[HN Gopher] 1k True Fans? Try 100 (2020)
___________________________________________________________________
1k True Fans? Try 100 (2020)
Author : superasn
Score : 142 points
Date : 2022-06-02 07:46 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (future.a16z.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (future.a16z.com)
| abirch wrote:
| For me it'd be hard to pay 1K a year although I could afford it.
| Heck it was only back in 2019 that I'd force myself to buy apps
| that make me happy, even though I'd drop 6 dollars on a coffee
| without thinking twice. I'm definitely a slave to my mentality.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I have heard this kind of stuff for years (going back to early
| 2000s).
|
| Different ways of dividing your salary by N and then figuring out
| what you need to offer to get S/N per customer.
|
| Usually if someone is saying stuff like this they have a
| "solution" to sell you to help you get there. You are now the fan
| rather than the star.
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Newcomers started doing this on twitter for a while and turn
| social media from platform ads to federation ads network .. it's
| getting worse, like everybody is literally selling to each other.
| Remember old "long time no see" friends shown up trying to sell
| you something? Aghh now everyone pretends to be friend and sell
| you something.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The key to enjoying Twitter is to unfollow anyone who is
| clearly only Tweeting engagement and follow bait all day.
|
| It's easy to spot. They all seem to follow the same pattern du
| jour, such as posting threads that feel like mad libs ("I
| talked to <number> people who are passionate about <topic>.
| What I learned was surprising! Here are the top five takeaways.
| 1/6" is popular right now)
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Don't know who to follow now honestly, it's all boring. My
| followings are pretty diverse.
| 0des wrote:
| You forgot to drench it in finger pointing up and high five
| emojis
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Much of Twitter is just people signaling to one another
| that they are relevant in what they say and how they say
| it. It is a tax on your brain for which you get little in
| return.
| 0des wrote:
| Much of life is social signaling in general.
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Sadly true, tons of people wouldn't care less if it isn't
| opportunity involves. Because social animal is mostly
| passive. You don't show up? We don't look for you even if
| you have some potentials.
| rchaud wrote:
| These days anytime I see the "finger pointing down" emoji
| that tells me that there's a thread below, I unfollow.
| Straight away.
| natly wrote:
| Yeah that's a part of twitter I don't interact with. It's so
| cringy and obvious when people spew marketing advice like this
| and then turn around and act like your friend. As if their
| ulterior motive can't be deduced from what they advice others
| to do. I try spending my time with kinder more normal people
| instead.
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| There are also twitter extension apps coming up that helps
| flooding twitter. And tech twitter is not moving on yet on
| meme and drama.
| jsemrau wrote:
| Reminds me of my first year on DeSo. Money really brings out
| the worst in people.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| The word 'friend' is really abused these days (guess because of
| Facebook etc) and people are somehow falling for it. Seems it's
| becoming quite common (in my circles anyway) that people use
| the term friend for basically everyone they ever talked or
| wrote to and 'good friend' for people they had a deeper than
| casual talk with. And then the drama after because these
| 'friends' probably didn't think the same about them (if they
| even remembered meeting them).
| Akronymus wrote:
| I have been called old for using acquaintance a twice. Which
| feels really weird to me, as I am not that old. ('97)
|
| I'd say I have about 3 friends at MOST, altough, more like 1
| that I consider to truly be a friend. And I agree, friend is
| completely misused.
|
| On steam, friend means someone you want to be able to
| contact. On discord its someone you trust (more than regular
| people) or one you allow to contact you at all (if dms are
| otherwise turned off) and so on.
| 0des wrote:
| 97 what the fuck
|
| Ah wait its 2022 :(
| Akronymus wrote:
| I probably shouldve written it out. The "'" is kinda hard
| to see, now that I am looking at it again.
| 0des wrote:
| No I was more surprised that people from 97 are in fact
| walking and talking adult humans. Time flies.
|
| I've got to stop sleeping in Foreverware..
| politician wrote:
| The Internet turns everyone over 20 into Rip Van Winkle.
| 0des wrote:
| _snifff_
|
| Ill never grow up
|
| _sniff_
|
| Im a Toys-R-.... OH NO
| causi wrote:
| My personal definition of "friend" has always been "someone
| not in your family you would want to inform if you found
| out you had cancer." It's served me quite well.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Id still consider that to be too broad.
|
| Something like admitting to, that you have done something
| criminal,and what, feels closer to the right definition
| for me.
| [deleted]
| Havoc wrote:
| That does seem about right
|
| Though the composition also matters. A small twitch streamer that
| recognises all their regulars usernames and interacts with them
| individually is likely to have a much higher concentration of die
| hard fans. So there the math works easier despite lower absolute
| numbers.
|
| And that in turn is determined by what type of content it is and
| what type of parasocial relationship it is
| bko wrote:
| > Since 2017, the share of new patrons paying more than $100 per
| month--or $1,200 per year--has grown 21 percent
|
| I think this is worded ingenuously. I originally read it that new
| patrons paying $100 per month has grown to 21%, but upon second
| reading I see that the percent has grown 21%. But what's the base
| line? Why not reference that? Is it relative compared to other
| subs (e.g. percent paying $100+ went from 1% -> 1.23%) or
| absolute (e.g. 1k people paying $100+ -> 1,230). I would think a
| large percent of that is probably friends and family.
|
| Does anyone personally support a stranger creator to the tune of
| $100+ a month? It seems like a lot. What's the thought process
| and what do you expect?
| EGreg wrote:
| Immanuel Kant once formulated the categorical imperative ...
| something is moral if it can work universally and be sustainable.
|
| How about economically? Is it sustainable to have every artist
| supported by 100 true fans? Maybe. It means enough people have
| disposable income to spend $1000 a year on something, and that
| every artist finds a niche. Those artists who already got 100
| fans would drop out of the marketplace, leaving the others until
| everyone found a dance partner (like with dating).
|
| Viewed more broadly, though, this would go heavily against the
| Pareto principle, where some artists simply achieve escape
| velocity and get to a different level because they never leave
| the market, while most artists do not produce anything that
| people would really pay to consume, even if they discovered it
| over and over. It is like polygamy starving many young men of
| mates, and polygamy goes hand in hand with war.
|
| I think a much more sustainable model is a UBI that isn't truly
| "unconditional" but a gated community where successful artists
| and their patrons voluntarily agree to redistribute some wealth
| to new artists that keep showing progress in their craft. Crypto
| can be done to redistribute this wealth.
|
| But that would mean there would be quotas on who can join as a
| new struggling artist and get the UBI subsidy, since it's free
| money for any scammer, especially globally it could pay for a lot
| more where cost of living is small. People would try to make 10
| accounts.
|
| It is essentially voluntary socialism online. And one major
| problem with libertarian socialism and why it can't solve poverty
| is that people don't want to let in too many others into their
| subsidy program that pays non-market rates for what could be art
| no one wants. So yes the workers own the factory collectively and
| work 2 hour days but they do hazing for new people. That's what
| countries do with immigration and fraternities do on college
| campuses.
| m348e912 wrote:
| >>I think a much more sustainable model is a UBI that isn't
| truly "unconditional" but a gated community where successful
| artists and their patrons voluntarily agree to redistribute
| some wealth to new artists that keep showing progress in their
| craft.
|
| It seems like you're inferring that unconditional UBI is not
| sustainable and therefore immoral according to Kant's
| definition.
|
| While that position may ruffle some feathers, you may have a
| point. How do you ensure that under conditional UBI that
| recipients are adequately redistributing their
| productivity/wealth?
| EGreg wrote:
| I am pragmatic, not a purist. Having more people (refugees,
| starving artists etc.) receiving money from benefactors is
| better than less.
|
| That means spreading the wealth redistribution as thinly as
| possible: one person one account (it is also good for
| voting).
|
| We can approach such a system by kicking out the artists who
| already got 100 donors, and forcing them "off the market" the
| same way someone should leave a dating site when they paired
| off.
|
| The problem is that various actors have incentives create
| fake accounts. It isn't even so much about UBI for people
| being unsustainable, but that people can create fake accounts
| (sybil attacks). There HAS to be a gatekeeping mechanism.
| There has to be a condition, the U can't stand for
| Unconditional. It can stand for Universal (to all members of
| a community).
