
Patreon Raises $90M Series E at $1.2B Valuation - upis
https://blog.patreon.com/patreon-series-e-announcement
======
bkraz
Graph showing revenue for my YouTube channel vs Patreon over the years. In
other words, my Patrons mean more to me than the YT algo.
[https://twitter.com/BenKrasnow/status/1300643248508080129?s=...](https://twitter.com/BenKrasnow/status/1300643248508080129?s=19)

~~~
crispyporkbites
Will Patreon become the real YT killer? They already have the best content
creators on their platform, what’s to stop them building out a similar video
hosting setup with search and discovery?

Google might want to nip this in the bud now with a cheeky 2bn $
acquisition...

~~~
mFixman
YouTube's real killer feature is its video discovery. Having millions users
endlessly streaming content without many connection hitches while showing a
dozen recommended videos each time does wonders for authors.

I'd be more worried about YouTube getting their shit together and making a
Patreon killer than Patreon building video hosting.

~~~
rmvt
doesn't youtube feature a patreon-like feature already, where you can sponsor
the creators?

~~~
coldpie
If they do, I have never seen it, and I watch a lot of YouTube.

~~~
michaelt
It's called "channel memberships" \- if you look at [1] you'll see a 'join'
button to the left of the 'subscribe' button (or at least, I do in the UK)

I can't imagine it'll replace Patreon though, as a lot of creators see Patreon
as giving them back control from Google's inscrutable, capricious treatment.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcXhhVwCT6_WqjkEniejRJQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcXhhVwCT6_WqjkEniejRJQ)

------
chipotle_coyote
Someone posted a widely-downvoted comment of "They are another facebook. They
will turn cancerous very soon, if they haven't already"; while I certainly
don't think Patreon is another Facebook, it's at least worth considering what
their sky-high valuation means. With this round of funding, they've officially
passed "unicorn status," and that's kind of a double-edged sword.

The problem, at risk of stating the obvious, is that investors are hoping for
big returns, and that means big revenue -- and that means changing the
definition of "success" on Patreon. To hit a few hundred million in revenue a
year and earn their valuation, they're going to need to start competing with
not just YouTube and Twitch, but major music labels and indie-friendly TV/film
studios. They're going to need to recruit the new Taylor Swift, the new Lady
Gaga. Hell, they may need to recruit the _current_ Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.

The most successful campaigns they have now are bringing in tens of thousands
a month, but those are wild outliers. The vast majority of their creators are
making side money, not a living; bringing in just $1000 a month puts you in
the top 5%. (It's hard to be sure, but I think there's a good chance it puts
you in the top 1%, given that there's about 178K campaigns total and there are
folks in the top 1000, according to Graphtreon, barely making over $1K a
month.) And... that vast majority of folks won't be Patreon's focus in future
years. It can't be. (One can argue it isn't now.)

I don't think Patreon will "turn cancerous," per se -- but the Patreon of 2022
may not look that much like the Patreon of early 2020, which some would argue
didn't look as much like the Patreon of 2018 as ideal.

~~~
cepp
I use Patreon (albeit in a pledge capacity) sparingly. Many years ago they
dropped Naomi Wu[1][2][3]. This situation was particularly scary: she was
making a decent chunk of her living through Patreon pledges, but because of
the limited size of her audience, and marginalized position she had no
recourse.

While I agree that they're not _currently_ cancerous I do think they
illustrate part of the broader problem with modern society: over-dependence on
central infrastructure-like sources that are private and can change on a whim.
It's great that people can make a living on Patreon, but this should be
tempered by the inherent risk of being on a platform you don't control.

[1]: [https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg)
[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wu)
[3]:
[https://www.patreon.com/posts/18216256](https://www.patreon.com/posts/18216256)

~~~
D2187645
She doxxed a Vice editor when she felt they failed to maintain a privacy
agreement.

~~~
bigiain
> She doxxed a Vice editor when she felt they failed to maintain a privacy
> agreement.

Why is it that you choose to use "failed to maintain a privacy agreement" to
describe the Vice editors publishing her personal information without consent,
while using the much more loaded term "doxxed" when she did the same to them?

Do you understand the difference in likely consequences for each party here?

