[billdybas]

Strategy-wise, it makes sense that they're cloning Patreon & Twitch features to keep people on the platform, but I think YouTube is going to need to innovate further if they want creators to trust them with their entire monetization strategy (i.e. ads, subscriptions, merch).

Patreon is significantly investing in creators and building tools to help them grow their online businesses. [1] It feels like YouTube wants to be too many things and has lost focus on empowering creators.

Also, $4.99 feels too steep – many people only give $1-2 on Patreon. And we'll have to see if the subscription recurs the same day of the month you subscribed or if it's aggregated to the start of the month like Patreon.

[1]: https://blog.patreon.com/manage-and-track-what-you-deliver-t...

[FrozenVoid]

It makes sense for youtube, but not content creators. Patreon is third-party service generally insulated from content. Patreon wouldn't ban you if Youtube bans you. If youtube controls your finances, they can dictate their terms to you, and if you refuse both your financial revenue channel and content channel are gone.

[rjeli]

patreon has banned plenty of people for “content”

[FrozenVoid]

They can't just randomly decide to "demonetize" thousands of users. Patreon has to be fair, as it depends on people using their service. Youtube doesn't have this incentive, it relies on advertising money. If the advertisers don't like some videos, they have the leverage to demand their exclusion and demonetization. This is the fundamental difference: youtube is paid by advertisers, patreon is paid by transaction fees.

[dogma1138]

They can and they have.

[JackCh]

They can and have, but it seems happen a lot less. This is an instance where the shades of gray are important.

Furthermore you have to consider the non-binary nature of being demonetized. Youtube may demonetize only 50% of your videos, leaving your channel active but severely impacting the predictability of your income. Patreon provides stability and therefore a sense of security that creators are desperately looking for. You might lose significant income seemingly at random because your neighbor turned up their radio a little bit too loud and triggered ContentID, but so far Patreon isn't taking away creators' income for chickenshit stuff like that.

[Mindwipe]

Not really. Patreon is just as arbitrary and widespread on sudden suspensions of entire accounts (with 100% of a creator's revenue going with it) based on capricious criteria as YouTube is. Patreon has been absolutely burning credibility with creators over the last twelve months.

[bryanrasmussen]

examples? I'm just curious.

[kalleboo]

Sure, but then you can post a new video on YouTube that says "hey everyone Patreon banned me, please start supporting me on patreon rival". If YouTube bans you, you lose your whole audience.

[rjeli]

no, not really, then you will get deplatformed by Stripe like Freestartr, Bitchute, or MakerSupport

https://freestartr.com/stripe-apartheid-freestartr-temporari...

I wouldn't post such a biased account except that there's no statement from Stripe on their side of the story.

[dtech]

> Also, $4.99 feels too steep – many people only give $1-2 on Patreon.

It's a copy of Twitch's subscription model, which is also $4.99 a month per channel and gives similar perks like emoticons.

A lot of content creators migrated to Twitch because a reliable fan-base giving you (a part of) $5/month/person is very attractive in comparison to Youtube's fickle advertising CPM and algorithm which determines who gets which videos in his feed.

[mjevans]

It makes a LOT more sense on Twitch where everything is live interaction and you can reuse the 'stickers' anywhere on the site. (which is actually a good thing given that allowing ANY images from anywhere would be rampantly abused)

[JackCh]

From what I've gathered, a great deal of the money flowing through Twitch is from "whales", to whom $5 seems like a pittance because they drop 100x that a day in tips. Maybe replicating that phenomena on youtube will work.

[makomk]

Yup, that's what I've seen too. There are a few people who seem to gift hundreds of people $5 one-month subscriptions every month.

[dannyw]

Patreon's fee is about 5% plus 2-3% for payment processing (7-8% total). This is a fraction of YouTube's 30% cut.

Plenty of people spend $20 or even $50 a month on Patreon channels. Some also have $200 tiers for custom videos, etc.

[_up]

Doesn't really matter if people earn more money on youtube, they will switch. On Android, not a lot of people are sideloading most prefer the App Store even if they also take a steep cut.

[JackCh]

> "On Android, not a lot of people are sideloading most prefer the App Store even if they also take a steep cut."

I don't think that's comparable at all. Patreon is an entrenched 1:N (one website for many creators) method for giving money to your favorite youtube creators; youtube's new system is late to the game. Youtube is late to the game here in the same way that Amazon's Appstore was late to the game on Android (which I think maps better to this scenario than generic sideloading, since both Play Store and Amazon Appstore are both 1:N app distribution methods, just as Patreon and youtube are now.)

[_up]

My argument was more about "discovery". Discovering Content via Play Store or Youtube search is much more convenient.

You also get "stickers" that highlight your comments/chat which is also a value only the native platform can give you.

[JackCh]

Conversely Patreon gives you a low signal:noise forum away from the din of the youtube comment section. This is something both users and creators enjoy. Many creators I'm subscribed to have reported that their patreon discussions are more fruitful and interesting because only serious people are taking part. They don't have to filter out, even visually, the rabble from the informed and passionate. Youtube can highlight member comments in some attempt to replicate this, but I think being off-site is part of the value here.

As for discoverability, you discover patreon accounts by viewing the videos of creators on youtube. Unless youtube starts banning links to Patreon (this would be evil, but I wouldn't put it past them), there isn't a discoverability problem.

[bigmit37]

I think Youtube gets 45% if I’m not mistaken.

[dannyw]

45% of advertising revenue.

30% of sponsorships, super chats, donations, memberships.

[tajen]

Youtube will have to gain trust first. Kids of 13 years old start their first video with "Subscribe to my Twitter in case Youtube deletes my channel". So kids of 13 years old worry about censorship and implement schemes to get around it, and use external platform to ensure business continuity, so I doubt moving from Patreon to Youtube can be wise for anyone, from a pure business standpoint that ecen kids understand...

[dickbasedregex]

They could just stop blaming their inaction on awry algorithms. It's frankly pathetic. Then, maybe stop building features no one asked for and instead fix the broken notification system? Lastly, stop lying to their creators and and hiding behind completely vague legalese.

I've been a HEAVY youtube user since around 06/07 and I'd still love to see them knocked off their perch.