|
| The hard part is ensuring there is no serious corruption in
| the mechanisms that whitelist accounts. WorldCoin scans
| eyeballs and Proof of Humanity does network analysis and
| tokenomics. I think that there should be a self-regulating
| organization (SRO like FINRA is for example) of KYC providers
| that stake a surety bond proportional to how many accounts
| they whitelist, and if some duplicates or fake accounts can
| be proven, in some sort of due process, they lose that stake.
| So they have some enforcement.
|
| But still it may not be enough, for example for a national
| election there are strong incentives to register fake voters,
| and if the whole thing is done without appearing in person
| then that's even easier to do. So then you need really harsh
| penalties for corrupt bureaucrats and ways to revoke
| certifications. But by that time some amount of UBI / welfare
| / disability benefits will have been paid out, or an election
| to install a director or head fo state has already taken
| place.
|
| Far better not to concentrate the wealth and power to begin
| with, because then there would be less incentive to cheat and
| rally and grab the spoils of "war" whether that is marauders
| raiding a village, or a political party taking over an
| election, or Jeff Bezos now picking winners and losers in his
| investments / philanthropy
|
| Basically, it is not that UBI is unsustainable, but that free
| (or subsidized, by exceeding the value whatever contribution
| the recipient makes to the system) money requires some
| increasingly harsh mechanisms to vet people.
|
| At the end of the day though, we need such systems as there
| is a growing proportion of people whose labor just simply
| isn't valuable enough to exceed their cost of living. And
| asking them to forego the modern conveniences of life, like
| safe potable running water and at least 500 square feet of
| space to live in, safe neighborhoods, access to lifesaving
| emergency medicine etc. is silly. If we subdidizs them
| anyway, why not standardize the system and remove corruption?
| bradhe wrote:
| Why stop there? Why not 10?
| trynumber9 wrote:
| Why not 1? Just marry a rich fan/customer.
|
| I'm kidding.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| One true fan but it's Marc Andreessen.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| That is also a successful (and much more traditional) model.
| scandox wrote:
| One true fan that happens to be your boss is really the classic
| model
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Unfortunately they are a fan of having your butt on a seat
| (sit stand desks excepted) for 40h/w.
| bluedays wrote:
| This is my current model. I actually got a lot of work
| because of this.
| simne wrote:
| It depends. In reality, much easier to work with 1k true fans
| model.
|
| Exceptions are, when your expensive product is in high demand,
| but not scaled well, so you HAVE to limit number of clients,
| because you just cannot make more sales.
|
| What this could be? One example I hear from CG community - CG
| Grooming Artist - at the moment in high demand and highly paid,
| and many firms accept freelancers, but not all CG firms need it.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I'm quite interested in learning more about what kind of things
| people are willing to pay 80-100 USD a month for on Patreon.
|
| The author also throws around some percentages of the growth of
| hig end payers on Patreon, but no hard numbers. Did it increase
| by 5 people? Are high paying patrons growing faster than low
| paying?
| zamadatix wrote:
| I'm a Github sponsor for $100/m for audio support on Asahi
| Linux for M1 MacBooks (though I don't expect this to last a
| full year) and a $48/m Patreon supporter of marcan for the
| overall development. For marcan that was their highest tier, I
| probably would have went more towards the $80 range had it been
| an option. There are actually a few others with lower max tiers
| (like $10) where I've maxed out. My goal here is they deliver
| good work and I want to make sure they are able to continue
| investing the hardware and time to do that.
|
| Prior to the Asahi stuff I had that more spread out across some
| interesting and/or useful things like Zig.
| kouteiheika wrote:
| > I'm quite interested in learning more about what kind of
| things people are willing to pay 80-100 USD a month for on
| Patreon.
|
| This is probably not representative over the whole population,
| but, I have a Patreon. I had a few people pay me $50/month
| (where the base tier is $5/month). The $50/month tier has no
| extra benefits besides a vanity Discord role. So why did they
| do it? They genuinely want to support whatever I'm doing.
| That's it.
| ringworld wrote:
| While it doesn't fit TFA's premise of 100 on one thing, Patreon
| is used as a donation platform by many groups, for example i
| know of several online radio platforms using it (when asked
| "why not Liberapay?", they say Patreon helps take care of
| business and tax issues, provides an API, etc.). DKFM uses the
| API to display their Patreon donors on the website for example.
|
| Sci-fi publications use it as well for monthly subscriptions -
| the general math holds up that some people spend $5/$10 per
| thing totalling up to $100/mo (or some variation). But I don't
| think that supports what TFA is suggesting $100/thing/mo), that
| feels like a lot. They might believe the Patreon user only
| supports one thing/mo, but I'm not sure that's true - people
| have varied interests based on my travels.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| > when asked "why not Liberapay?", they say Patreon helps
| take care of business and tax issues, provides an API, etc.
|
| Another big advantage, especially in audio / video formats,
| is that you can say "support me on Patreon" and people will
| know what you're talking about, vs. needing to spell out a
| URL for people.
| esrauch wrote:
| On Twitch people commonly give $100 for absolute nothing, just
| to be thanked by the creator live, which they would do for
| significantly less money as well, often just $5.
|
| I suspect the top tiers at Patreon must work the same, there's
| some benefit there but people are doing it because they are a
| megafan and want to show it. I'd be intested in how many of
| them are living in a false belief / parasocial relationship
| though.
| Akronymus wrote:
| I have a few streamers I occasionally throw money at. But
| those are ones I actually interact with outside of the
| streams/very small streamers, without deluding myself to
| think they are my friends. They owe me NOTHING.
|
| Parasocial relationships are scary though. A few times I
| almost slipped into one. (Nowadays I intentionally stop
| watching streamers I feel I am getting too close to.)
| vintermann wrote:
| Some of these megafan donations are probably fakes, the
| streamer sending themselves money with an alt in the hope
| that real people follow. The platform has little incentive to
| stop that sort of thing.
| mcv wrote:
| That is absolutely possible, but there are also definitely
| people who simply want to support people who do cool stuff,
| and don't necessarily need anything in addition to the free
| content in exchange.
| altdataseller wrote:
| $100 for 1 piece of content, yes, but $100 regularly per
| month?
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Yes. A month.
|
| I wanna read an article about the $100/month patreon tiers
| and the people who pay for them.
| altdataseller wrote:
| Good point. I'd pay 1k for that content
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I only follow a couple streamers (as opposed to surfing more
| generally) and I notice the same names repeatedly doing
| donations like that. Most are one-offs but there are maybe 10
| names that stick out in my brain because I see them so often.
|
| I know parasocial is the popular thing right now, but I think
| it's just a more general 'microtransaction whale factor' that
| encompasses collectible card games, gachas, and stream
| donations. I leave realmoney gambling out of that because I
| think the chance to get actual money back makes the
| rationalization different, nobody who is whaling thinks they
| will get a dime back.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Agreed. It seems like examples should be easy to find and
| highlight if it's really as common as this article suggests.
|
| I've seen people spontaneously put $100 toward creators they
| really appreciate, but those are rare. $100 per month on a
| recurring basis or a constant influx of one-off $100 donations
| is a much higher bar. You would need a relatively massive
| audience to convert enough people interested in spending
| $1K/year on something.
| stakkur wrote:
| Maybe. Sort of. What I'd really like to see is some sort of data
| on _long-term_ income from these sorts of models. Yes, I know
| there are some--but I haven 't seen it widely successful over
| several years or more for more than the '1%'.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Another creator who teaches physiotherapy made $141,000 with
| only 61 students, at an average price point of $2,314 per course.
|
| This seems like a scam. To be a physiotherapist in the United
| States, you have to have a bachelor's degree (4 years) followed
| by a 3 year Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from an accredited
| college.
|
| https://www.apta.org/your-career/careers-in-physical-therapy...
|
| So the people paying that money definitely aren't making progress
| to become an actual physiotherapist.
|
| There is also a physiotherapist assistant training which can be
| completed in just a couple of years. These programs are offered
| by community colleges and are likely cheaper and more useful than
| an online course.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| I don't know anything about this teacher, but they might
| already be physiotherapists and doing additional courses on
| some speciality.
|
| It's common for health workers to take additional classes to
| stay on top of things. Some countries require certain
| professions to take some number of classes every few years to
| keep their license.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And describing those situations as "Fans" just feels wrong.
| It is clearly offering a service as product. And basically
| buying the possibly relevant certificate for participation.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| Yeah, in an ideal world content creators could make an entire
| salary off of donations and offering simple perks and exclusive
| access. But actually this is a terrible career advice and
| relatively few people actually end up making anywhere close to
| $100k on Twitch or Patreon.
