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1. pettter (pettter@mastodon.acc.umu.se)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 19:34:40 JST 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

   • Machismo repeated this.
   • Moon (moon@shitposter.club)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 19:45:44 JST Moon

     in reply to
     @pettter Patreon would have worked fine inside the constraints of capitalism, what happened was they were born from VC money and took a ton of that money, more than their business model was capable of paying back. This isn't a flaw of capitalism, it was bad business decisions.
     LS and Disinformation Purveyor :verified_think: like this.
     Machismo repeated this.
   • Disinformation Purveyor :verified_think: (thatguyoverthere@shitposter.club)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 19:47:23 JST Disinformation Purveyor :verified_think:

     in reply to

     • Moon
     @Moon @pettter :nod:
   • LS (lain@lain.com)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 19:58:07 JST LS

     in reply to

     • Moon
     @Moon @pettter also, laying off people doesn't mean that a business failed. as you said, they made some (in retrospect) wrong decisions and now have to adapt. patreon has 400 employees. why? twitter has laid off 80% of their workforce, 6000 people, and not very much seems to have changed. Over 3000 of those were engineers, too! and they still have over 500 engineers!
   • Moon (moon@shitposter.club)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 20:01:20 JST Moon

     in reply to

     • LS
     @lain @pettter it is very possible that Patreon could have been a sustainable business if they simply took less money and grew slower. as OP mentioned, it was a needed and successful idea.
     LS likes this.
   • pettter (pettter@mastodon.acc.umu.se)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 21:04:21 JST pettter

     in reply to

     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).

     >

     Machismo repeated this.
   • pettter (pettter@mastodon.acc.umu.se)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 21:04:30 JST pettter

     in reply to

     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.

   • iceloops.eth 🚬 :love_forever_cat: (1iceloops123@shitposter.club)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 21:04:43 JST iceloops.eth 🚬 :love_forever_cat:

     in reply to

     • Moon
     @Moon @pettter Patreon. Has the same issue as PayPal. Letting politics in business.
   • LS (lain@lain.com)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Oct-2023 04:52:56 JST LS

     in reply to

     • Moon
     • Sven Jacobs :androidHead:
     @svenjacobs @pettter @Moon misinformation is not necessarily a relevant metric for Twitter-as-a-business
   • Sven Jacobs :androidHead: (svenjacobs@androiddev.social)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Oct-2023 04:53:01 JST Sven Jacobs :androidHead:

     in reply to

     • Moon
     • LS

     @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.