Is there any rational argument that can be made to exonerate the totally
shitty behaviour of Vice and it's writers/editors in choosing to invade her
privacy after having agreed not to?

~~~
ithkuil
Vice shouldn't be exonerated but do we live in an "eye for an eye" rule of
law?

(According to Wikipedia) she published Vice's editor-in-chief's home address.
I assume she did that to "explain" how she felt threatened physically by
ensuring that the editor in chief feels physically threatened as well?

She could have acted differently. She could have taken legal means; perhaps
asking for help to her patrons. Supporters can support in many ways and not
only with money.

Can somebody who knows more about the details explain why her behaviour should
have been tolerated by Patreon?

~~~
jayshua
Obviously her doxxing was a poor choice. However, she didn't have much legal
recourse. She lives in China, and viewed herself as being at risk of
retaliation from the CCP due to some of the personal details Vice choose to
release. (Despite knowing (from her) the danger it would put her in.) Many
(most?) people feel that the doxxing was her only means of retaliation given
the circumstances.

Both actions are bad. But if I have to pick one to be "more" bad, I'd pick
Vice's.

Those two points are probably what's at the root of the calls against Patreon
here.

We don't live under eye-for-eye law. (Maybe China has some laws like that?)
But people often view things in that light socially.

~~~
jononor
She was interrogated by the police not so long after. She posted that she was
going with them when event happened, I recall. But afterwards the Twitter
history was scrubbed... Unknown if it had any relation to the Vice case.

------
pkamb
Many of the most successful Patreon profiles use the platform _only_ as a way
to provide a paid addition to their free podcast feed. You start supporting
them, grab the private RSS feed and add it to your podcast app, then never
visit Patreon again.

You turn off Patreon emails and push notifications because the episodes just
show up in your podcatcher like any other podcast. Patreon isn't offering
_anything_ in the relationship beyond recurring monthly payment processing.
RSS + your parasocial friendship with the podcast hosts are what builds the
relationship.

I'd love it if a podcast-focused company stepped in to fill the same role.
They could provide the same custom features that ATP and Dithering/Stratechery
have added recently to their paid feeds. The UX of having "Free" and "Paid"
feeds for the same podcast really sucks.

~~~
andreyk
Another thing Patreon offers is a central place to support many creators (of
various types) with a single profile. I mostly support youtubers, some web
comic makers, and some podcasts. Ans already having the profile makes it very
low friction to support new creators (if only I had money for that). So it's a
bit hard to see podcast creators trying out a new platform - network effects
at play and all.

~~~
masklinn
This. My niche is web serials with some “youtubers” thrown in, but despite
having considered individual donations of old I never actually did it until I
git access to a platform where I can readily and relatively safely provide
support for multiple creators easily.

------
Marazan
Insane.

Their is no exit. The whole point of Patreon is an efficient way to suck up
pennies.

It is a great service but their taking of VC funding was even dumber than when
Gumroad did it.

~~~
tallgiraffe
Sahil built a fantastic personal brand, and now that he's VC-free and
profitable, he always forgets to mention that it was done on a back of dozens
of employees, through $8m of other people's money. In that sense, taking on VC
was anything but dumb.

------
adamhowell
They link to Jack's video in the post

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4PnSJDIJMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4PnSJDIJMg)

But since COVID he's been posting on his channel a lot more frequently and –
knowing his dayjob – the production value and time he spends on these things
is really impressive

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbd-
QOxzNKQifQfSuaH5I0A](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbd-QOxzNKQifQfSuaH5I0A)

Now, he's been making videos for a long time, and obviously knows his way
around producing great content, but still highly recommended.

------
doh
I scrapped Patreon earlier [0] this year to find out how big the platform
actually is and what's the composition of its users. I was very surprised to
see that it's a truly mom & pop platform with very few whales.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/synopsi/status/1233827705222615040?s=20](https://twitter.com/synopsi/status/1233827705222615040?s=20)

~~~
tobr
Interesting! But I was a little confused by how you use the word “whale”. I
thought it was a person who _spends_ a lot of money, so in this case a patron
who contributes a lot of money or to many campaigns.