|
| For each example the author mentions there are 100s if not 1,000s
| more who are wasting their time. We just aren't a society where
| most people donate thousands or even hundreds of dollars out of
| altruism or for "exclusive access" except in a few niche
| scenarios.
|
| I personally subscribe to a few content creators on Patreon.
| These people are very talented and have die-hard fans, because
| frankly their work is seriously exceptional and unique, and they
| make money. But not $1000 or even $100 per person, more like
| $1000 a month in total. The average subscriber donates ~$5 per
| month.
|
| That's not to say you shouldn't do Patreon, in fact I think
| Patreon is a great tool to give you a) motivation, b) feedback,
| and c) a decent supplement to your income which is at least part
| of what you deserve for your work. But don't think you can quit
| your job and do Patreon full time, that won't happen unless
| you're especially lucky or successful, and it takes years of
| work. And don't think doing Patreon full time is any easier than
| a full-time job either.
|
| Not to mention, the audience who donates is often very different
| than your main audience, who are very different than the creator
| himself/herself. Often what gets the most money isn't what the
| most people want: case in point, mobile games, or at least
| mobile-style AAA games. And, often what gets the most views (and
| thus ad revenue) isn't what the creator likes to create: case in
| point, clickbait videos and the "kid-ification" of popular
| YouTube channels.
|
| Work on your passion, but don't expect to work full-time on it.
| dubswithus wrote:
| Cum Town makes close to 100k per month on Patreon. Proof that
| you can make a lot of money by just fucking around.
| rchaud wrote:
| Wasn't this a spinoff of an existing successful podcast made
| by the same people? They might already have had a built-in
| audience who'd be willing to pay.
| duxup wrote:
| Well someone can ... "you" probably can't ;)
| dubswithus wrote:
| I don't know dude, I've got a pretty foul mouth and
| opinions.
| duxup wrote:
| Your second to last paragraph rings true for me.
|
| I follow some folks on YouTube for a variety of topics, they're
| highly skilled, give great advice / technical information
| (everything from games to coding) and are very professional /
| great speakers and presenters.
|
| They get noticeably few donations compared to folks who
| emphasize acting out and a sort of wonky infotainment (where
| the information is sometimes dead wrong).
|
| It's a bit disheartening.
| bryans wrote:
| > But actually this is a terrible career advice and relatively
| few people actually end up making anywhere close to $100k on
| Twitch or Patreon. [...] I think Patreon is a great tool to
| give you a decent supplement to your income
|
| There are relatively few content creators making $100k/yr from
| a single platform, but there are _tons_ of people making that
| and more by utilizing all of the platforms. The first piece of
| advice I always give to musicians is to treat every social
| media and streaming platform as its own "venue" with their own
| unique set of users -- because they are. Always performing at
| the same venue in your hometown isn't going to be lucrative or
| sustainable, so you branch out to other venues and other
| cities, because that's the only way to find new markets.
|
| The same is true for all content creation. Focusing on in-
| person performances ignores the entire online market, which is
| >99% of potential revenue. Focusing on Twitch ignores the
| opportunities of TikTok and YouTube. But if you take the time
| to understand the quirks of each platform and its users, and
| then chop up your content into sizes and styles appropriate for
| each platform, it's actually _extremely_ easy to go from zero
| online presence to $10k /mo within two years.
|
| Not everybody understands Patreon or wants to use it (and
| frankly, it's not a very usable site), so if your subscriptions
| are solely based around that platform, then you're ignoring 95%
| of the potential subscriber market and making everything more
| difficult than it needs to be. Content is content. It can go
| anywhere, and investing a few days into learning basic video
| editing makes content distribution a breeze.
| varispeed wrote:
| This kind of fan driven art transform artists into dancing
| monkeys. I mean, there is nothing wrong in that - but makes art
| bland and utilitarian. It changes thinking from expressing
| oneself, pushing boundaries, to what can I do to make my fans
| continue to pay $5. The soul somehow gets lost.
|
| Many artists cannot fit themselves into such regime and end up
| giving up. I guess that's how humans work.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| This bothers me too. I get tons of social media ads for how to
| make money from music, one of them is Savvy Musician - a stay-
| at-home Mom with 5 kids who makes Celtic Metal. Her advice
| centers on finding your micro-niche, which to me feels like
| just writing the same song over and over, and then digging in
| it looks like most of her income is from selling merch, so the
| music ends up being just ads for t-shirts and mugs.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Of course this poses other challenges. You'll end up an 'artist'
| of gilding toilet seats for rich and demanding 'customers' who
| are very clear on what they want.
|
| That ain't me: my branding is aligned with what my actual values
| and heritage are, and it's profoundly oriented towards the folks
| who have skills and dreams but no resources, and so I make open
| source software supporting 'em.
|
| I get excited when I can support a new platform like the new
| Raspberry Pi, not about thinking up stuff to excite about three
| of my audience who could throw me a hundred bucks a month. If I
| go over to serving only them I'll be doing only as they direct,
| and they absolutely don't have the vision to run my show and get
| anywhere worthwhile with it.
|
| This doesn't make the article worthless. I've been thinking very
| hard about how I can expand into hardware DIY and the article
| hints at possibilities there. I can try to come up with a DIY
| synth module that comes in under $20 for my primary base... or,
| apparently, if I can make the ultimate speaker cabinet using all
| my tricks and sell it to someone for $200, I could also execute
| it in the most sophisticated possible way, and sell it for $2000
| to a superfan who is that kind of wealthy. The $20 guy can't
| afford either, but the $2000 guy doesn't need me to hold it to
| $200, they need me to make it special for them.
|
| Risk of course is if the $2000 guy doesn't exist or doesn't show
| up. Trying to target only the wealthy is dangerous. They are as
| fickle as your attitude towards them is. There's exactly one guy
| out there who randomly gave me $1000, and rather than demand a
| product, he wanted me to think about spherical harmonics in the
| belief that I might come up with something helpful in the field
| that interested him. I suspect there are guys out there who would
| likewise give me $1000 on the condition that I abandon what I do
| and start doing what they would do if they were me...
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| I think the difference between what you're saying and this
| article is that you have customers, not patrons (or you're
| treating your patrons like customers).
|
| The people who shell out $1K a year aren't generally doing it
| because they are getting a product or service in return that is
| worth $1K / year to them, they're doing it because they believe
| in the mission of the creator and want to help support that.
|
| Most of our creators that have a "crazy amount of money" plan
| generally don't offer anything extra beyond gratitude to the
| big spenders (public gratitude, but still just gratitude). And
| oddly enough, the big spenders tend to be the least demanding.
| So long as you don't overcharge them or something, they don't
| have many demands, because they were never thinking of it as
| purchasing something in the first place.
| Applejinx wrote:
| No, you've got it backwards. 'your creators'? Are you
| affiliated with this type of payment system? I'm in the top
| 100 music creators worldwide on Patreon, so I figure my
| observations are salient: it's working for me.
|
| I only have patrons. There's a set of tiers that are all
| voluntary, and a one dollar and two dollar tier that are very
| popular because people want to be doing something, especially
| when they have nothing and I'm helping them out.
|
| In my experience there are two kinds of 'whales': randomly
| appearing ones who throw money commensurate to THEIR
| resources (which will appear like a large sum to me), and the
| ones who want to throw money to get me to do something
| specific, and they have demands and often go away again if I
| don't comply. I enjoy the former and am not really interested
| in the latter.
|
| It's not that I'm mad at them, but if their ideas were that
| great they would be me... the reason I do as well as I do on
| Patreon with zero 'extra' and zero 'customers' is because
| I've got a vision and I'm executing on it. I'm not there to
| take requests, I'm there to show people something they have
| not seen, and also to give free opensource tools by way of
| executing on that vision.
|
| I'm not at all sure the 'people who shell out 1K a year
| because they believe in the mission' exist. Can't prove it by
| me, I don't have any of those. I do think there are people
| out there steering indie media figures politically in that
| way, but I don't think that counts, I think it's money
| laundering and a backchannel way of funding influencers to
| deliver specific messages. That's far from philanthropy,
| that's business (in the form of politics, usually, but
| probably there are examples that are more directly just
| business)
| egypturnash wrote:
| I had a lengthy reply here but really it comes down to one thing:
| Andresson Horowhatsit can either start giving every creator on
| Patreon a few hundred a month, or they can fuck right off. Their
| "100 true fans" model proposed here is not true fans at all in
| the sense Kelly meant, and if I pivoted my Patreon to doing the
| kind of stuff they're advocating, it would involve doing a ton of
| crap that's tedious work to me, and constantly warping my work
| around what I think my bigger supporters want instead of making
| what _I_ want to create and trusting my fans to keep on wanting
| to follow wherever the Muses lead me.
