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Patreon has made my dream career possible, it has been great, but insightful threads like this speak to potentially the company’s greatest enemy: Silicon Valley’s bottomless hunger for exponentially increasing profits over a sustainable business model
Patreon hosts the content of others to then collect 5% of their income for themselves. As more and more people hear about the site and join to support the people they like, Patreon’s profits increase year-over-year, a growing sustainable business which will make people rich
But it won’t make people super rich, which is the whole point of venture capital investments in Silicon Valley. Aaron Sorkin is an old hack but Social Network’s “A million dollars isn't cool, you know what's cool? A billion dollars,” perfectly sums up the Silicon Valley mindset
Nobody becomes an VC investor in a company like Patreon to become kinda rich. They don’t rent giant top floor offices in downtown San Francisco to be millionaires. They do it all in the hopes to become ludicrously rich with more money than any human could possibly ever spend
And that’s the rotten core of Silicon Valley’s specific case of gold poisoning. It’s a very dangerous mindset where major shareholders roll their eyes at boring sustainable profits. They want wild new revenue streams that might bankrupt the company!! That’s what excites your boss
Again, Patreon has some tech hiccups, but they also kicked off a bunch of Nazis last month. I think it’s a great site particularly for hosting/distributing podcasts to dedicated, awesome people. It’s the best service right now for running my business. I hope they stop this crap