~~~
doh
Sorry for the confusion. I meant a person that brings a lot of subscribers to
the platform ergo generating them the revenue

------
ilaksh
I don't understand why they need to raise money. Don't people constantly give
them a cut of money? And most of the code is written already? How many
maintenance programmers and customer support people do they need? Or is the
money just so that a few people can get richer now somehow.

~~~
hayd
One possibility is the Owen Benjamin lawsuit, the suggestion being that
patreon would have to pay for arbitration (under their previous TOS) for every
complainant.

Not sure how meaningful that really is though...

~~~
benmw333
Bit of a sunk cost I'm afraid. They f'd up.

------
gfxgirl
Patreon's UI is atrocious! At least for the things I use it for. If all it was
was a way to give people a donation and nothing else then it wouldn't matter
but many people use it as a way to distribute digital media for $$$

But, there is no catalog of media. All you can do is go through old blog
posts. The UI of the blog posts is a single page app that you pick "more" at
the bottom of every 10 posts. It crashes often and you have re-start back at
post 1 when it does and paginate your way back to where you started. Fixing
the pagination would be nice but fixing the entire UI around actually helping
people distribute their media would be even better.

In fact many people don't even put their media on Patreon given how bad the UI
is and are forced to find 3rd party solutions

Also, Patreon is horrible at discovery. For the most part you have to find out
about people to become a patron of offsite. Some of that is the people on
Patreon not knowing what they are doing but arguably Patreon needs a better
way to browse people and concretely know what they'll get access to. Not just
"you'll get access to special videos" but rather tell me exactly which videos,
how many, how long are they, what is each individual video about, etc....

Even for artists Patreon could generate a series of thumbnails, small enough
that just the thumbnails are not enough but large enough that you can tell
what art you'll get access to.

Given how bad the UX is it's slightly infuriating they're the most popular of
such sites. I guess that just means there is plenty of room for someone to
steal their market.

Further, Patreon has lots of people scamming for $$$, reselling other people's
art. There are Patreon accounts for blogs of pirate videos like someone runs a
blogspot blog of torrents and has a Pateron to support their activity. Or
someone uploads videos they don't own to a video site and has a Patreon to
support their "cataloging".

~~~
crispyporkbites
Perhaps that UX is a part of its allure, it feels like you’re in an exclusive
club and you better check in every week to get the latest content.

~~~
stickfigure
Rubbish. For any given "new patron" relationship, most content is _past_
content. I wrote up how horrible the experience is in a comment on a past
thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691168)

As far as I can tell, Patreon's most compelling attribute is a clever name. If
some other company nailed the discovery and "new connection" experience,
they'd own the niche. There's a small network effect but I doubt it's terribly
compelling since creators can easily exist on multiple networks.

~~~
pkamb
The name _is_ really good.

~~~
a9h74j
In the late 90's or so I was thinking of "AET" for Artist and Entertainer
Tribute.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Seems they are growing well. They already have pretty good name recognition.
It doesn’t seem like a high resource business, unlike video hosting, and they
already have a good monetization strategy (they basically take 2.9% of
donations). Given that they are pretty close to a billion dollars a year, that
would be close to $29 million/year.

Given all this, what is the purpose of raising more money at this time. They
already have good name recognition, and should be turning a profit by now.

Sometimes, too much funding can end up being a curse, where the business loses
focus on their core competency and tries to branch out too much.

EDIT:

Thanks to the commenters below, It looks like they take somewhere between 5 -
12% of donations. That is on top of the 2.9% processing fee. So it looks like
they they could easily bring in between $50-100 million/year with the $1
Billion/year in donations that they are pretty close to bringing in(depending
on the mix of plans people sign up for). This further reinforces the point
that they have a pretty good monetization strategy.

~~~
justapassenger
But $29M/year I isn’t that much. Especially as they’re located in San
Francisco and have about 200 employees (pretty sure not all are there). That
gives you $145k per employee. That’s roughly enough to cover salaries,
assuming no other cost to run the business.