|
| Also if any of you FAANG types have a thousand bucks a month
| you're not using, I will _gladly_ take it and convert it to goofy
| furry porn, and give you absolutely no training or special
| treatment. https://www.patreon.com/egypturnash
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I'd try 1 if you can even, then 10, then..
| [deleted]
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Obviously this is HN and not r/Livestreamfail, but the vast
| majority of Super Fans are not buying courses or supporting the
| development of content.
|
| The real Super Fans have an unhealthy obsession with an online
| personality and think they are going to buy a friendship, or a
| girlfriend, or some other reciprocity. I worked in this industry
| for a bit. A lot of times big donors will dump their life savings
| or steal a family member or relative's credit card (Which is why
| the rate of chargebacks is so high). The companies pushing this
| have all the data and know exactly what's going on, but market to
| this demographic anyway.
|
| IMO it's no different than a Casino taking advantage of someone
| with a gambling addiction. It's not a "Passion Economy" it's an
| economy of exploitation and social dysfunction.
| bryans wrote:
| I've consulted with several hundred live streamers, and _none_
| of what you 're saying is reflective of their experiences. It
| is _outrageously false and disparaging_ to claim that the vast
| majority (or even a significant portion) of large contributors
| are somehow dysfunctional and that content creators are
| exploiting them.
|
| Some people build cars for fun and spend their disposable
| income on that experience. Other people enjoy online content
| and spend their disposable income ensuring that content keeps
| getting made, or can be made even better. To declare an entire
| populations' preferred hobby as "dysfunctional" is plainly
| inflammatory and entirely inappropriate.
|
| > The companies pushing this have all the data and know exactly
| what's going on, but market to this demographic anyway.
|
| "The companies" aren't marketing high-cost options in any way.
| Twitch's highest subscription tier is $25/mo. Patreon suggests
| a higher tier of $30. Those are not "ruin mom's credit" or
| "dump your life savings" prices, so it's disingenuous (at best)
| to suggest that something nefarious and exploitative is
| happening in regards to platforms' marketing efforts.
| zamadatix wrote:
| > "The companies" aren't marketing high-cost options in any
| way. Twitch's highest subscription tier is $25/mo.
|
| Twitch has a "Gift 100 subs $499" button right in the gift
| UI. If you haven't noticed that with the several hundred live
| streamers you've consulted with then it seems by definition
| the streamers you interact with do not have the Super Fans
| being discussed yet such fans are common enough for Twitch to
| make UI for it.
| bryans wrote:
| Making an option available isn't the same as nefarious
| marketing and intentional exploitation, which is the
| entirely false claim being made by the OC. You're also
| acting incredibly inflammatory by suggesting that I am
| "ignorant of functionality" and "couldn't possibly work
| with streamers at that level." Unfortunately for your
| claim, I've consulted with several of Twitch's top 100
| music streamers and have years of direct experience with
| every type of fan, super and otherwise. The OC's claims are
| nonsense, and your pedantic nitpicking isn't appropriate or
| applicable.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Please don't put quotation marks around words and claims
| which were not said. The quote was "If you haven't
| noticed that with the several hundred live streamers
| you've consulted with then it seems by definition the
| streamers you interact with do not have the Super Fans"
| and this does not contain either of those quotes or
| claims you're disparaging as they were never said. Not
| working with folks that try to get this type of viewer to
| press this button multiple times per months is a
| fantastic thing not something to get inflamed about. At
| the same time it doesn't mean these types of streamers
| and fans don't exist just because you don't work with
| them and clearly they do exist or Twitch wouldn't have
| bothered to make all of these types of options and fancy
| effects and the aforementioned bad example streams
| wouldn't have them triggered constantly.
|
| I don't see this as a nit, the claim in question was:
|
| > "The companies" aren't marketing high-cost options in
| any way. Twitch's highest subscription tier is $25/mo
|
| Which is central to the arguments and the error core not
| inconsequential. Companies like Twitch have multiple
| high-cost options like the aforementioned $499 in one
| click gift button and the larger the cost for the option
| chosen the fancier/louder the button and after effects
| look. If you work with several of Twitches top streamers
| that's fantastic and it should be easy to verify there
| are many accounts spending orders of magnitude more than
| $25/month, super fans are the main folks being marketed
| to with these options and they make up the majority of
| their use.
|
| Regarding the rest of the GP's claims when it comes to
| your response:
|
| > Some people build cars for fun and spend their
| disposable income on that experience. Other people enjoy
| online content and spend their disposable income ensuring
| that content keeps getting made, or can be made even
| better. To declare an entire populations' preferred hobby
| as "dysfunctional" is plainly inflammatory and entirely
| inappropriate.
|
| Super Fans donate hundreds of dollars per action to
| streamers who are sometimes making millions per year.
| This is not the "I'm tier 3 for my favorite streamer so
| they can stay full time" crowd it's the "I'm top bit
| donator/sub gifter on a top channel" crowd. I consider
| myself part of the former hobby/support group but I can't
| see any way to construe the latter group as part of the
| same hobby either. I'm open to hearing ways that whale
| segment could be though if you'd be willing to expound
| bryans wrote:
| > you haven't noticed [...] the streamers you interact
| with do not have [...] Please don't put quotation marks
| around words and claims which were not said.
|
| You're pedantically nitpicking again, when you clearly
| understood that I was paraphrasing to highlight the
| obvious inflammatory intent behind your blatantly
| disparaging remarks. You're concocting confrontation. You
| even just edited your comment to include _more_
| disparaging commentary and suggestions that I 'm ignorant
| of the existence of a group of people. All you did
| (before editing your comment) is claim that I don't know
| things because your extremely limited personal anecdotes
| somehow outweigh my professional experience, which is the
| definition of inflammatory behavior.
|
| > Which is core to the arguments and the error major not
| minor. Companies like Twitch have multiple high-cost
| options
|
| The core argument made by the OC was that "the vast
| majority of super fans" are "socially dysfunctional" and
| "companies pushing this have all the data and know
| exactly what's going on, but market to this demographic
| anyway." The suggestion here is that these companies are
| nefariously _encouraging_ people to donate higher
| amounts. When in reality, the functionality to gift
| groups of subs isn 't even visible by default on Twitch
| and the user needs to go out of their way to switch to
| the gift subs tab, before consciously deciding to click
| at the _bottom_ of the list of amounts, which also
| requires scrolling on some mobile screen sizes before you
| can even see the higher amounts.
|
| So, no, the higher-cost items are, in fact, _not_
| "pushed" or "marketed" as the OC or you suggest, which
| makes your entire argument a nitpick. All you did was
| mention that a thing existed, without providing any
| context or evidence as to how it's exploitative or how it
| could even be considered marketing. Twitch even makes a
| point in the site's verbiage of labeling any subs larger
| than $5 as "going above and beyond," which makes clear
| that even moderate amounts are more than is expected of
| the user. Again, the existence of functionality does not
| constitute nefarious behavior -- it doesn't even qualify
| as "marketing," and it definitely doesn't qualify as
| "exploiting dysfunctional users."
|
| > Super Fans donate hundreds of dollars per action to
| streamers who are sometimes making millions per year.
| This is not the "I'm tier 3 for my favorite streamer so
| they can stay full time" crowd it's the "I'm top bit
| donator/sub gifter on a top channel" crowd. I consider
| myself part of the former hobby/support group but I can't
| see any way to construe the latter group as part of the
| same hobby either. I'm open to hearing ways that whale
| segment could be though if you'd be willing to expound
|
| Super fans are not exclusive to million dollar streamers,
| so you're using a rare example to make generalizations
| which are not reflective of the overall industry or
| culture. The existence of a personality type which seeks
| attention by donating large amounts to see themselves on
| a leaderboard where thousands (or tens of thousands) of
| people are watching, does not magically mean that applies
| to all donors and, in fact, applies to so few donors that
| your argument really has no foundation.
