Patreon isn't problem-free, but I think they get dinged a little too hard by folks sometimes. It's not very easy to find a competitor that offers comparable value-added services at significantly lower cost.
The current 8% plan used to be 5%. Their current 5% plan is stripped down.
What I said, rephrased for clarity: It used to be 5% for all features. That's what the 8% plan is now. The new and current 5% plan is the stripped down version.
What you said, by my understanding: the 8% plan contains what used to be the only option [standard, by my phrasing] at 5%.
I don't see any disagreement unless you were referring to the discounts given to existing creators. I'm talking about the new creator rates.
There are multiple competitors for Patreon, but they can't get off the ground because they don't have the users because they don't have the creators because they don't have the users.... You can build much better platform and it's just crickets in the sales because operating costs on smaller userbase are higher. Small competitor might force Patreon to reduce prices a little until they can kill the competition, but it's hard to have stable competitors.
Businesses that already have massive number of customer subscriptions and brand recognition could enter the market.
Compare that to, for example, the top 200 "adult" (porn) projects on Patreon: https://graphtreon.com/patreon-creators/adult-games
One example would be DarkCookie with "SummerTime saga", a "dating sim" at around $50,000 US.
Or another example at 769 patrons and $2,287 per month: "Porn Empire is a simulation/management with light RPG elements where you play as an amateur porn producer. Start small, shoot amateur porn and as you progress, you earn more money, buy better equipment, pick up better girls and train them"
If people really cared they would have signed up. But the proof is in the pudding. What people really care about is totally different from what they say publicly. What they really care about, apparently, if you follow the money, is interactive cartoon porn.
I wonder if Patreon would consider diverting a small amount of the porn money to worthy causes like Linux Journal.
But, according to the link you sent, the global top 100 only has 15 NSFW creators. People seem way more interested in Podcasts and YouTube videos.
- podcasts
- YouTube
- porn
- Skyrim mods
- Minecraft mods
- Instagram models
... several other bullet points ....
- journalism
Other than that, you have to remember that there's been a pretty painful phase of adaptation with new and emergent technology. This means a lot of the old bastions have fallen, or are trying to figure out how to cope with the new media reality. Either way tabloids will always sell more than real news, sadly. They also did during the heyday of serious broadsheets, and there's not really any indication that it's going to change in the near future. There are some noble efforts to fight the fake news agenda, that tries to pick apart the rabble of the tabloids, such as Snopes -- until you realise that they're also extremely biased. So in the end, you're left with thinking for yourself, which can be both a blessing and a curse. Probably more of the latter if you believe in UFO's and crystal healing...
Also, say what you want about PewDiePie, but he was able to go toe-to-toe with The Wall Street Journal and win (at least in terms of views and reputation). This just shows how much they've lost control.
The search engine and aggregator sites commoditized information, including technical one. That started killing news, online and paper.
Hell no. Patreon have already shown they want to be part of the culture war, we don't need to give them any more excuses.
If I want to spend my money on virtual lolis, I expect all of that money (besides the patreon fee) to go to virtual lolis.