~~~
Nextgrid
My question is WTF are those 200 people doing considering the main product of
the company is an automated process and the code has already been written &
tested over the previous years?

~~~
justapassenger
Running business requires people. Accounting, support, marketing, hr,
security, procurement teams, lawyers, fraud teams, etc, etc. To build tech
company you require more than just engineers.

------
adventured
Given the extraordinary valuations being handed out right now in public
markets to companies like Fiverr ($4.4b), Square ($74b), Etsy ($16b), Shopify
($136b), and so on, Patreon should just go public. Investors apparently can't
get enough. Even persistently disregarded Overstock recently went up 2,000% in
just five months, hitting their highest levels in 18 years of being public.
Patreon can just say: cloud! remote! ecommerce! payments! and they'll get a
sweet $10 billion dotcom bubble-style valuation. Wait a few days after the
IPO, announce a stock split, and drop some more shares on the public's head,
your stock will double. Tell them the follow-on is to expand your remoteness
and cloudiness.

For the first time in two decades it often makes a lot more sense to be
publicly traded for funding purposes than private. The public market hasn't
been this ravenous for money losing tech'ish stocks since 1999-2000. If you're
Patreon, it has to be a serious consideration to take advantage of the
unhinged mania in the air. (Obviously with the understanding that Patreon may
have other reasons for remaining private; although that can't last forever
though, and when you're on a series E it's getting that time).

~~~
person_of_color
How does an average joe take advantage of this situation?

~~~
adventured
Own those stocks before they go up a lot, sell before they go down a lot. Not
being snarky at all, that's actually the ideal way to take advantage of it;
it's very difficult to time properly, and difficult to know which stocks will
ultimately hyper-perform and which will not. For example, Upwork (UPWK) isn't
participating comparatively much at all, while Overstock goes up ~3,900%
bottom to top, and Fiverr goes up ~500% (disclosure: I don't own any of those
stocks). Who expected Overstock to go from $3 to $120? It's wild speculative
behavior by investors, a feeding frenzy pouring out of the boom in Shopify's
stock (along with the relevant aspects of the pandemic, including online
ordering). In general the best bet for an average investor interested in
taking advantage of the insanity, is to not try to perfectly time a top or
bottom - if you catch a wave, accept good enough and get out, instead of
reaching for the final pennies on the table and riding it back down.

Generating large returns has been easy for a while now. You have to retain the
self-discipline to remind yourself that getting 40% in a day is ridiculous (as
with Zoom today), that in normal times that is two or three years of good
returns. It's about consciously restricting your own reach for greed. Average
investors that get lucky in bubbles also tend to get crushed by them as well.

As an example, back in March I posted my thoughts on buying during the crash
and I was buying Square in the $30s at that time. I'm out now. If Square goes
on up to $200 or $300 per share, I simply don't care. My returns were easy,
ridiculous and good enough, I sleep extremely well having exited with the
gains I generated. They're mine now, I captured that return, locked it in, and
that's the single most important thing. It's a far better thing to secure
already massive gains than to reach for more, being greedy, and risk all of it
if the mania turns south (which it will at some point, nobody knows when
though and trying to pinpoint that is most often a fool's errand). Always have
the discipline to walk away if you hit a homerun. The crazy returns (ie
anything far beyond reasonable, very outsized) generated at this time are
mostly not skill, they're luck; spotting a position to enter can be skill from
years of mental training, however getting 500% on eg Fiverr in five months is
mostly dumb luck (to be clear, it's the particularly outsized return that is
the dumb luck part of that); cash that luck in, as it will inevitably turn
against you.

There are some very straight-forward moves an average investor can make to
shield theirself as well, requiring no particular skill. For example if you
generate a large return quickly in this market, remove the initial principle,
maybe a reasonable chunk of profit as well, and let the rest ride if you have
a strong desire to continue to participate. Mentally accept that portion as
money that may very well go to zero, to emotionally steel yourself for a bad
outcome if the market crashes at some point; that's your speculative money in
this gambler's market, having safeguarded the other portion. If you care to,
you can even constantly peel your principle back out of these stocks as they
climb, rather than aiming for a particular high point to sell in bulk (and
trading fees are widely now zero, which can add-up in that context depending
on the position size). Losing a big chunk of your principle investment
generally stings a lot more than losing a big chunk of some easy outsized
gains, always keep that in mind. It is most often easy come / easy go in
markets like this one, and the only way to avoid the easy go part of that is
to exit the gains at some point.

You might see a lot of people saying the market can't go down because interest
rates are so low / zero. Interest rates have been between very low and zero
for a decade now, and they'll probably be low for a long time into the future.
The market can return to its former multiples from eg 2014-2015 (when rates
were also de facto zero), while rates are at zero. Don't let yourself fall for
that premise, as though this market's extreme upward trajectory is guaranteed.
A crash just back to the multiples we had in 2014-2015 would hammer this
market, taking it down by 30-40% (and the more bubbly stocks would
particularly get smashed).