|
| For one of _thousands_ of examples I could provide, a
| relatively small streamer I worked with has an average
| viewership of less than 150 per stream. Yet, roughly 20%
| of their regular viewers contribute more than $100 /mo,
| with several over $500/mo, and exactly zero of them are
| doing it for attention -- a fact, given that there is no
| leaderboard and they receive no acknowledgement verbally
| or via overlays. In reality, _most_ large contributors
| prefer to do so anonymously anyway, and streamers
| typically make a point of communicating with those
| supporters to ensure that larger donations aren 't
| risking their financial well-being.
| zamadatix wrote:
| My edit was to add:
|
| > Not working with folks that try to get this type of
| viewer to press this button multiple times per months is
| a fantastic thing not something to get inflamed about. At
| the same time it doesn't mean these types of streamers
| and fans don't exist just because you don't work with
| them and clearly they do exist or Twitch wouldn't have
| bothered to make all of these types of options and fancy
| effects and the aforementioned bad example streams
| wouldn't have them triggered constantly.
|
| I'm genuinely interested in how/why this is being taken
| as disparaging or concocting confrontation. It's not
| intended to be so at all but often on the internet plain
| text can be interpreted many different ways, maybe ways I
| can't see from my point of view alone. Regardless,
| apologies if anything has come across as being written to
| incite confrontation.
|
| Nothing I've talked to is about my personal experience vs
| your professional experience or anecdotes though, it's
| been about what is factually on the site and available
| for all to see. I do have some personal anecdotes I could
| bring but I haven't as I like to stay away from them when
| possible. Them same avoidance can be given as well to
| relying on any experience, be it personal or
| professional, when the information itself is readily
| available.
|
| In general if there is something you find nitpicking,
| confrontational, disparaging, inflammatory, or so on I'd
| greatly appreciate if you could provide an example of
| what and how it could have been better worded to focus on
| the content. As it stands now I'm having a hard time
| distilling what or how you're expecting things to be
| different, just that you seem extraordinarily unhappy
| with every comment I make.
|
| > The core argument made by the OC was that "the vast
| majority of super fans" are "socially dysfunctional" and
| "companies pushing this have all the data and know
| exactly what's going on, but market to this demographic
| anyway." The suggestion here is that these companies are
| nefariously encouraging people to donate higher amounts.
| When in reality, the functionality to gift groups of subs
| isn't even visible by default on Twitch and the user
| needs to go out of their way to switch to the gift subs
| tab, before consciously deciding to click at the bottom
| of the list of amounts, which also requires scrolling on
| some mobile screen sizes before you can even see the
| higher amounts.
|
| On the contrary these things are extremely visible and
| advertised. Popping into a top Twitch stream right now
| with an incognito tab these are the things I see right
| away:
|
| - The top gifters for the week are pinned to the top of
| the chat. The number 1 place has a large golden gift box
| with a 1 in it followed by their name and gift count
| (which is near 500)
|
| - High spend actions result in ever more exclusive emotes
| next to names such as having max tier subscription and
| being the top gifter resulting in very elaborate icons
| while cheap actions like prime sub very plain ones. This
| is made apparent by these displaying by default next to
| every message these users type (both an advertisement and
| incentive system)
|
| - High spend actions place themselves in chat with links
| to how you yourself can do the same thing
|
| - Hype trains also appear on the page with much fanfare
| pushing the use of gifts and bits. These give exclusive
| emotes and individual callouts as well.
|
| - Once subscribed (at any level) the gift sub button is
| actually displayed by default on the page and the section
| does list the $499.00 option by default. Hidden would be
| the $999.00 options for tier 2/tier 3 gifting I haven't
| even mentioned.
|
| - Many of these are mirrored for bits
|
| And these are just the things from Twitch itself, not the
| things Twitch is fine with streamers adding on top. On
| the flipside the strongest action you can do without
| spending money is highlight a message.
|
| Marketing pushes aside though I also disagree with the
| premise that marketing is even central to whether it
| means it's not exploitative or not, to me it just makes
| it even more nefarious as a whole. Simply having a 100
| gift sub button in the UI, well hidden and never
| mentioned otherwise, is still extremely hard to justify
| as anything but exploitative. There are very few select
| cases $499 is reasonable in one month let alone needs to
| be available in one purchase flow and Twitch is well
| aware it's being used more often than could ever be
| attributed to non-exploitative cases so I argue the
| existence itself is nefarious, before even getting into
| the whole incentive system built around it.
|
| > Super fans are not exclusive to million dollar
| streamers, so you're using a rare example to make
| generalizations which are not reflective of the overall
| industry or culture. The existence of a personality type
| which seeks attention by donating large amounts to see
| themselves on a leaderboard where thousands (or tens of
| thousands) of people are watching, does not magically
| mean that applies to all donors and, in fact, applies to
| so few donors that your argument really has no
| foundation.
|
| Million dollar streamers are the stealman case. One can
| still find this type of "Super Fan" in many other
| streams, no need to rely on generalization, but the
| example makes for a case where it's easy to show the
| exploitation is well known and large in scale.
|
| Also the conversation was never about all "donors", from
| the beginning it was about "the vast majority of Super
| Fans are not buying courses or supporting the development
| of content". Disagree or not with the statement it never
| made claims every single
|
| > For one of thousands of examples I could provide, a
| relatively small streamer I worked with has an average
| viewership of less than 150 per stream. Yet, roughly 20%
| of their regular viewers contribute more than $100/mo,
| with several over $500/mo, and exactly zero of them are
| doing it for attention -- a fact, given that there is no
| leaderboard and they receive no acknowledgement verbally
| or via overlays. In reality, most large contributors
| prefer to do so anonymously anyway, and streamers
| typically make a point of communicating with those
| supporters to ensure that larger donations aren't risking
| their financial well-being.
|
| Sounds like a well built community :). Unfortunately even
| * 1000 these numbers pale in comparison and don't exactly
| line up with the "dump their life savings or steal a
| family member or relative's credit card" type users
| described in the GP, both in strength and volume, to the
| large stream examples and do not set what the majority
| is. The leaked Twitch payout data is a great example of
| this, a small handful of streams make the majority not
| the long tail of thousands.
|
| Edit clarification: Remembered hard Twitch payout data
| was leaked and added a note on how you could help me with
| the items felt confrontational.
| bryans wrote:
| > If you haven't noticed that with the several hundred
| live streamers you've consulted with then it seems by
| definition the streamers you interact with do not have
| the Super Fans being discussed [...] At the same time it
| doesn't mean these types of streamers and fans don't
| exist just because you don't work with them
|
| I'm trying to take your word that you don't mean to
| disparage, but I don't see another interpretation for
| what you've said. You suggested that I'm not aware of
| basic Twitch functionality (when I clearly am), then
| claimed that I must not have knowledge of the subject
| because the streamers I work with "by definition" don't
| have super fans (even though they clearly do), then
| claimed I said super fans don't even exist (though I
| never so much as remotely hinted it), then repeated the
| claim that I don't work with anyone who has super fans
| (even after _explicitly_ telling you they do).
|
| All of those things (and some that I left out) are
| disparaging, and the entire premise of your commentary
| has been that _your_ perspective as a viewer can be
| applied to the entirety of the content creation industry
| as an absolute and indisputable fact, but that _my_
| perspective as a viewer, streamer and consultant strictly
| applies to a unique subset of streamers whom I 've
| personally worked with -- because apparently I
| exclusively find the extremely rare streamers and whales
| who aren't part of "the vast majority" involved in an
| "exploitative" industrial complex, even though that would
| be a statistical impossibility. So, when you claim
| "nothing I've talked to is about my personal experience
| vs your professional experience," that's patently untrue.
| It's the basis for everything you've said.
|
| > Simply having a 100 gift sub button in the UI, well
| hidden and never mentioned otherwise, is still extremely
| hard to justify as anything but exploitative.
|
| At the end of the day, you're attempting to perpetuate
| the completely false notion that "the vast majority" of
| large donors are "dysfunctional" and being "exploited."
| You witness people donate large amounts and for some
| reason automatically assume exploitation, but you have no
| actual evidence or justification for that assumption
| other than it seeming like a lot of money to _you_ ,
| personally. Unless you're a professional psychologist who
| analyzed these people, you don't get to declare that "the
| vast majority" of any population are mentally unwell or
| being exploited -- especially when your only knowledge of
| the situation is that you saw strangers push buttons on a
| website. That's not situational knowledge of _anything_.
