Slashdot Mirror
No One Makes a Living on Crowdfunding Website Patreon (theoutline.com)
Brent Knepper, writing for The Outline (condensed): Patreon is basically a payments processor designed like a social network. Every creator sets up a profile where they fill out a prompt about what they're making: "Oliver Babish is creating cooking videos," or "Hannah Alexander is creating Art and Costume Designs inspired by pop culture and Art Nouveau." Patreon encourages creators to provide a description of themselves and their work and strongly suggests uploading a video. [...] Today, successful Patreon creators include Chapo Trap House, a lefty podcast with 19,837 patrons at the time of writing paying $88,074 a month; the new commentator and YouTuber Philip DeFranco (13,823 patrons paying an amount that is undisclosed, but is enough to put him in the top 20 creators on the site); and the gaming YouTuber Nerd (4,494 patrons, $8,003 per month). But despite the revolutionary rhetoric, the success stories, and the goodwill that Patreon has generated, the numbers tell a different story. Patreon now has 79,420 creators, according to Tom Boruta, a developer who tracks Patreon statistics under the name Graphtreon. Patreon lets creators hide the amount of money they are actually making, although the number of patrons is still public. Boruta's numbers are based on the roughly 80 percent of creators who publicly share what they earn. Of those creators, only 1,393 -- 2 percent -- make the equivalent of federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or $1,160 a month, in October 2017. Worse, if we change it to $15 per hour, a minimum wage slowly being adopted by states, that's only .8 percent of all creators. In this small network designed to save struggling creatives, the money has still concentrated at the top.
The story blurb makes it sound like Patreon is a scam or scamish because only a few people using it are making bank. But I think this is a pretty normal distribution for folks involved in earning money this way, and any "creative" endeavor where margins are thin and success stories few. There are acres of people YouTubing and Podcasting, and only a few make any substantial part of their income from them. The same is true for selling products on eBay, Amazon, Listia, whomever. Individuals - people not companies - can make a living that way, and some do - but very few. Is Patreon "overselling" what you can do with their platform? Perhaps, but it's up to *YOU* to create something people want to give you money for, not Patreon.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Has it ever occurred to this submitter that not all content is created equal? If almost no one likes or even sees the content, then that's the system working as intended.
Lately, it's been popular venue to monetize content creators that have been demonitozed. I know RaggTagg shares his earnings and he now has enough subscribers to no longer worry about YouSjw providing him with revenue.
Most people on Patreon have multiple things going on at the same time, and that adds up to a full wage.
Plus, they can monetize in other ways the stuff they create with the Patreon money; for example, a musician can get funded to create a music album, and then use the songs they created to tour and sell merchandise.
Article is knowingly deceptive.
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
They just slid the knofe in between the ribs of Jeph Jacques, the cartoonist who does "Questionable Content", http://questionablecontent.net...
See his article at https://www.patreon.com/posts/...
Assuming it stays up!
davecb@spamcop.net
in the future we'll lament; remember los angeles?? cease fire stand down.. our own worst enemy for sure...
is what it is, and even when aroused the looooong little end stays little.
It's the same for music, painting, sculpture, film, etc. The art creation economy has always been that way, because it comes from an intrinsic property: When you need 100 000 people to give you money in exchange of something in order to survive, there is absolutely zero chance that more than a handful can live that way.
Why should it be different on the internet?
Video of some good progressive thrash music
An artist who has monthly revenue from Patreon is most likely being paid to produce art that can be sold and sometimes resold over and over again. It's a means to support your local artist to produce more of the material that you like.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Just got an email from Patreon today saying they are adding a service fee every month now. I guess they have to pay for whoever designed their new shitty logo. Plus their app gets more terrible with every update. Going the Snapchat route of meaningless buttons.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Who thinks these people are making a bunch of money? This isn't Uber.
I pitch in $2 per episode for Philosophize This! and I know the guy isn't getting rich, I just feel better about it this way and I enjoy the lack of ads.