~~~
person_of_color
Isn't this basically daytrading? What is your stop loss/risk management
strategy?

~~~
adventured
I'm not an advocate for day trading, I'm primarily a value investor. What I'm
advocating for here is some very basic risk management, risk limiting, for an
average investor swimming in a bubble (with some existing gains). If you're an
average investor just now looking to enter the market, my advice would be to
only do that via on-going buying of an index fund or equivalent, something you
plan to continue in good times and bad for example.

That's not to say there are no buys remaining in this market that will yet
produce huge returns, rather, I personally wouldn't provide advice on specific
stocks on the premise of seeking large returns here (ie which stocks will be
the next SQ or SHOP; what's going up 500% in the next six months). Square
under $40 was an easy buy, it had a large margin of safety in its valuation;
at $166, six months later, I consider it dangerous and wouldn't advise anyone
to buy it as a new position (that's what 300%+ in six months will do).

When the parent asked how an average investor should take advantage of the
situation, I took that to mean: how should an average investor that is already
in this market manage the context (rather than it meaning to enter the market
for the first time here and now). I'm looking at this market from a particular
angle: I'd say an average investor, already in the market, should take
advantage of the situation by looking to exit some or all of their gains (take
advantage of the market to exit value; which is what eg Tesla is doing when
diluting now, or SV companies are doing rushing to the IPO exits); that's
merely my opinion though.

I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Say you bought Square (SQ) between $40 and $80 during/after the March plunge
(or even if you caught it in June and are already up 50-60%). Not an abnormal
scenario, as many people will be sitting on large gains from the past five or
six months.

So one of two scenarios related to what I've said (simplified a bit for
brevity):

1) You're sitting on a large gain now, maybe 100%-300% in a mere five to six
months. Take your principle off the table only, optionally with a bit of
profit as well, and let the rest ride if you want to continue to participate
in this market mania to see how far it can go. Or sell it all, if you're fully
comfortable with your gains, and bag the full profit here. Either scenario is
quite reasonable depending on the person doing the investing. It will heavily
depend on your personality type, it's important to understand yourself, your
impulses, your weaknesses & strengths, how you react to things. Some people
might want to leave more of the profit in the market, some might feel better
pulling it all. What I'd suggest at this point for an average investor, given
this scenario, is removing the principle at a minimum.

That's not day trading. I'm not suggesting jumping in and out of SQ, trading
it constantly trying to profit on small swings. The scenario is that you
established a specific position, eg at $40, $80 or $100, and now you're
looking at how to either exit or otherwise reduce risk in a reasonable manner.
In my view, most of what is left to take advantage of here, is the selling
opportunity being presented.

2) You noticed your position was up a lot in a short amount of time, eg it
went from $40 to $60, or $60 to $100. Rather than debating when exactly to
sell all or a big chunk of it, you sell gradually as it climbs, until either
you're entirely out of it or you've extracted your principle (then decide on
strategy for the profit remaining). It's of course nothing more than averaging
across sales, some people feel more comfortable doing that than selling all at
once, especially if they think a stock might keep moving higher yet and they
want to try to capture some of that remaining upside.

------
xoxoy
so they pay out $1B and charge 8% for middle plan which is $80M revenue a
year?

i don’t see how that works in public markets...though to give them credit they
should probably try to go public sooner rather than later to take advantage of
the froth...

also 8% on top of payment processing fees seems like a lot, though I guess
creators just account for that in deciding what fees to charge...

~~~
judge2020
Not having to deal with chargebacks and the upkeep of such a website to
receive donations is enough for creators to pay the 5/8/12% [0]. It also helps
that Patreon has been around for a while, so users see them as safe both in
terms of security for their CC info, and for being easy to cancel a
subscription whenever they want.