|
| In reality, there are magnitudes more large donors who
| contribute to be supportive and out of appreciation for
| the streamers time and talents. Some fans will spend 100+
| hours per month watching a particular streamer, so if
| they can afford to donate $1,000, that works out to
| paying $10/hr for entertainment, which is less than
| _many_ hobbies. Yet, I don 't see you making claims that
| people who spend lots of money on _other_ forms of
| entertainment are exploitative -- just this particular
| industry, and for reasons you haven 't actually
| articulated.
|
| And that's all still ignoring the fact that your
| perceived observations do not apply to the content
| creation industry as a whole, or even the majority of it.
| When I tell you that what you're describing can't be
| applied to the nearly 1,000 whales I've personally
| communicated with over the past few years, it makes no
| sense for you to double down on a blanket generalization
| that "the vast majority" of streamers are exploitative
| and large donors are being exploited, because even basic
| math doesn't back your argument.
|
| > On the contrary these things are extremely visible and
| advertised.
|
| You listed the basic concept of subscriptions and rewards
| as evidence for nefarious activity and exploitation.
| That's rather silly, and I'm not going to engage with it.
|
| > Also the conversation was never about all "donors",
| from the beginning it was about "the vast majority of
| Super Fans are not buying courses or supporting the
| development of content". Disagree or not with the
| statement it never made claims every single
|
| Please stop making pedantic nitpicks. I've literally
| quoted "the vast majority" a dozen times in these
| comments, and you're choosing to pick a _single_ instance
| where I generally referred to them as donors for the sake
| of brevity within a long sentence, which itself is inside
| a paragraph specifically about super fans and even
| started with the words "super fans." You know _exactly_
| what I was referencing, and that you continue to turn
| these false nitpicks into full arguments is both
| exhausting and starting to resemble gaslighting.
| mjr00 wrote:
| > "The companies" aren't marketing high-cost options in any
| way. Twitch's highest subscription tier is $25/mo. Patreon
| suggests a higher tier of $30. Those are not "ruin mom's
| credit" or "dump your life savings" prices, so it's
| disingenuous (at best) to suggest that something nefarious
| and exploitative is happening in regards to platforms'
| marketing efforts.
|
| You're ignoring superchats and tips which is where most of
| the money comes from. Watch any fairly popular livestream,
| especially during the "just chatting" style periods, and
| you'll see $500, $1000 or higher superchats getting dumped in
| every few minutes.
|
| I mainly watch VTubers (never paid one money, for the
| record...) and the so-called "Girlfriend Experience" (or
| Boyfriend Experience, to a much lesser extent) is a real
| thing. Look at what happened to Uruha Rushia -- she
| accidentally leaked that she was dating someone and that
| caused her entire contract to get terminated.[0] Her "GFE"
| style made her the top Hololive earner in 2021, making $1.6
| million from superchats alone.[1]
|
| [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/t06ryl/wha
| t_i...
|
| [1] https://animecorner.me/hololive-vtubers-dominate-
| top-10-list...
| bryans wrote:
| > You're ignoring superchats and tips which is where most
| of the money comes from.
|
| Tips represent less than 40% of revenue for nearly every
| type of content creator, so let's not exaggerate things.
| Super Chats are also limited to $500, so you're
| exaggerating the amounts you've seen.
|
| More importantly, you're conflating the original comment's
| generalization about how "the vast majority" of _all_
| highly-supportive fans have "unhealthy obsessions and are
| trying to have a girlfriend experience." Whereas what
| you're discussing is a corporate content farm[1] of exactly
| 61 brands, most of which are _specifically designed to
| create_ a "girlfriend experience" in order to
| _intentionally_ develop obsessions. That is an extremely
| specific situation which is _not_ representative for >99%
| of content creators.
|
| [1] https://virtualyoutuber.fandom.com/wiki/Hololive
| mwlp wrote:
| Rushia had five whales donating over $25k to her. I saw a
| Ninomae Inanis fan drop $30k in Ame's charity stream.
| Coco had fans that would use two or three alternate
| accounts to drop multiple $500 chats per stream.
| bryans wrote:
| I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Super
| Chats are limited to $500 per user per day, so the parent
| comment's claim of seeing individual $1,000+ Super Chats
| was false regardless of the total donations for a stream.
| Furthermore, people _subverting_ the platform 's limit
| does not magically make the company "nefariously
| marketing" and "taking advantage" of people. In fact,
| you're describing the opposite of nefarious, as the daily
| cap is clearly meant to slow the rate of individual
| contributions.
| mjr00 wrote:
| Hololive is just one example within a specific niche (and
| even within VTubers it's not the only one -- Nijisanji is
| pretty large as well now). Are you really telling me that
| people like Amouranth, Valkyrae, and Pokimane aren't
| aware of the girlfriend experience? That the whole hot
| tub streaming drama that led to the creation of an entire
| new Twitch category wasn't extremely exploitative of
| lonely, addicted men?
|
| Unhealthy parasocial relationships are an extremely
| lucrative revenue stream for content creators, just like
| whales with gacha games. Platforms do nothing to
| discourage this and in fact even encourage it.
| bryans wrote:
| Again, you're exaggerating everything. There are
| literally _dozens_ of hot tubbers among _many tens of
| millions of creators_. You 're purely discussing extreme
| niches which, even when combined, don't represent a
| significant portion of the overall market. So, I'll
| reiterate that making a declaration of "the vast majority
| of super fans being dysfunctional and exploited" is
| _outrageously false and disparaging_ , not to mention
| being based on no actual data or working knowledge.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| You two sure know a lot about this stuff ;)
| [deleted]
| mrweasel wrote:
| Doesn't this sound like inherently bad advice? Fewer number of
| "fans" means that you risk is centralized around those few fans
| and their particular requests and demands. I can honestly see
| this getting very dark, very quickly.
|
| You would rarely argue that a business should centralize around
| only a limited number of customers.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| I work for a company that's very much like Patreon for podcasters
| (Supercast). The people who will pay $1K a year to support a
| creator absolutely exist, but they are a small subset of the
| people who will pay $100 / year, which is itself a very small
| subset of the people who will listen to your podcast.
|
| Some rough numbers:
|
| - A podcast with an engaged fan base can usually get about 5% of
| their listeners to support them monthly / yearly
|
| - Of the paid supporters, 1-2% are going to be the big spenders
| who spend in $1K a year territory.
|
| So sure, you can be self-sufficient on 100 $1K a year fans, but
| to get there, you need 5,000 $100 / year fans (which needs
| 100,000 listeners), and not doing anything for them is leaving
| money on the table.
| localhost wrote:
| I just started a podcast a few weeks ago [1] where I interview
| other folks who work at Microsoft to answer the question that I
| often had back when we had company meetings: what do all of
| these people do? I was surprised that I hadn't heard of
| Supercast before. At what point does it make sense for me to
| start thinking about services like Supercast? Is there a
| threshold of # subscribers, downloads, some other metric that
| makes sense?
|
| [1] https://john-lam-podcast.simplecast.com/
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| If you have engaged listeners, over time you should be able
| to convert about 5% of them (generally for $5-10 a month).
| When that becomes worth it is up to you, but we generally
| don't see super successful launches for podcasts with less
| than 10,000 downloads per episode.
| cushychicken wrote:
| That's encouraging if you think of it as a funnel optimization
| problem.
|
| What can I do for the $100 per year set? T shirts or other
| swag? Signed merch?
|
| What can I do for the $10 per year set? Stickers?
| mcv wrote:
| Interestingly, I think most creators are already doing this
| intuitively without any analysis telling them to.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| Surprisingly we don't have a ton of creators offering swag
| stuff, I'd have assumed that it would have been a bigger draw
| (Some of that might have to do with us not really offering
| any support on our platform, but it's not a common request
| either).
|
| If there's a "product" to sell, it's usually either the
| content itself, or access through things like community. But
| like I said in another comment, how much people spend isn't
| very correlated with what they get out of it at all.
| [deleted]
| CosmicShadow wrote:
| This is pretty interesting! I've been thinking about a
| platform for unique swag for podcasters, streamers,
| youtubers, etc. as I think there's definitely an
| opportunity to engage with fans there, but I imagine it's
| pretty overwhelming and expensive to figure out how to do
| it effectively if you are busy producing content. I sell an
| item that'd be perfect for those folks to giveaway/sell and
| I know how hard it is to figure out shipping and logistics.
