I'm actually surprised more programmers/engineers have not set up a Patreon. (in disclosure, I have one set up, but have zero expectation of it replacing a full-time salary.)
It'll be interesting to see if this kind of thing continues.
Their YouTube channel has free, ad supported content to develop an audience, and Patreon subscribers get that content ad-free, as well as extra content.
It's a decent model, but as I find myself watching more YouTube than Netflix/Hulu these days, I really wish this concept was supported by YouTube itself. They have YouTube Red, but that doesn't directly support my favorite YouTubers.
Twitch has a clearer subscriber model, I think. When you "subscribe", you're actually giving your actual real money to the channel. I'm not sure why YouTube doesn't have that. (Different horses for different courses, I guess. YouTube is more about the "1 billion people will watch this and some people will see an ad", versus "I know I like you, here's some money." Both can be profitable for everyone involved, but the models are very different. Scale vs. curation, or something.)
At least that's what seems to be happening as far as I can see from the various articles written about it.
I'd hope not, but stranger things have happened.
The least regressive model would be for viewers to pay per time unit of video, say in 5 min blocks (round down) and probably with a decaying rate of compensation on a series per block of content produced (recovery time would probably vary depending on the popularity of the series, really popular things would recover more quickly, the producer should have some feedback from this metric).
That kind of a model avoids penalizing groups of content creators, having them compete against each other (other than for viewer time, which is unavoidable), and it reduces the advertiser influenced network effect of more popular creators being over-paid compared to more niche / rising creators.
* Australia
* Korea
* Mexico
* New Zealand
* The United States
I'd buy it in an instant (in fact, I already have all access which is bundled with red) but it's just not available in most of the world.
I buy the ESPN Magazine. I buy ESPN Insider. And I still have to watch ads on ESPN videos.
While initially promising, this theory didn't seem to bear out in practice. Many creative people replied that the numbers just didn't add up. Margins are too thin, expenses are too high, promotion is too difficult. Unless you're absurdly lucky, you can't make a decent living without access to a mass audience via the traditional media.
Patreon seems to be the technology that brings this theory to life. A huge variety of creative people now have a regular, sustainable income thanks to their Patreon subscribers. If you can find 1000 people willing to throw you an average of $5 a month, you're earning more than the median US household. With those subscribers paying your bills, your merch sales and ad revenue and whatever else are just gravy. It's SaaS for creatives - recurring revenue always trumps one-off sales.