I'm not saying I'd be surprised if it turned out to be one as well.

Internet people are weird. Not all of us though, obviously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Gibson

Is it really a grift if the person is upfront about asking for money to pay their medical bills and there's no expectation of a product that isn't being delivered? GoFundMe isn't pretending that there's a laptop or shoes or something expensive and then not delivering aka a scam, it's straightforwardsly asking for money to pay for medical bills.

I meant "grift" in the sense of the illness could be not real or exaggerated.

So patreon essentially acts as a health insurance and long term disability plan? I am unsure of “estimate earnings per month” accuracy given the wide range — “12K-147K” — but even at the low end that should be enough to get constantly seek treatments (traditional and non-orthodox) and still provide for basic necessities (food, rent, bills, …). American health system is a joke.

Glad she’s making progress and has a very supportive partner. Not sure what he does for a living but seems like he has been the primary care giver throughout this.

> American health system is a joke.

I don't disagree, but having some kind of medical situation isn't a prerequisite for gaming the Patreon system. I used to be a monthly patreon subscriber to someone years ago who put out weekly asmr videos. One day they just stopped cold turkey with no announcement, yet years later their Patreon is still up and still taking monthly donations.

Patreon fundamentally is a way to support your favorite artist.Be a PATRON of the arts. Some(most?) creators use it as an ad-hoc subscription method but it really isn't what Patreon is fundamentally built for.

if you're complaining about subscriptions that go into perpetuity your first target should be app stores that set up 10 year recurring payments in the biggest chunk possible for something you'll probably use for a couple of months before forgetting about.

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