| lozenge wrote:
| This is what MCNs do. They're basically talent agencies
| for YouTubers, and they handle stuff like ad placement,
| sponsored content, and merch.
| yojo wrote:
| Maybe it's just early days?
|
| I remember in early internet times webcomics were one of
| the few niches where creators were trying to make a living
| on the internet.
|
| At first it was "easy" - ad rates were super inflated in
| the dot com boom, and people were making rent with "punch
| the monkey and win" banner ads.
|
| Then came the crash and the bottom fell out of the ad
| market. A lot of creators just went away, but the ones who
| held on generally monetized via merch.
|
| Granted, these were people that were both funny and had
| graphic design chops, so novelty t-shirts were a natural
| fit.
|
| Presumably the buyer demand was always there, but no one
| discovered it until they were forced to do the hard thing
| of flailing for cash.
|
| Possibly as the market matures and people test more
| monetization methods we'll see more podcast shwag.
| rr808 wrote:
| I'm not sure about creators, but I get swag and invites from
| charities and it annoys me. I'm donating to give them
| resources, if I want a T Shirt I'll buy one myself thanks, I
| dont need them spending money on me.
| ep103 wrote:
| Two things:
|
| 1 - Them sending you a teeshirt is a form of advertising.
| They're hoping you will wear it and be an advocate for them
| in your social circle. This is a reasonable thing to spend
| money on.
|
| 2 - Engagement. They're trying to keep you engaged in what
| they're doing, this is valuable too.
|
| Of course, you don't want them spending all their resources
| on this, but a certain percentage is absolutely a good
| idea. This is why you should care about non-profits
| statements about % of funds that go towards the charity vs
| overhead.
| rchaud wrote:
| I disagree that Tshirts are a reasonable marketing
| expense. For one thing, they're relatively expensive to
| produce and ship on a per unit basis, and you will need
| to order in multiple sizes. Second, most 'brand' t-shirts
| are low effort logo templates made from BigCartel.com
| that look fugly. They're clearly an afterthought.
|
| And because of that, those tshirts will end up in a
| landfill somewhere, just like the majority of soulless
| corporate swag that you'd accumulate visiting a trade
| show.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I bought 2 dozen mixed T-shirts and hoodies (mostly
| T-shirts) with the logo for my business on them front and
| back in two sizes (the logo, not the shirts). Because I
| wear these things daily, I bought good T-shirts and good
| hoodies: tagless 100% cotton (mixed polyester increases
| pilling). I think I was in for about $15 a T-shirt. More
| for the hoodie, obviously.
|
| I'm not getting any kind of volume rate on these for a 2
| dozen shirt order of mixed sizes (for friends and family
| as well). I can't imagine anybody ordering in real
| quantity is paying more than $10 a shirt, even for good
| ones.
|
| If you go through somebody whose business is making and
| shipping t-shirts, you get the benefit of their lower
| shipping rates and their bulk purchasing power for the
| shirts). If you're handing them out at a trade show, your
| unit cost to ship a couple hundred shirts is negligible.
|
| For me, my T-shirts for my business are effectively free:
| they replace other t-shirts I'd have to buy (or would,
| once I got through all the company and trade show swag
| from when I worked software). Plus they promote my
| business. _And_ when they 're too beat up to wear, they
| become shop rags before they hit the trash.
|
| I think you make some valid points (sizes are a
| nuisance), but I don't think T-shirts are the clear
| stinker for the folks giving them away that you think
| they are.
| cushychicken wrote:
| You're confusing the intent here.
|
| A creator would effectively be selling swag at a markup by
| giving a reward at a certain backing tier. It's like your
| local NPR'S funding drive - you give them $100, they give
| you a tote bag or whatever with their logo on it.
|
| Everyone wins - you buy cool branded merch, the creator
| gets to sell at a large markup as "fundraising".
|
| That's not the same as being sent a free t shirt with the
| hopes of them wearing it.
| failTide wrote:
| I donated ONE TIME to a classical radio network in Southern
| California and over the next 5 years they proceeded to send
| me mailers that cost at least what I'd donated. They did
| eventually stop.
| gwd wrote:
| > So sure, you can be self-sufficient on 100 $1K a year fans,
| but to get there, you need 5,000 $100 / year fans (which needs
| 100,000 listeners), and not doing anything for them is leaving
| money on the table.
|
| And probably more importantly, losing people out of the funnel:
| after all, most people don't go from 0 to $1k/year fan in an
| instant; they'll try out the free service, upgrade to being a
| $100/year fan, and from there upgrade to being a $1k/year fan.
| The pitch of this article, it seemed to me, isn't to get rid of
| the lower tiers, but to add an extra tier on the top.
| burnished wrote:
| >most people don't go from 0 to $1k/year fan in an instant;
| they'll try out the free service, upgrade to being a
| $100/year fan, and from there upgrade to being a $1k/year fan
|
| How do you know this? I'm mentally contrasting with
| monetization in games which I don't think follows that model,
| I think it is more like; if you are spending over 100$ its by
| repeating some smaller behavior (microtransactions), as
| opposed to deepening your investment thoughtfully as a
| function of time. Or, you're going to kickstart a game, and
| from the outset you're probably going to fall loosely into
| one bin of 20$-200$-2000$.
|
| I don't have anything to back up what I'm suggesting (purely
| anecdotal) and I'm asking you because I'm interested in
| sturdier arguments than my own (or other experiences leading
| to different perspectives!).
| meheleventyone wrote:
| For games it can be frequency of transaction as well as
| amount that increases over time. I don't think either case
| is about being particularly thoughtful though. More a sign
| of that thing becoming more important in your life.
| burnished wrote:
| hmmm.
|
| Ok, then I think I can more clearly restate my root
| question as: "do people upgrade pledge or commitment
| amounts as a consistent part of becoming one of the top
| contributers?"
|
| I suspect they don't. I suspect you may increase
| rate/intensity of microtransactions as a natural part of
| interaction, but if the financial transaction part isn't
| an active part of the interaction cycle then the
| contribution amount probably stays pretty static.
|
| I wonder where I could get data to sketch this out.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| Whether contributions are steady support or a constant
| drip of (sometimes quite large) support varies
| tremendously by industry.
|
| Games rely a lot on the one-time / tip model through
| Twitch.
|
| Podcasts are almost exclusively through recurring
| subscriptions / support.
|
| My impression of video / YouTube is that a lot of it
| comes through stuff like merch which is more of a drip of
| one-time support, but there's definitely continual
| support there as well, so a bit mixed?
|
| I suspect that it would be hard to experiment too far
| outside of the standard in any of those contexts, since
| you'd have to convince people to support you in ways that
| aren't the norm.
| mcv wrote:
| Makes sense. You can't focus on just the true fans, because at
| first, you don't have any. First you focus on just getting
| listeners, then on fans who are willing to pay something, and
| only once that group gets big enough, does it make sense to
| focus on the $1000/y "true" fans.
|
| And if your numbers are correct, you're already making $500k/y
| from $100 fans by the time you can make $100k/y from the $1000
| fans. So the middle is still more lucrative, even if the top is
| growing.
| rapind wrote:
| Podcast pricing is in it's wildly crazy phase.
|
| As an example, Sam Harris is charging $15 / month. Good for him
| that he's able to pull it off, but man, that's more than most
| streaming services.
|
| Your supercast is charging $0.59 / month per sub going through
| your platform on top of stripe fees. So if you had a niche but
| interesting podcast you can't just charge $1.00 / month and
| generate any revenue. These fees are a massive friction. Just
| the Stripe fees without additional markup is a lot of friction
| on small transactions.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| Yeah, $5 a month is really the minimum where it starts to
| make sense with Supercast.
|
| I haven't run the numbers, but my gut tells me that
| supporters really aren't as price sensitive as you think. The
| conversion rates on a $5 / month podcast and a $10 / month
| one aren't all that different. Again, for a lot of podcasts,
| it's less about purchasing a product and more about
| supporting a creator.
|
| Supporting super niche podcasts that want to sell for $1.00 a
| month unfortunately doesn't make much sense for us since our
| costs are fairly fixed per subscriber.
| rapind wrote:
| > The conversion rates on a $5 / month podcast and a $10 /
| month one aren't all that different.
