Musings on STEEM vs Patreon
Today, I have 4119.76 STEEM Power. This has been accumulated over the course of a year and a little bit of actively posting, commenting, and curating. There are many youtubers that I enjoy watching that constantly plug their Patreon as a funding model.
Patreon works by the content consumer paying Patreon, who take their fee, and who; in turn, pay the content producer. There are various "tiers" of membership to many of these structures, but for the purposes of this thought experiment, we'll imagine I'm upvoting 10 people once a day, every day of a thirty day month.
Some facts about my Steem Power:
| 4119.76 | Total STEEM Power |
|---|---|
| 502.68 | Delegated by @mattclarke |
| -50.72 | Delegated to @kaylinart |
| -650 | Delegated to @steemsilvergold |
| 3921.72 | Effective Steem Power |
My effective STEEM Power is currently worth USD$6,510
Some facts about my current voting "power":
Screenshot taken from Steemworld, created by @steemchiller
I get ten full strength upvotes a day, before voting power starts to decline, and reduce my influence on post payouts. I'll use 75% voting power as a baseline. Up voting 10 posts per day, at 75% voting power, would distribute a total "upvote" of $105 per 30 day month, as represented on steemit.com
With the fluctuating price of STEEM, SBD, and some payouts now being given in liquid Steem, lets assume this $105 equals USD$105. This means, that in nearly four years, for an investment today of $6,510, my "Patronage" of the content I consume starts to make a return on investment, whereby I am ahead, and no longer spending money to support, if my patronage via Patreon was at an equivalent level.
That's before you take into account curation rewards. That's before you take into account the growth (or potential decline) in the price of STEEM. Now, USD$105 per month to various Patreon campaigns seems a bit too generous for my lifestyle, it isn't something that I would be able to sustain.
People buy solar panels that tend to have a minimum three year return on investment. That's extending to in-home battery packs like the Tesla power-wall, which has a longer ROI.
If you're spending money on Patreon today, you should tell the person you're supporting that you'd rather support them on the STEEM blockchain. Not only will this help you, by reducing your costs, and earning you a ROI, but it helps the Steemit, Dtube, Dlive, Steepshot, Busy, and Zappl apps to gain more talented, well known content producers.
It increases the credibility of the platform, and gives us all new content to enjoy.
In Australia, there was a famous advertising campaign to sell houses with the slogan "rent money is dead money."
Patreon is dead money
You're locked into supporting someone, and you literally watch your money disappear down an abyss (when the fees aren't being manipulated); and, just like that advertising campaign, its dead money.
The advantages of holding STEEM are too many to list in this context, but I'll brainstorm some - other people can add their own reasons in the comments.
- You own your stake
- From a "rewarding others perspective" - you will get a Return on Investment
- You have the potential to earn through your own creativity, unlike platforms that require 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watched content
- You're not at the mercy of algorithms that decide if your content is visible or not (perhaps, you are, however, at the mercy of a certain berniesanders ... )
Do you support anyone on Patreon? What would your STEEM Powered votes be worth when compared to what you spend on Patreon, and how long would it take you to get a return on investment?
STEEM in the long run is superior to the content consumer, but is still the wild west for the content producer.
My thoughts exactly... and I don’t think you even stressed the point enough that at that 4 year mark, your principle funds are still entirely untouched!!! You can withdraw your $6510 and still have pledged $6510 to the creators you support. Voting is the new crowdfunding!
I’d advocate exactly the same to users of funding platforms. If someone is spending $50 a month on Patreon, put it in Steem Power instead. And not just Patreon... Kickstarter, GoFundMe, HoneyFund, even charitable donations & memberships to non profits. Then encourage those you want to get on Steem if they’re not already.
I’ve been having discussions about this very topic with @drwatson who is funding his comic book Ithaqa. I firmly believe authors can already mimic crowdfunding platforms here on Steem, simply by announcing their terms and using existing reporting tools. But a developer could take it to a whole new level with a purpose built UI & dashboard for such projects.
Oh man I WISH everyone who was on patreon was putting that money towards steem! They'd be making money and supporting artists at the same time.
Hopefully when I launch a steemstarter for "Ithaqa" we can make some headlines. Show people there's a better way to fund and be funded
This is one of the most concise and informative posts ever written about Steemit.
I'm resteeming this.
Thank you. :)
I tend to ramble a fair bit by way of writing; and am not usually good at concise! I appreciate that you've used that word to describe something I've written!
Using Patreon as a baseline comparison saved a lot of time and space. Furthermore, the comparison itself is good, as you make it analogous to renting property and owning property.
I'm particularly inspired that you were able to amass so much Steem power over the course of a year. Would you say your delegations of SP have been responsible for that? I've never delegated, myself, and I sometimes wonder if I should.
But then, I save most of my SP for commenters on my posts. It helps me rack up followers, which, at the moment, are more important to me than earnings. Though if I power up and then delegate just the new power, then I would still have effectively the same SP I have right now (it's good to have options).
But, you know, the people who really need to read this post are the ones not yet on Steemit. So it looks like I'm also going to have to Tweet it.
