Paying Netflix $0.53/H, etc.
taylor.town
taylor.town
I don't have just one creator who I would consistently want to support the most, there are probably 10-20 who I would like to support, however I'm not going to pay 10x of them $5/h for content when YouTube is 1x $0.50/h (and has their content). To me, content creation is always going to need to be bundled at some level because I want diversity that no one creator is ever going to provide, and when bundling the price typically reduces because the bundling correctly recognises that consumption does not scale up.
I wish that Patreon had a support format where I could pay, say, $20 a month to Patreon and have that spread between whoever I'm supporting in a way that's cost efficient on payment fees and stuff like that.
It doesn't help though that individual creators price very highly relative to the amount of their content I consume. Fundamentally, a podcast is just not worth $10 a month to me because if I lost access I'd just listen to a different one.
Nebula and Curiosity Stream are in a bit of a "breakup period". Curiosity Stream will no longer bundle Nebula at all starting next month (next year).
If you want Nebula, sign up directly with Nebula at this point. Or find a referral code from a channel that you like because they still get paid slightly more for direct referrals. I believe for a few more weeks they are still selling lifetime memberships, as an interesting way to amortize your spread for the next few years (and basically get a long term $/hr deal for a bigger short term investment), if that is something that interests you.
This is (effectively) how "user centric" revenue models that have been proposed in music would work. Your monthly subscription would be assigned to creators that you listen to. The challenge in music is that it doesn't necessarily benefit smaller musicians much because people still listen to the big hits from big artists and major labels.
In a platform like Patreon it could work quite well, because it's more of a walled garden. Pick a few creators, and then divvy up the revenue based on how much you engage with their content.
Unfortunately, what ended up happening is that the program is too complicated for people with disposable income who would be interested and it got stuck in a bad spot between "big enough to attract crypto 'investors' who only care about hodling" and "not big enough to be attractive to high-profile creators".
But, yes, a complete chicken-and-egg problem.
It seems their business model has changed nowadays (unless they've lapsed again, which Brave has done a few times I think?) but that's definitely been the Brave model in the past.
[0]: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/01/13/brave-web-br...
Add to that, tax on BAT payments would be a nightmare to figure out.
So much for a black hole.
In the meantime they technically have to report their BAT distributions as earnings against their income (so they pay taxes for them). Then track the average cost basis til the time of their eventual disposal.
In many countries, the network fees, trading fees, and withdrawal fees won't be deductible unless they're filing as a business. So they may even lose money throughout the process when you take additional taxes into account.
And either way it's a tax headache, and you risk opening yourself up to penalties if you file improperly, or paying an accountant extra to sort through everything for you.
I know that HN has a prety small but ultra-vocal minority that will hate on Brave any chance they get, so expect a lot of disparaging comments.
Does it mean that if just one of them accepts it then you're paying all of your BAT to them? What if you mostly watch YouTube channels of people who wouldn't be onboard with it, but get linked one video by someone you don't like but they do accept it, do they get all your BAT that month?
Perhaps there are good answers to all of this, but getting it right sounds tricky!
It's impossible for many creators to actually benefit from the program (but this isn't straightforward when they sign up, which does in fact leave a black hole)
So much for a black hole.
You must be making a lot of BAT for this to even be worth it. I haven't seen anyone on https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject report making more than ~$10/month, and the overwhelming majority just make anywhere from $0.20 - $5/month. So maybe in two years it's going to be worthwhile for them to go through the withdrawal steps.
In the meantime they technically have to report their BAT distributions as earnings against their income (so they pay taxes for them). Then track the average cost basis til the time of their eventual disposal.
In many countries, the network fees, trading fees, and withdrawal fees won't be deductible unless they're filing as a business. So they may even lose money throughout the process when you take additional taxes into account.
And either way it's a tax headache, and you risk opening yourself up to penalties if you file improperly, or paying an accountant extra to sort through everything for you.
Creator's can't really opt out of BAT afaik, Brave will just hold the BAT in escrow until they make an account. Brave itself doesn't really benefit. Maybe from a value increase in BAT? I'm not entirely certain how much they seeded to themselves, but I can't imagine much if at all because of the optics.
Whilst it is not ideal, you have to remember that this is a three-step from a previous situation:
1. No one has adblock, security and privacy are deeply compromised
2. 'Everyone' has adblock, ads are blocked, creators make no money
3. Some users start to use BAT, those users now actually pay for content again
I'm one of them. I value predictability pretty highly when it comes to expenses. The less mental energy I have to spend on money-related things, the happier I am.
This is the attitude that makes people fork over $70/hr to CGPGrey. I like these people's content, and want to support them too. But they don't need my financial support. They're all making way more money than me and probably you. If they wanted some sort of micropayment they could ask for it, but they're all pushing for the $10/month rate instead. Your $1/mo is so inconsequential to them that they don't actually want it. So don't worry about it.
Just support them by thumbs-up-ing their videos and don't worry too much about their finances. They're fine.
We are not in a system that allows for micropayments to work.
You list a very famous content creator. On the other hand, there are lots of content creators who actually are struggling, and not making half as much as a minimum wage worker despite working longer hours than full-time.
If you look at the Twitch leaks, the payment curve has a long tail; the vast majority of creators do not make very much at all, while the top creators tend to make out with multigenerational wealth in a year.
This is especially true with CS-sphere content creators, because computer scientists seem especially reluctant to spend money, ever, if it isn't required of them, as they are very good at justifying not doing so with "They'll be fine!" In many cases, a sentiment that's right. In other cases, not so much. There are lots of Twitch streamers, open source software developers, and YouTubers that can't seem to find ways to monetize their content that work well. Oftentimes, these are some of the people that have the most interesting content!
If a person likes someone's content, they should find a way to financially support that, if they're able.
Paypal micropayments has it down to 5% + 9 cents.
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees#micropay...
Well yes, micropayments don't work if you don't use a micropayment platform. There are solutions that cater specifically to micropayments that have different fee structures so that it makes sense.
A platform with enough resources and interest could also accept deposits from traditional payment processors in bulk, and payout at some threshold to content creators.
> If you look at the Twitch leaks, the payment curve has a long tail; the vast majority of creators do not make very much at all, while the top creators tend to make out with multigenerational wealth in a year.
This isn't because of the payment system. This is because content quality and discovery both have a long tail. The average content is poor quality and has almost no views.
> Micropayments on the internet don't work. Payment processors charge 30¢ per transaction, plus a percentage.
Nobody ever said that you'd have to use payment processors directly for micropayments, and most schemes that I know of don't, because of those fees.
From what I remember, Patreon solves this by bundling all micro-payments together on the same day.
So if you have twenty 50¢ pledges, first you pay 10$ to Patreon, then Patreon spreads that money between creators. The final overhead is only paid once per user and once per creator.
W3C Web Monetization does micropayments with <$0.01 tx fee, but not KYC or AML.
It is an open spec: https://webmonetization.org/specification/
Micropayments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment
Upcoming, Subscribing, and Word of Mouth get creators more viewers and thus ad revenue.
Can't believe Spotify, which I assume people listen to during work or commute so would potentially be higher, has only 5 hours/month compared to 43h/month from Netflix. That's why I'm curious to know the source of the data.
> Warning: many of the numbers below are probably incorrect! Email me if you’d like to help make something more rigorous.
In any case, plugging in your own numbers would likely give you more interesting results.
I'm talking mostly middle-class millenials from an Eastern-European capital city, but I'm pretty sure the same thing is in place in other locations, too. These people have effectively stopped watching television programming and it's all video-streaming for them now, mostly Netflix but also HBO Max and maybe Disney.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/269918/daily-tv-viewing-...
Which completely shifted my understanding of TV consumption. Median daily UK linear TV viewing time was 3 hours in 2021.
While the author doesn’t actually know how many hours subscribers spend, we do know that a subscription is used by several people in a household. If we take a conservative view of on average two people per subscription (e.g. you and your partner), a combined 1 hour per day seems very reasonable.
Netflix, at “best” settings, streams 1-7 GB/hour [0]. At the highest public tier for AWS EC2 egress, that’s 5-35 cents/hour, which would not be amazing for Netflix’s bottom line. CloudFront is a bit better at 2-14 cents/hr.
Of course, Netflix surely doesn’t pay AWS retail prices, and Netflix doesn’t use AWS for streaming data anyway. But this does mean that any aspiring creator or startup that wants to try to collect its 50 cents/hr or so should either not deploy its streaming source in a big name cloud or should design it so it can be migrated off the big clouds quickly if the service takes off.
(Cloudflare R2 appears to be quite good for this purpose. So is a small fleet of collocated machines. A single low-end modern server streaming out 10Gbps accounts for several hundred dollars per hour of revenue, and you need to be truly successful indeed before anything resembling AWS’s internal infrastructure is needed to keep the pipes fed. Keep in mind that Netflix blogs about how their servers pump out streams at 40x that rate.)
Excluding multiplayer games with huge replayability AAA titles cost closer to $8-10/h of entertainment.
A LOT of AAA titles can be completed in about 10 hours and still cost $60
Stardew Valley comes to mind, but also infinitely re-playable games like The Binding of Isaac...
Title Main Story (hrs) Completionist (hrs)
Baldur's Gate 3 57 146
Super Mario Wonder 10 19
Starfield 22 145
Zelda: ToTK 59 235
Hogwarts Legacy 27 68
If we add Spider-Man 2, that's still a 17 hour main story, and has been criticized for being "too short". Many people who purchase AAA titles do expect 20-30 hours of entertainment, for a ~$2/hour return. And the Game of the Year is the title with the second best ROI!
- 2023 shooters average just over 12h to complete
- 2023 RPGs 37.5h
- Battle Arena (all time) 433h
All in all average for 2023 releases is just under 20h _to complete_, which doesn't necessarily mean people actually played that much - the other article I've linked suggests that on average people got to less than half of the main story..
Since I can't filter data by "AAA titles only" I'm assuming that on average they are no different in length than all games in general - under 20h to complete. Add average completion percentage of less than 50% it gives you average play time per title of less than 10h.
I think that measuring something like that in terms of dollars per hour is a bit reductionist. I'd rather have a short but impactful game over something that sprawls for 40+ hours but doesn't do much with that time. Cocoon was around 5 hours for $25, but I don't regret that purchase for a second.
But when there are so many games out there vying for attention - and I don't know if the game will 'click' with me in advance, I myself often wait for sales. Most of what I buy ends up being in the $10-$30 range, and I frequently play games many years after their release. By then, computers have advanced so the game runs better, bugs have been patched, expansions released, etc.
- Spotify: 65k minutes a year, 90h/mo, so around 0.13/h
I’m a fast reader, so a novel averages 2-5 hours for me, probably 4h would be a fair guess.
Last few years have averaged 150 titles a year on KU, so… 50hr/mo and 0.25/h in costs.
And that print novel is usually 15-25 these days new… and still only 3-4h for me, at least $5/h. I’ll buy books I want to own in the long term, or support the authors, but that’s still expensive.
(Setting aside the very hostile payment structure that Libby imposes on libraries, which makes it look far less attractive as a tax-payer now that I know how it works)
https://www.bklynlibrary.org/use-the-library/borrow
edit: Well nevermind apparently they stopped doing it. I can't even renew my card.. boo.
"As of July 15, 2022, Brooklyn Public Library is no longer offering its fee-based out-of-state library card. Our priority remains serving Brooklynites and assuring that they can access the materials they need in a timely manner. BPL Library cards remain free for anyone who lives, works, pays property taxes or attends school in New York State. Existing out-of-state accounts will remain active until their expiration date and will not be renewable."
Does anyone know of another huge library with online/out-of-State cards?
