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by jfdbcv 957 days ago
I don't think Patreon is an effective solution. People only have a limited Patreon budget and I'm sure it skews towards large YouTubers and is pretty winner take all.

There's a three way ecosystem: the content creator, Google and the consumer. Money can only enter the system through either ads or premium subscriptions.
1 comments
lolinder 957 days ago
Other parties involved:

* Patreon (already mentioned, money definitely enters the system through here)

* Sponsors (VPNs, CuriosityStream, Brilliant, etc.)

* Nebula (a premium subscription for a non-Google service)

* Merch companies

* Book sales

Google would love for you to think it's a three-way system and they're the one and only middle-man who can help you to fund creators you like, but it's completely and totally false. Pushing their monopolistic line as if it were the truth does nothing to help the creators, it only helps Google.

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jfdbcv 957 days ago
Patreon = video consumer pays

Sponsers = another word for advertisers

Nebula = consumer pays again (similar to yt premium)

The only exceptions are merch and book sales, which only a small amount of big YouTubers have access to.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could pay a monthly subscription, and any video you viewed gave the creators a small fraction?

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lolinder 957 days ago
You're moving the goalposts. I was replying to this:

> There's a three way ecosystem: the content creator, Google and the consumer.

Patreon is a different company than Google. So is Nebula. Sponsors pay the creator directly and don't go through Google.

> Wouldn't it be nice if you could pay a monthly subscription, and any video you viewed gave the creators a small fraction?

Yes, and I'm very happy with my Nebula subscription, thank you very much. It's nice to know that I'm contributing to creators without contributing to the centralization of the web.

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jfdbcv 957 days ago
Sorry, I realized I was wrong with my initial comment. It's actually a 4 party system: the content consumers + ad companies on one side, with the platform and content creators on the other.

But yes, I think we are in agreement overall. If the money can't flow in through ads, the consumers need to pay the platforms and creators directly.

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