Hey everyone, what does "No-One" mean to you. Would it mean a number that is zero instead of non-zero? Because the headline says "no-one" but the summary even says something like 0.8% of some non-zero number.
The reality is that there are also a lot of people who just want extra cash for something they work on part time or some base of fixed revenue they can work on top of through other funding means. Even just $1500 a month is enough to live in a lot of places and it would let you have plenty of time to work on other revenue streams, so you cannot really say who is or is not making minimum wage from what they do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Many of these people are using Patreon to SUPPLEMENT what they make from another platform like Twitch or Youtube.
Also, a lot of people bringing in the truly large amounts are hiding the total amount of their pledges out of the belief that if potential donors saw what they were already making they'd be less likely to donate thinking that already had "enough" support (ie, why should I "donate" to someone already bringing in $15k+ per month?).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
...a decent living from Patreon, how is average artist Joe supposed to do so?
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
It may not just be about the money. The rules for posting on Patreon are more relaxed than other platforms. Some posters find that appealing. I know that's true for AvE, and Cody's Lab.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
When the barrier to entry is practically zero, of course you're going to get a lot of people joining Patreon to beg money for stupid shit. It is also understandable that few, if any, are dumb enough to fund them. That's point number 1, and it certainly explains why the distribution looks that way.
If you consider the ancient adage "those who can, do" you will also see why so few people are making career money off Patreon. Of those that can earn a living as entertainers, most are doing it in well established ways such as YouTube or Twitch, far more popular services with greater audiences and less fickle moneyflow, as it takes a lot more caring for someone to actively pay you money every month than watching an ad or two off your YouTube channel. Why would anyone *not* go where the greatest money can be made in the easiest manner?
Patreon was late to the party, slow to get going (and is still far below it's more popular siblings of kickstarter type), and doesn't involve a direct money -> result aspect, rather you pay the monthly salary of an "artist" of some kind that may or may not do anything at all. In fact, you have no inkling of what said artist is doing unless they choose to inform you. Combine that with the fact that you can't walk a meter on the internet without stepping over at least 14 artists begging for your attention, and it becomes quite clear why the model isn't very successful.
Is another success story partially from patreon and partially from mail in donations.
They are averaging 6k-7k/month now, which equates to 70-80k a year (up from 30-50k a few years ago.)
But to get there they had to bust their ass for a number of years before it became a self sustaining development project. You have to not only do the development work, but also get enough of a cult of personality going to help with the funding.
I would say that was an outlier but there are lots of other online media projects that have managed similiar. OOTS, Schlock Mercenary, I believe Dominic Deegan as well. Hundreds of web comics that invested the 5 years or so and became commercial successes. Some even being picked up by big publishers like Dark Horse, leading to financial stability well above the median. But they all started by catering to their fanbase socially.
I've often looked at the amount of money folks are charging for commissions on artwork on DeviantArt and considering the quality of work for the very little they can sometimes charge, it's amazing. When you work out the amount of time some artists spend to perfect their work, it doesn't usually work out to be a decent pay so the fact that so many of these artists are also on Pateron, maybe it shouldn't be surprising.
Headline says "No One Makes a Living", but Chapo Trap House is apparently collecting $88,074 monthly! That's slightly more than a million annually which I assume is quite a nice living for most people!
I seems like to me that Patreon has become like YouTube Red for podcasts. Most of the time Patreon is used as a way to get ad-free versions of podcasts. I wonder how many podcasters manage to make a living with the combined Patreaon donations plus the ad-revenue for the free versions.
0.8% making $15/hr.... assuming they're spending 40 hours a week doing what they're on Patreon for.
Assuming this is also their only source of income for what they do.
Video bloggers on Patreon also make a bunch of money from the videos they put on YouTube, which is money not counted here.
Their own websites are bound to have ads on them too.