Have a great day.
Thanks, I've also tweeted it to my ~70 twitter followers!
Approximately ~3000 of my steem power has been earned through post rewards. The remaining amount has come through me selling off other cryptos to invest in the STEEM eco-system.
The outgoing delegation to kaylinart is a prize for a contest I ran previously to commemerate @lauralemons, a talented artist and valued member of the steemit community who sadly took her life last year.
The delegation to steemsilvergold is because I like the bloke who runs that bot, and the steem / silver / gold "stacker" community is really quite large on steemit - they're our biggest sub culture, I think, after artists, gamers, and writers.
@mattclarke, who is delegating the 500SP to me, introduced me to the platform, we've known each other for five years, but its felt like twenty thousand.
I did, for a short time "sell delegations" but quickly saw the personal pointlessness in this; as I want to reward those who produce content that I enjoy. I may not be able to do it as generously as others can on the platform, but every tiny cent counts.
No I do not do Patreeon. Thanks for the informative blog and perspective @holoz0r
I don't use it either, but I've been tempted to for some YouTube channels that I enjoy very much.
I have wondered about this and wonder if when SMTs begin there will be a patreon replica that gives a user friendly, familiar environment to do similar for the content providers.
I hate to sound cynical (really, I love sounding cynical), but with the bot-filled landscape, I forsee bot-focused SMTs that divide up "profits" with generous bot owners giving 95% back to the community...
A SMT would be cool; if I was say, a computer hardware reviewer; and I lobbied my audience to purchase "X 9000 MEGA ULTIMATE COMPONENT" , crowd funded the cost of the hardware, and then distributed a share of my profits to the "SMT investors".
It'll be interesting to see what value and dynamic they add to the chain.
Never used Patreon. It would be a lot easier if those we enjoy watching etc joined Steemit, DLive and all those which benefit everyone now and in the long run.
That, and for established content creators, it is an additional revenue stream! They don't need to abandon their traditional audience in the same way in which newspapers in physical form are pretty much useless other than as compost.
We use newspaper not as compost, but to put the home cooked hot chips on and pour the chicken salt over. :P
In all honesty steemit is really the best thing going out there right now. I just can't grasp how more people are not getting on board. I do believe we will at this moment in time be remembered as early adopters and we will be rewarded for it mcuh like you have been. Keep on keeping on and earning that steem power. I hope you do great things with it.
Thank you for the encouragement!
I've been blown away be the generosity of the platform as a self-labelled "shit tier" content producer, (we are always our own worst critics) - but I remain very excited about the possibilities as a creator.
Steemit has allowed me to restart creating work and to pursue a journey of self-discovery that has been lacking from my life for several years.
It has also allowed me to engage with and socialise with a vast number of strangers that I'd never otherwise be aware of - this is the true value of STEEM - that of human connection.
I probably wouldn't have bothered with Patreon if I'd hit steem first. But I didn't. Patreon is otherwise a lot more immediately accessible. We're lucky over here with LROS (even if they did go and be pains in the system by removing steem) but not many other places have that, and only a few dedicated or curious people want to bother trying to get their head around this crypto thing on top of doing whatever it is they're doing for their Patreon and if the Patreon isn't at a stage to support them, also on top of any other jobs and life stuff.
And then there's also the problem of trying to get your user base to switch. And many users who would have the supporter/curator accounts aren't going to want to figure out how to put money in steem or "waste" all that time building up the sp to give a meaningful vote when they can just throw US$1+ at their favourite creators by putting in their Paypal details.
And then there's trying to explain why it's not a Ponzi scheme.
When Patreon did the reshuffle with their fee structure that not too many people were happy with I did suggest it to one of the people I'm currently supporting, and they said they would look into it, and I said to ask if they had any questions, but then Patreon rolled back their changes and I never heard back.
And in my case, it's occasionally exhausting posting in so many places, but eggs and baskets XD
If they're chocolate eggs they won't break as easily!
I support some people on Patreon. Or did, and will again soon, once funds allow. I see it as paying for specific content creators I like, in lieu of supporting a system that may also produce content I like, such as paying for YouTube Red where I might get things I want, and may not. I see it as slipping a fiver per month into someone's pocket to reward/thank them for entertaining me.
I've seen it akin to "buying someone a beer". On Steemit though, I have the once off "cost of investment" then I can buy them a beer (over the course of a month) for as long as I damn well like, with it eventually not costing me a cent!
Of course, the biggest elephant in the room is how simple the process is. A content creator registers for Patreon, and then gets money delivered into their bank as people subscribe. Steemit, however, or any cryptocurrency, relies on a certain level of interest and knowledge to make use of it. The average person can't understand the intricacies and then successfully convert it into something they can then use to put food on the table.
yes, when you put it that way, steemit is much better!
The biggest challenges we have are on-boarding new users (thanks for dropping a comment!) and then retaining an audience, and those new users longer term.
The data sites are especially helpful to see the statistics. I didn't understand the voting power thing until recently, we should have the percentages near our wallet section.
I figure id better put some of my own money in and analyze what happens... but its almost impossible without analyizing crucial data points.
