<story><title>Kickstarter launches Drip, a Patreon competitor</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/15/16652582/kickstarter-drip-creator-subscription-service-announced-perry-chen-interview</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zanny</author><text>Personally I am a fan of this only because Kickstarter is a PBC. The most fundamental problem with Patreon is that it is a proprietary web service operated by a for profit company that now controls the incomes of thousands, ranging from hobbyist artists to major productions like Crash Course.&lt;p&gt;It is like everything that is wrong with Facebook (the lock in from networking effects to a closed ecosystem) but made even worse by making peoples livelihoods depend on it. If there has ever been anything more deserving of if not full decentralization some protection from the controlling interest destroying people on a whim it is Patreon.&lt;p&gt;The PBC nature of Kickstarter doesn&amp;#x27;t wholly solve this, not even close, but it implies they at least cannot do unethical things to try to increase revenue on the platform by exploiting its dependent creators. Thats a small step in the right direction.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>quadrangle</author><text>To be clear:&lt;p&gt;A PBC just means they have &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; value that they will &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; sacrifice for profit. It doesn&amp;#x27;t mean they aren&amp;#x27;t for profit, and it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean they are democratic or anything. It&amp;#x27;s still a good thing. &lt;i&gt;Not&lt;/i&gt; being a PBC is basically unethical &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; (there&amp;#x27;s NO ethical excuse for ANY for-profit to NOT be a PBC). But it&amp;#x27;s a low standard, not comparable to being a co-op or non-profit.&lt;p&gt;Also, even with Patreon being &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; a PBC, it&amp;#x27;s horrendous to compare them to Facebook. Facebook is an evil corporation that spends tons of resources promoting surveillance, advertising, and manipulation (and gaining power to dramatically influence politics etc). Facebook is exploitive and actively malicious. For all the real complaints about Patreon, they are doing stuff that is largely positive at least and is in direct opposition to the surveillance-capitalism of Facebook. There is NO COMPARISON. Facebook is plainly awful. Patreon is a good concept run by good people with some &lt;i&gt;real&lt;/i&gt; problems that make it worth looking at the competition.</text></comment>
<story><title>Kickstarter launches Drip, a Patreon competitor</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/15/16652582/kickstarter-drip-creator-subscription-service-announced-perry-chen-interview</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zanny</author><text>Personally I am a fan of this only because Kickstarter is a PBC. The most fundamental problem with Patreon is that it is a proprietary web service operated by a for profit company that now controls the incomes of thousands, ranging from hobbyist artists to major productions like Crash Course.&lt;p&gt;It is like everything that is wrong with Facebook (the lock in from networking effects to a closed ecosystem) but made even worse by making peoples livelihoods depend on it. If there has ever been anything more deserving of if not full decentralization some protection from the controlling interest destroying people on a whim it is Patreon.&lt;p&gt;The PBC nature of Kickstarter doesn&amp;#x27;t wholly solve this, not even close, but it implies they at least cannot do unethical things to try to increase revenue on the platform by exploiting its dependent creators. Thats a small step in the right direction.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jonathanjaeger</author><text>A definite benefit is that you can port subscribers (as you mentioned, not closed): &amp;quot;The other big difference is that Drip also aims to be more creator friendly, allowing creators to easily port subscribers to other crowdfunding platforms with this model.&amp;quot;</text></comment>