It's supplemental income for things people are doing anyway, where their customers who want to provide extra support can choose to do so.
You may have heard that they recently banned porn patreons. The highest paid users were ones who did porn.
Patronage has always been a winner take all game.
We lived in a short period in history where musicians in particular could make money from the mass market by making recordings. But that was still a winner take all situation. It had the illusion of being more democratic but at the end of the day a recording industry cartel was still the ultimate power.
Arts funding, be it by grants, by patrons, or by marketing intermediaries has always been a winner take all phenomenon. No artist should dream of a world where a mass of artists recieves braod and well spread out support from the masses. Art is too social in its subjectiveness to escape the hive mind.
One of my favorite youTubers makes 20k per video from Patreon. Granted he puts out a video about every 6-8 weeks but he also has 2 podcasts (each is split with one other person)
how do they know how much time anyone put into making a podcast or whatever. Maybe they put in half an hour and it generates $4 each month - it's all gravy beyond minimum wage after the first month.
Nullius in verba
Most people aren't worth paying. Sucks if you are in that camp but perhaps its time to move on and get a job that plays to your actual strengths.
I'll echo what Slashdot user Frosty Piss said above, that's actually a pretty normal distribution of money for these types of endeavors, and Patreon is not going to magically change those numbers. It is simply another tool that works well for some people and not so well for others. Frankly, their fees are far better than any other site, even with the recent changes. You keep 95%? that's the fairest site of them all.
On YouTube for example your share of the ad revenue is about 45%, or $1 per 1000 views on average. And that's way better than if you are a musician signed to a label. RIck Astley says he's made $12 total off of YouTube through his label. Someone has kept tens of thousands of dollars of revenue from the videos claimed by his copyright assigns. (the video used in Rickrolling memes has probably generated about $75,000, looking at the 75 million hits on it.)
Patreon, if you can make it work, has done a very good job of putting all the revenue you do make in your pocket. It's all up to you.
In the article there is a quote: Indeed, the creators Patreon seems to value most are those who not only make stuff people like, but are also good at marketing their stuff and themselves.
That's the definition of most successful artists. Even if you're good you still have to elevate yourself above the noise with self promotion, until it hits a snowball effect. There are a few exceptional artists, who are so good that they attract the attention of movers and shakers right away, but most people have to work for it.
This is a timely article as I have been looking into it as a way of augmenting and feeding off of my YouTube channel, which has actually been quite successful. I've been evaluating if it can be done without taking up so much time that the added income is not proportionate, as the author of the article intimated is often the case. It's either going to be a net positive or a net negative. If it doesn't work out, no one is forcing me to continue with it.
FTA:
YouTuber Amanda Lee, who makes over $4,000 a month, said, âoeChannel your creativity into something youâ(TM)re passionate about â" donâ(TM)t just create something to please others or to gain views.â
Sometimes that can work, but often you are tailoring what you make to what works and what people want. If that happens to be what you like to make, then it's all good. If not, there is a creative balance in there somewhere. For example, I know that if I post a certain kinds of videos, it gets crazy hits. So I focus on that to make money, while still making other videos that I also like to make but I know won't get those hits. YouTube is a numbers game. The cumulative total of a lot of videos, some successful, some less successful, are what provide a good income. But once you have that content there, the income is passive. It's great. With Patreon, it's never really passive except in the sense that when new patrons sign up for your thing, they tyically get access to all your past content. Which makes early adopters receive less value, so there's that to overcome as well on Patreon.
FTA:
I posted a gif of my dog and included a $69 tier to pay for his food. No one has done it yet. When I first signed up, I thought I was the perfect match for Patreonâ(TM)s model. But now Iâ(TM)m realizing that as a struggling photographer without a massive social media following, Iâ(TM)m probably not Patreonâ(TM)s Target Creator.
