Groceries are necessary for survival, and limited in quantity.
Movies and streams are similar to each other because they are both video content. And as long as the creator of the stream or the company behind a movie get paid enough to make the content they could’ve received no more money and still gotten by fine.
Streams are a little bit different from movies though because much of the audience is actively engaging in conversation with the creator or making requests to them etc. In that sense a stream has an aspect of limited supply to it that a movie does not. At some point the audience of a stream will be too big for the creator to be able to meaningfully interact with all of them, and at a point after that maybe even too big to be able to meaningfully interact with any of them.
And so if you have a lot of people that want to interact with you it makes sense to prefer interacting with the ones paying you money, and to encourage them to do so. And beyond that, it also makes sense to offer “exclusive” content to people that pay. So OnlyFans makes sense too.
What really has me upset though is thinking of the people that are on the audience, among whom some people have little money but also get so little attention IRL that they are paying someone who already has a lot just to interact with them and maybe even being deluded into thinking that they have some form of “real” relationship with them. That is very sad and something I don’t think has been studied enough and is not being talked about enough.
There was a stint during the GTA V RP craze I had it on in the background and watched it for approximately 6-8 hours every day. I subbed to one streamer for like 5 bucks.
This averages out to like 2 cents/day for 240 hours of entertainment. Cheaper than netflix, cheaper than cable, cheaper than hulu... You catch my drift. I don't know how this is different than me paying $80 to spend a night out at the movies with my wife, other than it being insanely cheaper?
I still think this is a narrow view.
So you don't consider a performance to be a product?
How is going to the movies different from going to a baseball game or a concert or a comedy club?
If those are like movies, and movies are like groceries, are we not back to the same point that people are exchanging money for some kind of benefit, whether it's a tangible thing they take home or an experience they enjoy?
A less emotionally evocative example might be giving money to a street musician who accepts requests for donations. Either way, the street musician is there performing and you can enjoy the music whether you pay or not. But the money gets you a bonus, and you’re free to give money regardless of desire to request a song.
Or at least, maybe that's a welcome side effect but not the main motivation for a lot of people.
I am guessing here, I have no data to back this up, but I feel like a lot of people sub out of gratitude and as a show of support, and less to draw attention or get some kind of shout-out..
I do watch a decent amount of streams on Twitch across a few categories, but I've never subscribed or donated to any of them, so it's possible I'm wrong here.
Also I did make the distinction between paid performances and "pay what you can".. That was indeed my point, that Twitch differentiates itself by being an essentially "pay what you can" service where the majority don't pay anything, but lots of people still manage to make money giving their work away for free.
There are three things you need to survive: food, shelter, and love/community.
Entertainment can sometimes provide the last one (love/community) but for the most part it's fulfilling a need for distraction and/or curiosity.
I treat museums the same way. When I was young and poor my parents didn't pay to get in since it was optional. But now that I'm older and I make good money, I donate extremely well when I go to museums. I know that it's voluntary and I choose to participate in funding it because I enjoy the experience.
If nobody paid to go to the movies, then nobody would want to advertise in those movies, those movies would lose their sponsorships, and stop being made. If everybody unsubbed from netflix right now they would stop funding original content, even though the content they make has ad placements. Why even ask netflix for money if you can just make a wildly successful tv show with ad placements and release it for free?
Why should you pay to go to a football game? Why should you pay to watch a football game? All the players have sponsors. They're all millionaires. Why did our parents pay for cable? Cable had ads, all the actors were millionaires, the cable company owners were millionaires, the production studios were millionaires. You're saying practically everyone who bought cable in the 1990s-2000s was bad with their money because the actors were millionaires and had ad sponsrships? Give me a break.
I just think it's incredibly disingenuous that because someone is leveraging a SLIGHTLY different monetization model that allows for free consumption, that anyone who pays for it is bad with their money. Maybe if you condemned ALL luxury spending with the same energy I could see you're at least being consistent. But this is just more irrational disdain for the new wave of media consumption.
Some people, on the other hand, like to reward others if they enjoy the product/service/performance they provide.
That's the nature of "pay what you can". If money is tight, then don't pay, and don't feel bad about it. But if you have disposable income, and you value the experience, then give what you can as a form of gratitude.
It doesn't need to be said that if everyone took the "it's free so I don't have to pay anything" route, then there would be no show to see.
If you would pay money for Dave to shout "Hey sbarre, thanks for the donation" from the stage, then you'd be doing what Twitch fans are doing.
What about comedy clubs? If I buy a ticket to see Dave Chappelle, who is clearly wealthy, am I sucker too?
What about paying cover at my local bar because a local band is playing that night?
What about buying tickets to a baseball game, to see a bunch of millionaires play a game for a few hours?
You are making it seem like users get nothing for their money, when there is plenty of established precedent for giving money in exchange for attending a performance.
Sure the performance has changed, but the actual difference here is that these Twitch millionaires (and the rest who are far from millionaires) are literally charging "pay what you can" instead of setting a minimum ticket price for their show. Plenty of people (the majority in fact) get the show for free.