So I was mostly going to shitpost here, but going to be serious.
I'm chillanimeJOI and I totally agree that the amount of patreon exclusive content is absolutely stupid right now. It's tough because exclusive content makes SO much more it's hard to understate. My first year I was making like $300 a month lol, after like two years I finally got it all the way up to 1.7k...which is BARELY livable. I tried my best to make it work, but then people started doing exclusive stuff and making 2-3x what I was with frankly worse content.
I like to think I strike a good balance between boosting my income while still giving everyone a decent amount of content. I'm sure some people here would say any amount of exclusive content is too much but fuck that. My last vid was probably like 150 hours of work. Aint doing that for 1.7k a month.
The problem is most people take the absolute piss. Especially new creators making like 2 vids for public then 7 patreon exclusive vids in a row. The free advertising that JOIdatabase provides is the cause of the issues. There's no reason for people to cater to public releases now to build a following. It's all just hurrdurr flood page with patreon content.
I've been talking to the guy hosting the site to make patreon content less visible, which is actually going to probably hit my income short term. But I think this whole genre is totally fucked if people keep going the way it is.
Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk
First off, I appreciate that you haven't come in here to immediatly bash this thread for existing.
Earlier on when there were only a few creators doing Patreon exclusive content, it was fine, in fact I remember pledging to yours briefly to get access to a video because it was a 'new' thing and it felt premium, you were throwing some cash in to get something that was a step up from the norm in some way, whether it was longer or had some extra flair like voice action or animation, it was a once-every-now-and-then project that was a larger scale than the ususal content. When everything a creator makes becomes Patreon-only it diminishes the value of what a Patreon exclusive video is, there's no way they can pump out that much content and still retain a high enough quality that a paywall is justified, but people obviously had to move to keep up with it. I've seen enough Patreon videos that have made it beyond their paywalls one way or another that I don't think
anyone should be paying for, the quality is so standard to any other free video you'd find just a few years ago. I don't think joi database including patreon support so readily is helping either, it makes it way to easy for people to just throw everything behind a paywall.
I think if a video has something
really extra that puts it above the rest like voice acting, comissions art/animation, etc, that makes the money put in worth it, then a paywall is something I'll accept, but even then it can still be a risk, you don't really know how 'into' the content you'll actually be until after you've already put your money down. I can absolutely see why people are so willing to avoid paywalls in fear of whether it'd be worth it because I'm one of those people.