YesterDark
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2017
The fourth hard thing and this is where many internet sites are failing, is monetizing content. Everyone has become accustomed to web content being free and sites that are much more dependent on being reimbursed for content than us, your New York Times, your CNN are having a heck of a time balancing viewing numbers with producing revenue. Pay per view or click ads are just becoming less and less lucrative. People won't accept paywalls. With Patreon people can agree to pay 10/month to get specific additional content. Some people will think it's too much, others would pay more. All we can do is navigate the internet reality and try stuff. I think Pete has done a heck of a job of making this work
(full disclosure, yes I am an employee but only on the technical side, I have nothing to do with content, financial decisions etc except for drinking beer with Corey)
Ad revenue was at it's peak about 8-10 years ago (rough estimate). I ran a business based off of ad revenue and you could make some crazy money with some ad buyouts over a weekend. You need high viewership (youtube etc.) to get big numbers. I'm not sure what their viewership numbers are when they are live, but that would be an revenue source.
In any case, people actually do accept paywalls, just not for traditional websites like you mentioned. I think people don't mind Patreon costing money, but my whole point in this thread was that there is a threshold of content vs. cost per month where you can reach peak revenue. Without knowing anything! I'm willing to bet that you can earn more viewers to cover the cost of the lower pricepoint.