Comment by hunterpayne
18 days ago
Most people are cheap (or broke). As such they will take for free when they can. In markets like that, ads win out. You should take a look at what happens to human behavior when you change a price from free to tiny (like a penny or a dollar) but non-zero.
I'm happy when a news website gives me two buttons: watch ads, or pay 3.99/m for a subscription, even though I usually click on watch ads. Agency matters.
You're quite right: that newfangled Patreon nonsense is a flash in the pan that will never catch on. There's no way anyone can be successful getting hundreds of people to pay them $5 (or even $1) per month. Ads are the only way to run the Internet.
What? It's 2026, not 2016? And Patreon has been running very successfully for over a decade? Huh. Whaddayaknow?
Patreon is not the issue.
1% of people covering most the costs for the other 99% of people is. Which is what we find when looking at patreon conversions