0:
[https://www.patreon.com/product/pricing](https://www.patreon.com/product/pricing)

~~~
saalweachter
As a patron, there is also very little friction in adding an extra creator to
the set you are supporting, which turning it around is a huge value-add for
creators: fans are more likely to add them to their Patreon account than to
create a login for a pay wall or regularly click a "donate now!" button.

------
alexellisuk
It's good to see Patreon doing well. For me it didn't really work out that
well, with 300 USD / mo being the height of support for openfaas. Github
Sponsors is doing better - but one thing Patreon taught me was to send regular
updates to sponsors, and that seems to work reasonably well with retention.
Link on GitHub if anyone wants to see how I run it
[http://github.com/alexellis/](http://github.com/alexellis/)

------
AndyKelley
I currently earn $941/month on Patreon and I am grateful to my patrons.
However if you are reading this and you support me, I would kindly ask you to
do the chore of switching over to GitHub Sponsors. They take 0% of the
donation, as opposed to 10%, and although I would prefer to use a not-for-
profit service, the fact that Microsoft is already well-established
financially and Patreon is on a collision course with Capitalism, the GitHub
Sponsors money feels more secure.

In my opinion it was deeply unethical to start Patreon as a startup instead of
a non-profit. How can you justify it? For-profit means the goal all along was
to skim some portion off the top rather than to make a livelihood enabling
content creators to make ends meet on their own.

~~~
foxdev
WordPress.com with one of the paid plans is good for the same reason. It's
backed by a real company that's been around a long time in tech terms. Their
membership thing works similarly to Patreon in that a person manages their
subscriptions in a central location instead of going through different
proprietary payment flows, but the money goes to your Stripe account.

It would be nice if they also made the subscription in Stripe so it's
portable, but Automattic has been around long enough to trust with handling
it. On the customer/supporter side, I think knowing they aren't at the whim of
the blog owner for cancellation is a perk.

~~~
tallgiraffe
WordPress raised on a 3 Billion valuation last year. They are very much on a
unicorn track.

~~~
foxdev
I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment.

------
DeonPenny
Is this cause of that YT lawsuit think they are going through. I feel like
both this and that happening at once is not an accident

------
lordleft
Patreon has its issues, but it's empowered so many creators. I just hope the
VC cycle doesn't kill the golden goose.

------
xiaolingxiao
Just to clear it up, it’s 1.2B pre money.

------
PaulDavisThe1st
I don't really get Patreon.

Youtube is a better discovery funnel/tunnel.

Even PayPal offers better payment fees (especially for micropayments).

The only thing I see Patreon offering is a fairly coherent system for managing
and communicating with one's "patrons". That's not worth nothing, especially
to people without existing website infrastructure already. But it's not worth
a lot to people who have that in place.

~~~
Slippery_John
YouTube is a capricious and uknowable black box controlled by an ever changing
algorithm that can decide on a whim that your content is not worth paying you
for and which will grant advertising revenue to any any corparation whose work
you are covering/transforming under fair use. It can destroy your livelihood
in the blink of an eye and you likely will not have any human oversight unless
you manage to raise a major fuss on social media.

PayPal offers nothing, afaik, to manage your community or tiered rewards and
certainly has no ability to show how much a given creator is receiving. It was
clearly never designed for recurring payments and when I've used it for those
it seems like it was only grudgingly implemented.

None of these other systems have a good experience for the person, like
myself, who donates to a large number different people. On Patreon I can
easily view and manage all my contributions in one place. Becoming a patron
for a new creator is seamless.

Despite my love for the platform though, them doing investment rounds seems
bizarre to me. They've got a good thing going, and I'm not sure that
dramatically increasing profitability requirements is a good thing.

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
Very fair points. I hadn't really considered it from the "patron" side of
things (I'm a patron but only to 2 people).

I mentioned YT as a discovery mechanism, I wasn't implying anything about it
as a revenue mechanism. I probably haven't thought it carefully enough, given
that I don't really need the discovery mechanism to support my own work.

PayPal's micropayment service is MUCH better than Patreon's. (or anyone else's
as far as I can tell). I make most of my income via PayPal, and the majority
of the payments are US$1. PayPal's micropayment fee structure saves me 22c per
$1 transaction. That's a huge impact for me (possibly as much as US$2k per
month). The only way I could feasibly move away from PayPal is to somehow
force/convince most of the people who support my software development work to
pay more than US$12 (the point at which regular fee structures start to be
better). That would mean convincing roughly 4500 people ("patrons" :) to
switch payment platforms too.

------
melenaboija
I just realized one of the founders is the guy of Pomplamoose.

I think the only downside of this is that they will reduce the music creation.