Im determined to figure it out. If steemit achieves making me a true believer then ill post about it everywhere. Ive been posting for eight years for free on other social media! All facebook does is sell my info to politicians, government and corporations.
A percentage of what data do you need near your wallet? I would like to help you with this. Do you use busy.org to post? They show important data like voting rewards, your voting power percentage and so on. Their UI is very user friendly, has a lot of useful info and they take 0% of your author rewards. There are also a slew of steemtools.com for looking at different data points. Lastly, installing the browser extension Steemplus is also very useful to see and modify your voting power as well as seeing your actual wallet rewards and the amount of SBD received from each upvote. I know things seem all over the place because, well, they are, but try busy.org you won't regret it ;)
Thank you, @Creativista , that will definitely help! I keep seeing the busy tab and mention of it in a few other threads, but I wasn't sure what it was. steemplus and steemtools. cool. will do.
Regarding the wallet- I was wondering why the voting power information and all that is not placed in the users account, near where their money is? It seems like a very important detail for someone - even a newbie to being successful. I also believe it would help user retention rates, because I am sure many new people quit before figuring out these kinds of things.
I will admit though, I have yet to read through all of steemit, including the blue paper. I'm just about to though!
These data sites do help me though. I worry about going to a phishing site or a scam, which makes me a little cautious and intimidated, but I guess its like anything else worth anything, it is going to take time and investment to work at it and research. That's where searching for posts and comment sections and so on really help.
@miss-j Busy.org is the same as Steemit, but improved in many ways, for example, it has your voting power visible at first glance. Tip: If you use the busy tag they will boost your posts. The UX is so much better, no need to learn markup language and you will love it. You can sign in with your active key, don't ever use your main password for anything but transfering funds. To check the time in which your voting power will be re-established to 100% go to: https://steemnow.com/. Each vote takes 2% of your voting power, the lower you get, the more time it will take to get you back to 100%. There is a lot to learn about Steemit, I learn something new everyday ;) Hope this helps.
thanks again, its a much different mindset than i am used to , as upvoting was very second nature to me at facebook or you tube, but if you have to wait to power up- that defintely changes things.
Definitely, your votes should go to quality content creators and should be given carefully ;)
It is hard to do any solid, long term, forward looking analysis with Steem and steemit - due to the fact that the value is constantly shifting, and moves quickly when it does.
What are the points of confusion? I can probably point you to a site or a guide that can help you out. :)
I dont know what to ask exactly. lol Whatever sites you think breakdown the most important attributes to look at would be helpful. Thank you!! Currently I am focused on the curation efforts. Ive used steamstats.com and steemworld.org so far, and trying to figure out what it all means.
I received a few payouts on curation, and then it stopped for two days which confuses me because I have been on steemit every day and upvoting and commenting and posting. I am the type that is online quite a bit, so I'm trying to figure out if posting or upvoting too much is a bad thing, or not? I see you have to wait for your voting power to go back up, but how exactly? Do you have to stop voting for a length of time or does it go up automatically after a time?
From looking at steamstats, I think I may start getting some kind of payouts again in the next few days. Maybe?
Im also trying to figure out how and why photography seems to be profittable for some, and what the differences are with someone who has 300 votes and 5 bucks vs someone with 26 votes and 130 bucks. Im guessing its bots and or whales issue, but idk.
Id consider using bots if i knew what the ROI was. Thats the hardest part, is figuring out a strategy, and what if any help a bot could do, or is it rather just a gamble until I am here long enough to make enough friends and followers and content?
Ive considered the fact that steemit rises and lowers in value with the market, but seeing some payout even .0001% vs none is helpful in itself. Probably the only best way for me to learn is to find as many of the most popular sites everyone on steemit uses and to just ask questions as I go along.
I really do appreciate that there is a constant discussion around this topic, reading posts and the comment sections are helpful too.
Regarding voting power, I have a strange way of explaining this:
You start the day at 100% VP, and you get 10 votes per day at 100% (you can change the weight of your vote once you achieve a certain Steem power (i think its about 500) - you can check your steem power on steemworld, which is useful, and there's also steemnow; which is a nice platform too.
Voting power regenerates over time - 20% is restored every 20 hours. 10 full strength upvotes consume this currently. The 100% upvote I just gave your reply depleted my voting power by 2%
It will take approx 2.4 hours to recharge.
I highly suggest reading the steem "blue paper" (which while, a technical document) - does explain these concepts quite well.
Bot ROI is not existent, after you factor in the 25% curation award that the bot owner gets the lion's share of. There is a site that documents the "returns" you obtain by paying someone for a vote, but I do not recommend it - it creates a demand for something that really has no place or requirement, in my opinion.
I'm not an expert on how the steem blockchain functions, but many people here are - most of them are probably not going to be comments of my article, though!
very helpful, thank you very much! i'll definitely read the blue paper. and the white. :)
im determined to figure this out. the good and the bad- and make it work.
I think you've got an advanced handle on this topic. I'm new to STEEM. I find this form of commentary helpful. Thanks for sharing this information.