The point of Patreon isn't how many people earn a full
Patreon
The point of  Patreon  isn't how many people earn a full-time living  it's how much of the money from art goes to artists
This week's Patreon PR fumble (the company changed what kinds of support are permissible and the way fees are paid and then said it was good for creators  when it clearly wasn't) prompted people to take a closer look at  Patreon  and  its  business.
That's good news  because  Patreon  has the power to behave in pretty exploitative ways towards the artists that use the platform  so they should be scrutinized carefully so that creators understand the bargain they're making when they sign up for the service.
But some of the criticism is badly misplaced. In No one makes a living on  Patreon  on The Outline  Brent Knepper argues that because only a very small number of the users of the service earn a real  full-time living from their art  the service is a kind of shell-game that promises financial independence and delivers hobby income.
Patreon represents a kind of tinkering with the margins of the copyright system  a way to let creators bypass large swathes of the industry and collect payments directly from their audiences. It doesn't particularly help them find an audience  nor make work for that audience -- but it does mean that where there is a willingness on the part of the audience to pay for the pleasure of a work  a much larger share of the income generated by the work goes to the artist.
The right way to look at a 2% success rate in delivering a full-time living to creators on  Patreon  is to first compare that number to the percentage of people who  for example  send a demo to a record label and then get to quit their jobs to be full-time musicians (that's a lot less than 2%). The right way to look at the remaining 98% of  Patreon  artists who earn some money from the service is to compare how much money they get  compared to how much money they'd get if they had to rely on more indirect (and less artist-friendly) sources like ad brokers and traditional retail channels.
On both of these metrics   Patreon  is performing beautifully. On these metrics   Patreon  is a fucking godsend to artists.
Yes  they did something stupid with their payment processing this week. Yes  that exposes how dangerous it is to rely on a company for your artistic living. But  the measure of Patreon's success  isn't creating an army of full-time creators with middle-class incomes where none existed before:  it 's ensuring that the money generated by art goes primarily to artists.
The point of   [TGT] isn't how many people earn a full-time living  it's how much of the money from art goes to artists
This week's Patreon PR fumble (the company changed what kinds of support are permissible and the way fees are paid and then said it was good for creators  when it clearly wasn't) prompted people to take a closer look at  Patreon  and  its  business.
That's good news  because   [TGT] has the power to behave in pretty exploitative ways towards the artists that use the platform  so they should be scrutinized carefully so that creators understand the bargain they're making when they sign up for the service.
But some of the criticism is badly misplaced. In No one makes a living on   [TGT] on The Outline  Brent Knepper argues that because only a very small number of the users of the service earn a real  full-time living from their art  the service is a kind of shell-game that promises financial independence and delivers hobby income.
 [TGT]  represents a kind of tinkering with the margins of the copyright system  a way to let creators bypass large swathes of the industry and collect payments directly from their audiences. It doesn't particularly help them find an audience  nor make work for that audience -- but it does mean that where there is a willingness on the part of the audience to pay for the pleasure of a work  a much larger share of the income generated by the work goes to the artist.
The right way to look at a 2% success rate in delivering a full-time living to creators on   [TGT] is to first compare that number to the percentage of people who  for example  send a demo to a record label and then get to quit their jobs to be full-time musicians (that's a lot less than 2%). The right way to look at the remaining 98% of   [TGT]  is to compare how much money  [TGT]  get  compared to how much money  [TGT] 'd get if  [TGT]  had to rely on more indirect (and less artist-friendly) sources like ad brokers and traditional retail channels.
On both of these metrics    [TGT] is performing beautifully. On these metrics    [TGT] is a fucking godsend to artists.
Yes  they did something stupid with their payment processing this week. Yes  that exposes how dangerous it is to rely on a company for your artistic living. But   [TGT] isn't creating an army of full-time creators with middle-class incomes where none existed before:   [TGT]  's ensuring that the money generated by art goes primarily to artists.