~~~
kreddor
Well, as I understand it, Pomplamoose is mostly run by Nataly, not Jack (who's
the CEO of Patreon).

~~~
masklinn
Seems to be wider than that e.g. I know Ben Rose & others have handled
production of many of the songs, arrangement is done live in the studio.

------
stefaniabje
So excited about this. And really proud to be working with the Patreon team
through Avo

[https://www.avo.app/customers/patreon-case-
study](https://www.avo.app/customers/patreon-case-study)

------
smnscu
Wow, they got the dude from Pomplamoose to make this video, that's awesome.

On a serious note, I would LOVE for Patreon to offer a video platform (add a
peertube node or something? no idea how it works), maybe I can even stop using
YouTube.

~~~
capableweb
Not sure if this is a joke or not, just in case it's not:

Jack Conte of Pomplamoose is one of the co-founders of Patreon -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patreon#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patreon#History)

------
x87678r
I dont really use it, what does it add? I assumed it was just another payments
platform. Like fansonly, I figure they're easily replaced.

------
himinlomax
Seems overvalued, considering how Youtube's "join" button is a better deal for
everyone.

~~~
masklinn
See very first comment here, the “join” button certainly isn’t “a better deal”
for creators, you need a much larger user base to get good revenue.

Not to mention… patreon isn’t limited to youtubers? Webcomics or serials
authors can be on patreon, what would they do on YouTube? Likewise podcasts,
the average podcast listener has no reason or incentive to go sub to a YouTube
channel.

------
jonplackett
How many letters do companies usually get to before they go public or stop
taking investment?

------
secondcoming
Isn't Patreon at risk of bankruptcy due to previusly poorly written T&C's?

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQgOPYdGi9Y](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQgOPYdGi9Y)

~~~
throwaway9d0291
I think the "risk" is dramatically overstated.

Patreon is facing the possibility of going through the arbitration process
with 72 people, who are seeking it on the basis that by banning a creator,
Patreon is interfering with a business relationship between viewer and
creator.

The theory that Patreon will go bankrupt is based on the assumption that these
72 instances of arbitration will go through and the costs of arbitration will
be enough to bankrupt the company.

~~~
secondcoming
It was in Patreon's own T&C's that _required_ users to go through the
arbitration process. I believe the 72 are just from the followers of Owen
Benjamin who are suing. There could potentially be many more from other
followers of users that Patreon kicked off.

------
adamnemecek
They are another facebook. They will turn cancerous very soon, if they haven't
already.

~~~
avolcano
The two questions to me are (a) what content will they ban and (b) how badly
do they want to increase their cut of pledges?

For (a), they've already banned a lot of adult content (thus the rise of
OnlyFans, until they follow suit), and they'll probably ban more if they get
enough attention from either media, angry card processors, or both.

For (b), they've already narrowly avoided fucking this up once back in 2017
([https://blog.patreon.com/updating-patreons-fee-
structure](https://blog.patreon.com/updating-patreons-fee-structure)). They
increased fees in 2019 ([https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360024952552-P...](https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360024952552-Patreon-Creator-Plans)) but at least grandfathered in
past users, preventing their existing userbase from being too much of a flight
risk.

~~~
gundmc
> For (a), they've already banned a lot of adult content (thus the rise of
> OnlyFans, until they follow suit)

How would OnlyFans follow suit on that? Isn't their entire thing adult
content?

~~~
judge2020
They'll be fine since the credit card processor pushback is unlikely since
they seem to use ccbill which is generally OK with adult content:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24294801](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24294801)

------
02020202
they are brok AF. someone needs to pay for the litigations they found
themselves in by censoring their own creators before they go under. lol. only
dumb mofos pour they money into this black hole.

~~~
delfinom
They are a private business and are allowed to refuse doing service with
anyone for any reason.

------
cblconfederate
So many big tech cos are rely on the regulated nature of payments to dominate
their market. The more regulation, the more the need for an intermediary to
act as the tyrannical banker. This makes the case for crypto more obvious.

~~~
twblalock
No, it makes the case that crypto is so hard to use that people would rather
use Patreon.

~~~
rglullis
Once upon a time (still in this century!) it was so hard to have voice
conversations via the internet, people were willing to pay substantial amounts
of money to the phone company to reach someone on a different state.

