They’re there because they weirdly fell in love with what you’re doing, and they want to see you succeed. But we never stopped to think about whether we repeated these behaviors because they were actually good for creators, or because that’s just how Kickstarter did it. Creators sell intimacy to patrons. They sell “stuff” - perks - to customers.
Viewed through this lens, Sponsors can be understood as a first, important stepping stone towards company sponsorships, which seem inevitable for GitHub given the presence of Organization accounts. Their eyes light up when they talk about specific developers. If I ask why, I tend to hear a few common responses: 1) they’re learning a specific skill, and watching that person is helpful, or 2) they’re experienced developers who just love being able to see how “the best” do it. it struck me the other day that open source is a sort of “high-latency streaming”. the relationship between a prominent GitHub developer and their audience, and a prominent Twitch streamer and their audience, is similar: they gain followers because people enjoy watching them do something in public. an additional set of motivations, which is, “I want to watch and learn from you”. A graphic artist or a blogger who’s funded on Patreon doesn’t quite have that same relationship to their audience. In those cases, I think their output – the artifacts they create – takes center stage. there are probably others who just love watching the person who makes it. With companies, open source developers are selling a product. With individuals, they’re selling themselves.
“Patreon's Thrive Capital deal is a great (‘great’) example of the secret theme of my dissertation, which is that venture capital is a terrible way to fund businesses and has been the whole fucking time.”
Patreon Acquires Memberful, An Interview with Patreon CEO Jack Conte and Memberful CEO Drew Strojny
“From my perspective, this shift from “You’re buying stuff that’s already created” to “You’re funding the creation of ongoing content” has been a clear evolution in Memberful.” “Also, from a philosophical perspective, our number one core behavior — some companies have values, Patreon has behaviors, we like that word because it’s something you can do — is “Put creators first.””
