also I wonder if any academics have used their patreons as an example of being able to "secure outside funding" in job applications

@aparrish My use of Patreon is definitely not zero-sum. I don't have a "creator budget" because it's so small compared to what I already give to charity and spend on useless crap :)

@aparrish I don't know how zero-sum it really is, though. I would give more money on Patreon if there were more people I wanted to fund. Not sure how many other people have maxed out.

You might also consider Liberapay, since Patreon really seems to want to move to a pay-for-services model instead of just, you know, patronage. Liberapay also supports giving smaller amounts, without fees eating it all up, which means I can support more people...

@aparrish has anyone done research on whether it really is zero-sum? My personal use of it isn't, but I don't have a good sense of how typical that is.

@aparrish would being paid for your work on open source make you more or less likely to enjoy doing it? There's a danger of crowding out incentives.

@aparrish i would definitely contribute fwiw

@aparrish I still haven't gotten an adequate explanation from a Tax Law Specialist at work as to the tax treatment of Patreon proceeds.

@aparrish I (personally) wouldn't worry too much about the zero sum aspect. And I would also happily contribute at least a few dollars to a Parrisheon

@aparrish a) I don't think the pool is zero-sum because a lot of the amounts are so small b) i would totally buy you a nice coffee every month

@aparrish Hopefully it's not zero sum; I'd like to see a trend of subscriber money moving from big (Netflix) to small (creators/activists)