[angrygoat]

Some extension of the Patreon model onto decentralised social media could work. I pay a few bucks a month to the creators of webcomics and other content that I enjoy, just because it's the right thing to do, and I dunno, it makes me feel more connected to these people that I've never met but who bring me some joy?

[rglullis]

The amount of people like you is nowhere near enough to develop and maintain a robust economy.

[jeroenhd]

I disagree. YouTube is absolutely filled to the brim with Patreon supported content. Even large channels need significant alternative income streams like merch to exist in the way they do, and they're still profitable. A sliver of the viewership cares enough to pay, but when you reach hundreds of thousands of people, you don't need all of them to pay for you to be profitable.

We used to have a "pay for what you consume" economy and I don't see why that suddenly can't exist anymore.

[rglullis]

> YouTube is absolutely filled to the brim with Patreon supported content.

Tell me how many of these content creators are exclusively supported by Patreon.

Also, ask any of these content creators (that supposedly are able to be sustained by Patreon) if they would be willing to move away from YouTube and into another platform like Peertube.

None of them will. Some of them won't mind creating the Peertube channel and distributing their content as well, but no one will leave YouTube, because they all know that YouTube is still the platform that enables all the economy to exist.

I'm not saying this because I don't like the Patreon model. Quite the opposite. [0]. But it's hard to argue with numbers, and the numbers are just not in favor of this idea that a whole industry can be supported by a minority of enthusiasts.

[0] : https://blog.communick.com/communick-collective-a-zero-commi...

[einsteinx2]

Regarding your first question, it’s a bit of a trick question because no one is purposefully demonetizing their videos even though the ad revenue is relatively low, but Adrian Black from Adrian’s Digital Basement came to mind as someone that is supported almost exclusively by Patreon. He never does sponsors on his channel, only makes money from Patreon and a bit from ad revenue from YouTube, and specifically thanks to his Patreon income was able to quit his tech job and go full time in YouTube.

LGR is another one that comes to mind that I think barely ever does sponsors and makes most of his income from Patreon. I’m sure there are many others as well.

[rglullis]

Can we get them out of YouTube and onto their own PeerTube server?

Not a rhetorical question. If there is anyone that is not dependent of YouTube's revenue and already amassed enough supporters, is there anything holding them to Google?

[einsteinx2]

I feel like the main thing would be discoverability. If they’re not showing up in people’s recommended they’ll have significantly lower viewership which could ultimately affect their Patreon income over time.

They’re both techie enough to set one up, so I feel like the best approach if they were interested would be to set it up as a mirror and see how it goes with traffic. That way they’re at least not beholden 100% to YouTube for their livelihood.

Another thing that just came to mind, how is discoverability of PeerTube in search results compared to YouTube? I wouldn’t be surprised if Google promotes YouTube links over PeerTube in search results which could also have a big impact.

[9283409232]

Without knowing what percentage of revenue is from Youtube and what percentage is from Patreon, this isn't really important. You can get 10% of income from Patreon and still be considered "Patreon supported."

> We used to have a "pay for what you consume" economy and I don't see why that suddenly can't exist anymore.

Piracy and entitlement.

[VHRanger]

So what? Not every product needs to be at the 100m user scale to be a success.

The nice thing about this era for a creator is that having 10,000 dedicated fans is enough.

Dedicated fans will happily monetize on you. 100,000 low engagement fans won't make nearly as much.

[rglullis]

> Not every product needs to be at the 100m user scale to be a success.

But the absolute overwhelming majority of content creators are putting all the work with the hopes of achieving that scale of success.

> The nice thing about this era for a creator is that having 10,000 dedicated fans is enough.

For one creator, yes. For a whole economy that can bring billions of dollars per year, you will need to have a much larger consumer base, and you'll need to have a substantial part of them willing to support a lot more than a handful of creators.