By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The damage resulting from Patreon’s ill-advised venture into censorship continues with the departure of both content creators and their patrons.
Among many others, two of Patreon’s largest subscribers not only announced their departure but that they also intend to construct a crowd-funding source that they hope will insulate content creators from the whims of Patreon’s and other exchanges’ staff’s political or personal ideals. Many regard their departure not just in terms of protests in the name of free speech, but as sound financial stewardship to protect their own livelihood from a possibly unreliable payment and revenue source.
The bleeding continues
For those unfamiliar with Patreon the company describes itself as a funding source where, “Membership allows [content creators] like you to have a direct relationship with your biggest fans, get recurring revenue for your work, and create on your own terms.”–content creators being those such as artist, videographers, writers et al. Or, as Jack Conte states, “is a membership platform that provides business tools for creators to run a subscription content service as well as ways for artists to build relationships and provide exclusive experiences to their subscribers, or patrons.”
The in my view unjustified banning of numerous users, most notoriously recently Carl Benjamin, a.k.a. Sargon of Akkad, for uttering two prohibited words off-site from Patreon leads me to ponder the type of existential threat to Liberty a Patreon controlled system of censorship provides. (His words were taken completely out of context, and lead to a loss of over $12,000.00 in monthly income from his patrons after Patreon yanked his account.)
On the first of January, creators Dr. Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin announced they will leave Patreon. This was not a small act. According to Patreon statistics reporter Graphtreon, Mr. Rubin on Sept, 2nd 2018 received $26,534.00 per month from 4,566 patrons and Dr. Peterson at 9,419 patrons (revenue is not shown).
Here is their most recent video discussing their goals
It is not just a few at the top who have seen their incomes reduced resulting from Patreon’s censorship practices. The collateral damage is falling down to users with smaller incomes who are not just political commentators, but machinists, video gamers, designers, and others. The frustration you can witness in their stories is palpable…
By Darren Smith
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.