Now that's just stupid. Just like GoFundMe, don't ask for people to directly pay for your basic living expenses or your "I need to find myself" trip around the world. No one's going to do it. You have to focus on what you're creating and not your basic living needs when marketing to people.
Also, I don't know why the author of the article expects that most people should be able to make a living solely on Patreon, he seems dissapointed that it's not the case, and expects it should be the case.
Which is that literally anyone can put up a patreon for any reason whatsoever. I'm willing to bet that the majority of patreon "creators" are people who repost content made by others, people who just want others to give them money for no real reason, and people who, well, simply have no fucking talent whatsoever.
Anyone who actually has enough skill to make creativity their job has a much, MUCH higher chance to do well on patreon than this post makes out. Statistics are once again being abused.
These statistics follow the standard chances of being successful as a creator in general. How many people create a PayPal business account and never sell anything?
> a lefty podcast with 19,837 patrons at the time of writing paying $88,074 a month
They're redistributing most of that to their community, right?
A lot of creators also run adds on their YouTube streams. Some have Twitch accounts with Subscribers who pay them money (either direct payment or via Amazon Prime). Artists still do commissions, and so on.
Basically, a person might be earning money outside of Patreon as well. Their fans/viewers are paying them via the most convenient method.
We all know what the point of this article is - that life isn't fair, some people are more successful or talented, they can make more money off that, so let's redistribute that to others less successful.
It's the same commie garbage that has plagued society lo these many years. Don't but into it. It's a trap.
Patreon is a tip jar, not a replacement for a living wage. Sounds like maybe people are misinformed. Ah well, maybe not everyone can make a living through online media. Big surprise there...
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
While artists like to seem to be all about the art, many of them fail to be strict on their money. That picture they made took them an hour to draw, then that picture should be charged $100. Professional Artists who do their work for a living know this, and don't give freebees, exposure isn't payment, and if you are going to distribute it for profit, then they want royalties.
They may sound like they are a sell out, became a corporate shill... However they are able to make a living doing a job they love. While those who are considered starving artists, who sell for free or cheap hoping to get exposure, normally will not get too far, so they will be making a living doing a job they find sub-optimal, and probably taking time from doing what they love.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In this comment, FunkSoulBrother wrote that PC games aren't designed for a living room experience "Because no one does that. [...] I'd be shocked if there were 150,000 Home Theater PCs properly installed and powerful enough for gaming on the continent."
In this comment, kamapuaa wrote: "1) Nobody wants to attach their PC to their TV"
Obviously, home theater PCs exist, as FunkSoulBrother admitted. So these users must have been using hyperbole, or exaggeration as a figure of speech, as was the writer of the headline of the featured article.
There are extremely few people who make a living as independent artists. The few who manage to do so -- like my daughter -- make most of their money from commissions, do so full time, and still don't make anything close to a middle class living from it. Almost no one is getting paid to just follow their bliss. In any case, there are three reasons why this is unlikely to change, and Patreon can't do much about either of them.
First, there are vastly more excellent artists than there are people willing to pay for their art. The few who manage to be picked up by one of the marketing behemoths of the entertainment industry and maintain a following are mainly just lucky. Anyone who follows independent artists in any medium knows that there are more fantastic artists out there working shitty day jobs right now than there are in all the world's museums. Even if the general public routinely sought out and supported unknown artists, the balance wouldn't change significantly.
Second, the general public isn't routinely seeking out unknown artists. Most of them are simply adopting the preferences of their peer groups. As a result, most of the money flows to an infinitesimal fraction of the working artists in the world, often without regard to actual quality. See also, television and pop music.
Third, artists who are getting by do so through a large number of venues. They end up selling in a bunch of online outlets, as well as local venues -- clubs, art galleries, etc., in addition to conventions, regional shows, and every last commissioned private sale they can get. And they're always networking and on the lookout for new markets. It's hard, but it can be done, and even then, you'll probably still have a day job.
Patreon can't change the economic fundamentals or human nature. I don't know if there's anything that can, but if there is, it's probably not a retail website.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Just because someone is a "creative" doesn't mean they're good or good at convincing others to cough up money for them, so the thousands of creatives is irrelevant. I can go create a page too and lower the success rate (albeit small) as well...
And the money will always "concentrate at the top", how retarded is this author? There's always going to be people who are better than others at anything.
Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of baseball players in the world and the big money is in the MLB, look, wealth concentrating at the top!
Patreon is the tip jar of the internet.
Twinstiq, game news
I support a couple unique vocal artists on Patreon.
But I pay by the song. If they only publish one qualifying work per month, then the earnings might seem low.
But they have many other revenue streams and not all of their work qualifies for an automatic payment.
I thought shows like PBS Space Time were getting decent revenue.... is that not true ?
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
No-One means something that doesnt contain 1 ... and 0.8% has no 1
0.8 * (any whole number greater than 1) is in FACT greater than one so BOYAH.
Nice try though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... that breaks the rule?
Sailing SV Delos is an adventure/sailing/diving channel that follows the antics of two brothers (Brian and Brady Trautman), Brian's girlfriend Karin, plus an assortment of [very!] colourful characters as they make their way around the world aboard Delos, a 53' Amel Super Maramu.
Delos currently has Patreon sponsorship to the tune of $13,433 *per video*, and they have uploaded 5 videos in the last 3 weeks. So that's what, $67,000 in 3 weeks?
Does that count as not making money on Patreon?
Oh, and their videos are excellent fun - 4K, lots of good sailing, lots of diving, lots of fun...
https://www.patreon.com/svdelo...
https://www.youtube.com/user/b...
No, I have no affiliation, but I am interested in quitting my job and buying a boat and circumnavigating... So this is an informative and entertaining channel from my point of view...
Look, I'm not above a bit of hyperbole myself, and even admire the use of it. But from "No-one" to the real number of 79,420 * 0.8% = 632 people is too far a bridge for me, that's a lot of people making over $15/hour from the platform, then adding as I said the others that actually are making a living but from additional revenue streams (which likely is a pretty big number as most people use Patreon as an income base on which they do many other things).
In the end the number of people on Patreon doing what they do full time and making a living at it probably exceeds 25%. Way to many to say "no one" is making money unless you are using the term in the Yogi Berra sense.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One thing that Patreon do not make clear is whether Patreon will still take the same amount from the patron and deduct the 2.9% + $0.35 from the existing pledge amount or, as they do with VAT for European patrons, add the 2.9% + $0.35 to the amount charged to the patron. So, for a $10 pledge will the creator receive $9.50 (and the patron charged $11.64) or $8.89 (and the patron still charged $10, plus VAT if appropriate)?
There's a guy AvE who has a day job as an engineer, but posts videos to his Patreon (and sometimes YouTube) of him making and taking stuff apart to understand how things are made.
He uses the Patreon money to pay for shop tools (everything from a screwdriver to a steel-working mill), raw materials, and so on. The more Patreon supporters he has, the better tools he can buy and the fancier things he can take apart.
His Patreon is probably the reason reason any of us know what's inside a Juicero!
dom
Too many people seem under the impression that they should earn decent money for low effort shite. The reality is that most should treat it as a hobby and not go e-begging. Itâ(TM)s not like half decent cameras and microphone setups cost a fortune. YouTubers have no hosting costs to speak of, so the only regular cost is their time.
Itâ(TM)s different when someone is doing serious research or putting out high quality content. Iâ(TM)ll pay someone like Metokur because heâ(TM)s bloody funny. Most YouTubers are gimps sharing their opinions on the news. How is that not just a few hours each week to produce that? Some, like Mundane Matt, go for sheer volume to justify their begging.
Reality is that most of the content is worthless. It should be no surprise that most Patreon accounts are ghost towns.
No one is being followed on Twitter.
No one gets upvoted on Reddit.
And no one on Slashdot reads the article.
You misspelled "with the talented".
How can I stave off these notes attempting to be humorous? Will someone on staff help me out? Really, these are very bass remarks. Someone needs to study their clef notes before trying again. Perhaps that would make me a bit more well-tempered.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
all the negative comments about the situation seem to evoke responses that take some form of "but, it's not MEANT to generate enough revenue to LIVE on!" and "but, don't worry, these people all have other jobs".
hmmm
Assuming this site is mostly the artsy-craftsy "creative community" and it's users and supporters therefore are statistically more likely to be on the political left, I would have expected screeds about the need to use law to make sure all the creative people using the site get a minimum of $15.00US per hour. After all, any other business, like a burger flipper business or a store that pays less then $15.00/hour + health insurance for a "starter job" not meant to be a career gets portrayed as an evil entity run by Mr Scrooge that needs oversight by our tender and loving federal bureuacracy.
So I have 30k subs on youtube, 12 million views, and also a Patreon that hovers around $500/mo. Youtube has come in around $1000-1500 per month in ad revenues lately. That's just barely enough to get by after I also make a not so predictable amount of money on T-shirt sales and also why I started a fairly successful 2nd channel. You need to diversify and Patreon wasn't meant to 100% prop up someone's income. I've heard of cosplayers and artists and web comic creators use it almost exclusively but even they sell shirts and have adsense ads on their websites. I don't think anyone legitimately intends to use it as their sole income in the first place.
That certainly counts as a living in Estonia! And even here in Germany. I wish I had that much.
So... no one makes a living, yet it is clearly stated that several people are indeed making a living? What a great article.
Anyone who follows independent artists in any medium knows that there are more fantastic artists out there working shitty day jobs right now than there are in all the world's museums.
I don't know if there's anything that can,
That's why we need UBI.
It's not just artists either, there's more fantastic inventors out there than all of the cubicles in all the patent farms of Silicon Valley who are working shitty day jobs too, benefiting the 0.0001% instead of all of humanity.
if they were fantastic inventors they could make a living at it, there's no reason to subsidize wannabes who have bad ideas,
LifeOfBoris *does* make a good living on Patreon.
Patreon is the 21st century millennial equivalent of street-corner pandering.
This dude quits his job, so he can be a photographing hobo, then gets bummed when he has no money?
It’s easy to feel like the failure of my Patreon is entirely on me.
No, it's not the failure of your Patreon, it's your personal failure... and it's entirely on you.
The basic idea of Patreon is that the world is full of Medicis, and if you just sign up, they will be your benefactors. The fact is that very few people are willing to sign up for monthly payments. It's not a tip jar, it's a wage garnishment. When you add to that the difficulty of signing up, the difficulty of cancelling, and the fact that Patreon has been hacked, the number of Medicis isn't going to be huge.
This perspective seems pretty entitled, and the article makes no mention of the incredible facts about how young Patreon is and how fast it is growing. However, I think it unintentionally makes a great point. Setting minimum wages means that there are lots of jobs that can never exist because they don't earn densely enough. They may still have a lot of value, but there are inefficiencies that prevent the compensation from coming in directly or steadily. In some cases, they are pursuits that are heavily front-loaded with effort that will only pay off after a decade or something like that. Patreon makes these things much more possible, by legally providing a wage that is not subject to minimum wage restrictions.
If these so called "Artists" were actually any good they would be employed in real jobs. Same reason Government shouldn't fund it.
I support one Patreon member at $2/mo. The member offers genuine value to me (electronics repair, troubleshooting, and DIY test equipment designs that, if I were to purchase them at retail, would cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars). So, for the $24/year (or whatever it works out to with the new fees) is genuine value to me. He makes about $US 4400/mo from people like myself, so apparently he is one of the better paid members.
Perhaps the problem is so many Patreon members don't actually offer anything of value? Why would we expect them to succeed on the site?