Btw Spotify, if you want me to "agree" to your price hike, asking over and over again with the same threat of probably downgrade me to the free version is just stupid. I might simply resubscribe then. Or just try some different service that shows me some respect, instead of attempting to get a miss-click out of me.
Probably a good idea anyway, both to get out of my current bubble but also see what value/$ competitors offer.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LdHeoPY2rvwK3wj9tC_G...
People pay $20 to go to the movie theatre for a couple of hours when they don't need to do that to watch a film.
Some video games might take 200 hours, but they're probably slogging grindfests that have long since become a chore by the 50 hour mark.
Another example would be makeup and fashion. It's a more subtle type of entertainment (more akin to "being on a cruise"), but the cost per hour is relatively low. That said, the benefit per hour is also low, and it's something missing from this sort of equalized comparison. One hour being at a theme park versus scrolling on Twitter versus watching a movie are very different values.
This is how I think about my food when I want to eat out. Most meals are now $10+, give or take, and I start to think, "that's one month of YouTube Premium, is it really worth it to eat this?". A "subscription" of eating out often starts adding up real quick compared to my own cooking.
FWIW, I also operate on the experential-model, and I'm going to remember a concert far more than 3-4 random dinners.
Average daily use time is 276 minutes or 4.6 hours [0]. Average smartphone price is $790 [1]. I am assuming people switch phones every 2.5 years.
790/(4.63652.5) = $0.18
0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1045353/mobile-device-da...
1. https://www.androidauthority.com/average-smartphone-cost-202...
Not sure a cruise is applicable since you’re also getting drinks and transportation. How much would it cost to watch Netflix while sippping whiskey and Ubering to Mexico?
But many of these are pretty comparable.
How much are you paying per hour of unwanted ads?
With YT, by far the most compelling reason to pay is to get rid of ads.
The alternative: Give real, predictable, support to creators and not content. Pay people to create.
Give them the opportunity to fail and support them anyways. If they keep failing, sure, stop supporting them. But at least give them a few chances.
This is why subscription models work: They provide stability and predictability. The problem with "microtransactions" is that it's all about commodification, which is the worst possible outcome for the creation of good art, reporting, and journalism.
I am gobsmacked that he finds 43 hours a month of content, month in and month out.
Full disclosure: former Netflix subscriber.
To be fair, author acknowledges the numbers are probably incorrect, but there is too much going on without necessary details to do proper comparrison.
You own time would be highly variable in cost. A parent of 4 vs a highschool kid have very different time values.
Why would you need hard drives? If your internet is reasonably fast you can just delete the file and download it again next time you need to watch it. Same goes with htpc. A laptop with a hdmi cord works fine as well and is way cheaper.
You use the app on a phone to cast to a chromecast that's jabbered into the $84 projector, hooked to the "they are broken" Sony Bluetooth speakers and sub (not broken, now fixed!).
And all currently mostly stored on an external 4tb USB 3 drive I've had for years.
A rant, and a ramble, but nothing listed above is expensive or particularly hard to wing together.
Is the experience mind blowing? Nope. But it works for the kids and I, and has certainly been worth the time (and nominal $) expenditure here.
Zero. Qualms.
Edit: $10 a month in electricity for this ancient machine doing all of these things, if you round up.
Anyway, been 6 months clean now. I even forgot most of things I watched there.
>CGP Grey $7/mo 10m/mo $70/h
There isn't 100 minutes in an hour.
"In 2020, each Netflix subscriber in the U.S. was watching an average of 3.2 hours of Netflix content per day." -- https://www.zippia.com/answers/how-many-hours-of-netflix-are...
Let's say there's 4 weeks to a month - that's 12.8 hours a month. So using $23/m is going to be 1.8/h -- I'd be curious to see the median hours per month per user -- I am willing to bet the average is skewed by the top 20% of viewers.
A short game is still likely to be $60 - it is more dependent on the publisher setting price.
A lot has changed in the streaming landscape since 2020. I would not at all be surprised if while the daily avg. hasn't changed, it is now spread out over more streaming services. I know I watch a lot more Not Netflix now than I did a few years ago.