|
| IMO $5.00 is still beyond the price anchoring in most
| people's minds. You're getting close to the range of Apple
| TV premium, Youtube premium, Disney plus, Prime, and other
| bundled content services. Competing as a single content
| producer is going to be tough. It's natural you get mostly
| consumers that _want to support you_ , instead of just
| people who are selfishly interested in the content, of
| which there are likely a lot more.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| The thing is, for most creators, there's not really much
| content to sell. The bulk of creators are going to
| distribute the vast majority of their content for free
| (they wouldn't be able to get the audience to monetize in
| the first place if they didn't), so if you're looking at
| it from the perspective of the value you get for your
| subscription fee, frankly for most podcasts you're not
| coming out ahead even at a dollar or two.
| CosmicShadow wrote:
| Maybe, but only if you compare it to those things. I
| support tons of people on patreon and other platforms and
| never have I once thought about comparing it to my
| Netflix subscription, it's just totally different.
|
| Netflix and co are a utility and you expect to pay low
| utility costs for it, but supporting a creator is
| something you do because you are excited and look forward
| to what they do next and their contribution to the world
| and more specifically your day. What are you more excited
| for, sitting down to your daily Netflix or getting the
| latest podcast/comic/picture from your favourite creator?
| Who will disappear if you don't support them and be lost
| forever?
| tomrod wrote:
| Your assessment has a name: power law!
|
| This is one reason why medians are used with income/wealth.
| Some people skew the average.
| alephnan wrote:
| > We're already seeing this shift, according to creator
| platforms... Patreon... Podia... Teachable
|
| No OnlyFans?
|
| > One creator on Teachable who advises artists on how to sell
| their art made $110,000 last year with only 76 students, at an
| average of $1,437 per course. Another creator who teaches
| physiotherapy made $141,000 with only 61 students, at an average
| price point of $2,314 per course
|
| So sell shovels?
| dav_Oz wrote:
| To further increase the sells of your shovels as a next step
| you pay successful gold diggers (or actors) to amplify the
| message how easy it is to find gold, as a side job you show how
| easy it is to sell shovels ... at some point you arrive at the
| pinnacle of the current financialization of every aspect of
| life: you sell people the philosopher's stone itself to
| transmute everything into gold i.e. how easy it is to sell
| anything, really.
|
| It is remarkable how long this spawned ouroboros can bite
| through itself given the context of financial desperation (no
| savings, inflation, no stable source of income). At some point
| I came to the sober realization that younger generations, now,
| have no clue how people lived back then. It must have been even
| more terrible.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > So sell shovels?
|
| For those who don't get the reference, there's a saying along
| the lines of "During a gold rush, sell shovels", implying that
| everybody joining the gold rush needs tools to dig, but not
| everybody who digs will strike gold.
| garbagetime wrote:
| This article was written a couple years back. I'm not sure
| OnlyFans was as big then as it is now.
| [deleted]
| mcherm wrote:
| So the point here is that you don't need as many fans if your
| fans are sufficiently rich?
|
| I mean, it's true: one can make more money by [selling to /
| servicing / having as a patron] the rich, but it's not a new
| observation.
| pearjuice wrote:
| I'm wondering how much of these shifts in monthly revenue for
| creators are actually additional signs of inflation.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| This might be misunderstood as followers on social media, but a
| follower on social media does not equal to a fan. They address
| this at:
|
| > Here's how it works: A creator can cultivate a large, free
| audience on horizontal social platforms or through an email list.
|
| Fair enough, but let's say the TrueFans(tm) are in the range of
| 0.1% - 1% of your followers. That translates to 10k-100k
| followers which is still incredibly hard to build.
| oefrha wrote:
| A true fan in TFA is willing to spend $1k a year. That's gotta
| be way less than 0.1% in terms of social media followers
| (usually). A friend of mine has close to 3 million social media
| followers on one platform alone, and the number of "true fans
| (tm)" paying more than $1k a year is about ten to twenty. Of
| course it heavily depends on the category, too.
| jefftk wrote:
| I think it depends on how you decide to structure your
| offerings? For example, someone who emphasizes 1-1
| instruction can shift some people to much higher payment
| tiers, at the cost of turning away a larger number of people
| who aren't interested in that sort of thing.
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| I really hate this building audience things in the past couple
| years. It makes me want to quit twitter.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Social media changed to be brand-centric pretty early on.
| It's only natural that users would respond by becoming brands
| themselves.
| alephnan wrote:
| > let's say the TrueFans(tm) are in the range of 0.1% - 1% of
| your followers. That translates to 10k-100k followers which is
| still incredibly hard to build.
|
| In this case, I have no fans.
| jefftk wrote:
| (2020)
| paulpauper wrote:
| Why stop at 100 fans when you can have one winning lottery ticket
| or one sugar daddy. "100/1000 true fans theory" ignores the
| difficulty and luck required in getting those 100-1000 paying
| fans. It's a nice story or idea, but impractical for the vast
| majority of people. Getting even a handful of fans is probably
| very hard for most people unless you are lucky or famous.
| Applejinx wrote:
| A good observation. If you are the creator trying to please one
| of your ten very wealthy super-patrons, have eyes on the back
| of your head because there will be thousands of people, some of
| 'em better than you, who will want to win away your patron's
| custom.
|
| You're probably not special enough to hang on to your ultra-
| wealthy super-patron. There will be someone younger and cuter
| who'll come along and take 'em from you. Metaphorically, if not
| literally. And if you've devoted your life to trying to be
| their ultimate creator, and they leave, then you don't have
| much of a fall-back position. You've specialized around
| something that has been taken away. Your branding, your
| identity, is 'super-patron's ideal artist' and that's no longer
| true. Nasty.
| gammabetadelta wrote:
| love is hard to foster
|
| solve a deep and painful problem and people will follow
|
| give people meaning and purpose is why religion is so powerful
|
| the best products look like religion (see tesla as an example)
|
| the fans take on the identity of the product
|
| speaks more to the human condition and our need to belong, the
| biggest fans are rarely healthy folks
| annie_muss wrote:
| I think the shift from big companies deciding the winners to
| democratized content creators Isa shift in the right direction.
|
| However, has anyone tried to quantify just how difficult it is to
| get those 100? Even for unpaid followers/listeners I've never
| managed to get more than a handful.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| What the article is describing isn't "fans" as much as plain old
| "customers". Almost all the examples given in the article are
| people doing courses. If you sell a course for $1000, then the
| person buying it isn't a "fan" who just gives you money, the
| buyer is just a customer who buys a service.
|
| The only thing new about this is that it's happening online;
| offering courses for $1000 is not exactly a new thing, it's a
| business that has existed for ever.
|
| And I'm pretty sure that most of these customers aren't long-time
| fans. People will pay for access to a course, but they aren't
| going to take the course over and over again.
| lozenge wrote:
| These aren't educational courses, they're self-help/improvement
| courses.
|
| "Starts with the user's needs and pain points - motivated by
| self-interest - desire for improvement, transformation and/or
| exclusive access"
|
| So, you need to get fit/get in shape! $40/month for my
| nutrition and exercise coaching! Go green and zero-waste with
| my advice! How to teach your kids! Yoga and meditation to
| improve your health! How to pick up women! Break into your
| dream career/TV writing/comedy! Be your own boss! Etc, etc.
| Some needs are never satiated.
| GeorgeBanica wrote:
| >What the article is describing isn't "fans" as much as plain
| old "customers".
|
| This doesn't apply to webnovels. There are people there making
| over $1000 a month (some over $15 000) publishing completely
| free webnovels.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| > This doesn't apply to webnovels. There are people there
| making over $1000 a month (some over $15 000) publishing
| completely free webnovels.
|
| I don't consider authors of web novels or serials with
| Patreons like Wild bow or ErraticErrata to be representative
| of the broader population of authors on places such as Royal
| Road. I'd assume the total income distribution of web novel
| authors to be fairly top heavy.
| altdataseller wrote:
| But it's the VC world. They need to come up with new,
| innovative concepts so they can be seen as a thought leader! /s
| rchaud wrote:
| The original essay that this pulls its title from from was
| written in 2008, and used examples of self-published authors
| and musicians - purely creative works. None of the startup-
| bubble, hustle-culture fueled BS that infected the following
| decade.
|
| VCs are only interested monetizing the "product" aspect of
| creative ventures so they rephrase the key concepts in MBA
| blandspeak.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Keep an eye out for my next blog post:
|
| "100 true fans? Try 10"
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