Saw this, ironically, on Facebook:
Facebook will drive a hard bargain with influencers and artists judging by the terms of service for the social network’s Patreon-like Fan Subscriptions feature that lets people pay a monthly fee for access to a creator’s exclusive content. The policy document attained by TechCrunch shows Facebook plans to take up to a 30 percent cut of subscription revenue minus fees, compared to 5 percent by Patreon, 30 percent by YouTube, which covers fees and 50 percent by Twitch.
I’ve looked over the document that TechCrunch said that they got; and if the document is legitimate then yeah, the above is also accurate. I’m more concerned about the way that Facebook is apparently also reserving the right to have non-exclusive use of all of the content generated via Fan Subscriptions, forever, and even after you quit using Fan Subscriptions. I can see how ‘paying’ extra for access to Facebook’s admittedly extremely large database might be justifiable. Letting them keep the stuff I put up there is something that I would want some extra consideration for, at the very least.
But on the bright side: if they’re doing this, then Facebook isn’t doing something truly disastrous for me, like buying Patreon. Which would be the normal go-to strategy for these people, actually. I can only assume that the folks who own Patreon have no desire to be bought out by Satan.
Moe Lane
PS: I grok that there are controversies involving Patreon. There are rather worse ones involving Facebook, honestly.
PPS:
