pettter
It's funny: Both Bandcamp and Patreon had the easiest and most straightforwardly long-term profitable business models imaginable: Sit between indie creatives and their fans, provide some basic services for mediation (comment sections, media posts, semi-global payment) and take enough of a cut of any payments to cover the costs and then some.
But because that business model wouldn't scale forever, they are instead being gutted, because ever _increasing_ growth is the only model capital accepts
pettter
Incidentally, this also harkens to one of those times that Matt Levine Doesn't Understand Capitalism - he's been repeatedly stumped by why crypto firms like Coinbase or Tether keep making risky bets with customer money when they could just.. Not do that, and still make a handy profit from putting customer money into liquid rate-making bonds and live off the interested (since the customers see zilch of that).
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pettter
I think the fundamenral misunderstanding is that Levine thinks of these crypto 'institutions' as classic capital - they get (more) money from owning things and managing funds, and should be fundamentally insulated from market instability - whereas the crypto people see themselves as a tech startup, meaning they should have YoY growth _every year_, which fixed-rate, liquid bonds can't necessarily yield.
The Ferridge
@pettter How are they being gutted?
pettter
@TheFerridge Half of bandcamp staff got fired yesterday. Patreon announced and then partially walked back pricing changes that would have massively impacted smaller creators.
pettter
@Rhube Agitate, Educate, Organize, etc.
Dr Ro Smith
@pettter This doctrine of ever increasing growth is just POISON in every way. I wish I knew how we could stop it dominating our lives.
pettter
@arcadiarhod They've immediately fired half the company, unfortunately.
ArcadiaRhod
@pettter I was disappointed to see it sold a second time to a music licensing company. Don't know much about them but hope they aren't there to change the way it works.
But Bandcamp is/was a great model and service to bands.
Sexy Moon
lainy
Sexy Moon
Lina Inver?e
Soyak
J. R. DePriest :verified_trans: :donor: :Moopsy: :EA DATA. SF:
@pettter
The Stock Market was a mistake.
pettter
@Yora I think you underestimate people from other countries, and the massive help the German economy has had from being in the EU and eurozone.
Yora
@pettter I have the long standing suspicion that this is why the German economy has a reputation of stability.
I feel that here, people take much more pride in providing a popular product or service and being reliable than a quick and easy path to adding more zeros to a bank account.
I feel, and that might be entirely subjective, that German entrepreneurs are more interested in building a legacy than cashing out.
pettter
TerryB
@emilyk @pettter @Abstruse Which raises the question; to what extent the squillionaires just happened to be the lucky ones who stumbled into the right niche rather than the geniuses they're claiming to be. FB seems to have been. Musk (with lots of cash to fund him) another.
Emily K 🪬
@pettter @Abstruse this type of accidental success describes so many different companies. Just take the W, dude.
Darryl Mott 💀
@pettter Patreon I understand a bit better. Jack Conte didn't WANT to be the microtransaction crowdfunding app for indie creators.
He WANTED to be the Ticketmaster/Major Label replacement for musicians. Give Amanda Palmer $20/mo to get tickets to her shows and her new albums. But Trent Reznor and Tori Amos weren't interested and a whole bunch of indie musicians, artists, YouTubers, podcasters, comic creators, and more were.
And he's been pissed off about the accidental success ever since.
lainy
Sven Jacobs :androidHead:
@lain @pettter @Moon I left Twitter when Elon bought it but I know from various news sources that Twitter went downhill after so many employees were fired. Not just devs, which impacted stability and speed, but also people from moderation, so Twitter is now full of misinformation.
pettter
timmy :flow:
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