~~~
delfinom
Right, and to solve ease of use crypto problems we essentially made new banks
(i.e. Coinbase). And we are back to step 1 of people not wanting middlemen
taking cuts. But hey, keep dreaming crypto is somehow going to solve problems
differently the last hundred+ years of the physical financial world, because
as far as I can see, the end results are going to be the same short of
implanting chips directly into people.

~~~
rglullis
> And we are back to step 1 of people not wanting middlemen taking cuts.

Working on it: [https://hub20.io/architecture/#a-balanced-
approach](https://hub20.io/architecture/#a-balanced-approach)

------
nvr219
Just become a patron of them geez

------
throwawaysea
Patreon’s tendency for police content that doesn’t agree with their politics
and values is unacceptable.

I hope they fail so a neutral provider can take their place. I know of
[https://www.subscribestar.com/](https://www.subscribestar.com/) \- are there
others?

~~~
VikingCoder
Patreon's tendency to police content that doesn't agree with their _morals_ is
commendable.

They are _a_ platform, not a monopoly.

I hope they succeed, and I personally hope that companies that have morals
that I think are worse than theirs fail.

They help people discover content, too.

I think a "moral-neutral provider" is a terrible idea, because it provides a
platform to people with deplorable morals.

EDIT: Judging a company by their actions is a valid thing to do. It's
remarkable to me that this is controversial.

~~~
smabie
And by deplorable morals, you mean people that don't share your morals? So,
like, most of the world I imagine?

Morality is an opinion. And in my view, your electric company shutting off
your power because they don't like who you are would be positively dystopian.

Let's say Patreon took a strong moral stance that you absolutely disagreed
with. Would you still think it commendable?

~~~
VikingCoder
Yes, morality is an opinion. "Nazis are bad." That is indeed my opinion. If I
found out that Amazon was working with Nazis, I would try to pressure Amazon
to stop.

What would you do? No, honestly. What would you do?

Do you think Amazon should freely and proudly work with Nazis, "because of
neutrality"?

"So, like, most of the world I imagine?" No, I think there's a pretty low bar
of morality that most of the world does in fact agree upon. I'm not asking for
much more than that. Others might, and I might hope they lose out in the long
run.

To answer your questions:

"Deciding to punch or not to punch old ladies is an important decision. I
think it's commendable that Patreon is making a moral decision." Yes, it's
implied that I commend Patreon because they are making the moral decision I
agree with, not just that they have made a moral decision.

"How to stop old ladies from getting punched" is a political discussion. "In
general, people shouldn't punch old ladies" is a moral position. "We will not
work with people who advocate punching old ladies" is a moral decision I would
agree with. "We will exclusively work with people who advocate punching all
old ladies" is a moral decision I would disagree with.

Judging a company by their actions is a valid thing to do. It's remarkable to
me that this is up for debate.

And I would judge that power company as being morally wrong, unless I agreed
with them that the person they shut off was repugnant. Should PG&E provide
power to the California Nazi Party? Maybe not.

If you want to make fun of me, perhaps you would enjoy this song:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e1aGEb2R90](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e1aGEb2R90)

Yes, some people make boycott decisions that I think are bad. Some boycotts
are good, though.

~~~
frenchy
> Yes, morality is an opinion.

Quite frankly: no, unless you subscribe to the sort of philosophy that that
believes there is such thing as morality. It's an attractive philosophy, but
nobody I've met has ever actually behaved that way.

If I punched your face and gave you a bloody nose, you would almost certainly
not act like I simply have an alternative opinion about where my knuckles
belong.

Edit: I think we might have a difference in how we're using language. An
opinion, as I'm using the term, is a belief that we don't strongly believe
that other people ought to believe as well.

~~~
VikingCoder
What?

"Morality: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or
good and bad behavior."

You have never met someone who believes you can make a distinction between
right and wrong or good and bad behavior?

Please state clearly what you do mean, or the exact objections you have with
what I'm saying.

I don't "simply have an alternative opinion." I view your actions as wrong.

I'm sorry, but you're framing this as a debate where I have a bizarre opinion,
and I don't understand your claims or objections.

There are valid reasons to boycott companies. Do you disagree with that?

