Patreon is an American membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service.
Its services help creators an artists to earn income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. While Patreon is just like any other online platform, as it also has advantages and disadvantages, Patreon is extremely popular among content creators. Many game developers to videographers, webcomic artists, writers, podcasters, musicians, to even adult content creators, use Patreon.
Patreon is also popular among YouTubers.
But the thing is about YouTubers on Patreon is that, many of them are there because they wish to flee from Google's massive grasp.
Google is already too big that it can control almost anything people do on the web and mobile. Some people just wish that that can at least be free from Google when it comes to monetizing their contents.
To show high their expectations are, many YouTube content creators who are also on Patreon have disabled ads on their YouTube channels, in order to rely entirely on their fans' contribution through Patreon.
The reason for this is because Google's influence on YouTube is extreme.
First of, YouTube is Google, so Google has the rights to do whatever it wants.
However, YouTube's algorithms are powered by Google's, which in turn have been plagued with the so-called rabbit hole.
While people visiting YouTube can use the platform's powerful search feature, results that are surfaced, videos that are made as suggestions, are all shown based on the data Google has on the people conducting the search, and based on their viewing history.
And thanks to the continuous change in algorithms, content creators can have a hard time maintaining their visibility on the platform.
Furthermore, videos can be demonetized for seemingly no reason at all at any time. The difficulties of brainstorming for a great video content, editing the video, uploading the files, combined those with frequent copyright strikes and video takedowns, earning a sustainable for steady income on YouTube can be difficult.
YouTube can be a nightmare at times.
And Patreon here, is seen as an alternative, because content creators can earn money by having their contents online.
Realizing this fact, according to a report from The Verge, Patreon is developing its own video hosting platform, so creators who wish to do so can finally escape YouTube (and Google) once and for all.
After all, Patreon has been the place where creators can do "what you want and what your audience loves. You don’t have to conform to popular taste or the constraints of ad-based monetization models."
Read: To Blog Or To Vlog: Choosing Your Online Money-Making Persona
According to Patreon's CEO Jack Conte, the company's ultimate goal is to create a "horizontal architecture" that allows any creator, no matter their medium, and no matter their upload format, to build a business around their work.
And Patreon's plan for having its own video platform is part of that strategy.
Conte said that he wants to make Patreon the one-stop-shop for all of a creator's needs.
From revenue generation, media hosting, and communication with fans, Patreon wants to have them all.
While this plan can take away YouTube's pie in the market, Patreon fights YouTube not as a direct competitor.
There is no chance for Patreon to ever be able to compete against a giant as big as YouTube.
Instead, Patreon challenge YouTube by fighting Google's dominance is a more subtle way. And that is by providing a very specific subsection of creators, for those who cannot generate enough revenue on YouTube. Patreon wants to be an alternative, by essentially cutting out the middleman.
"We want to attract the most awesome, forward-thinking, curious people who are building for the creator economy to Patreon," Conte said.
"We want those people to hear how we think about the world, and our vision, and what we want to build, and what we believe in, and who we are."