> While I appreciate donations myself, I don't ask for them,
> because I have a well-paying upper middle-class day job,
> and I would feel bad if somebody would give me money that
> they need more than I do.

Well, you don't ask for money because your blog is just hobby which takes little time to be kept up and running. It's not supposed to be your main income source.



> I am highly skeptical of the idea of somebody making
> a living from content creation, from being an "influencer".

That's a real thing, though. There are tons of streamers/influencers who spend their entire days creating content. It may or may not be good content, but it's "content" anyways. Just like any random mimo who performs on the streets, an actor, a singer, whatever. Their daily routine involves preparing scripts, recording, editing videos (which can be painful and exhausting), managing the channel, managing the comments, etc.

It's not rocket-science but it's time consuming. You will hardly be able to sustain a daily job AND content creation, unless you stop sleeping, eating and having a "real" life. You either work in a "classic" job or you devote your time to content creating, recording and streaming.

The main thing I don't really like of this new business is that YouTube may close your account without prior notice (or a valid reason) and completely destroy your investment forever. It's very risky, and you also have to deal with haters, trolls, trash people in general. The more exposed you are, the more you risk to be noticed, banned/closed.
 

Only this week I heard a successful, thirtysomething stand-up comedian being interviewed. She told the very familiar tale of going to visit her parents and being taken aside and asked when she was going to get a real job. Older people have been asking younger people that question for the whole of my life and for all I know for the whole of human history.

The fact is people do make a (sometimes very good) living doing stand-up and they do make a (sometimes very good) living as streamers or influencers. Because those are unfamiliar careers to those people for whom they weren't options when they were the same age does not invalidate their viability.

Of course most people won't get all that far in those types of employment. Most people don't become pop stars or footballers or artists. Of course the chances of earning a good, stable income are highly increased by taking traditional, paid employment form an established company or institution. It is, however, and has always been the case that not everyone has "good, stable income" as their priority when making such decisions.

Life for most people is long. It involves multiple phases. Being an influencer or a streamer isn't necessarily a whole-life choice although I'm sure for some it will turn out to be. For many, like having once been in a band or having played sport at semi-professional level, it will end up being one of many things that person has done. For many people, that alone will make it worthwhile.
 

Yes, but as a consumer, is there any sort of obligation of mine to financially support somebody in his risky life choice?
 

"What nobody says is that there isn't really a good reason to support somebody on Patreon for this sort of content, because you can be pretty sure that the content will get made anyway."
True, if it's just youtube content or similar things without any additional benefits. Some do have exclusive stuff on their Patreon though, offering chat or live sessions or discord channels just for supporters which could be attractive to some. Others send out physical gifts, so that is more than just digital.

"... the number of patrons rarely passes 1% of the subscribers."
Because it is dead easy to subscribe and forget. For how many of your 100+ channels do you watch every released video? I have 57 semi active channels and only watch a few regularly.

"... but if a content creator becomes popular enough, it ends up being the poor financing the rich."
Just like.. musicians? Actors? Writers? Search engine or social media developers?
In the past 'rich people' were rich because they owned poor peasants or their land and those had to pay taxes or they were traders and offered things that were popular.
 

I subscribe to Youtube premium. At first glance it seems like a pretty bad deal compared to Netflix or Amazon Prime both of which are cheaper and both of which offer far more premium content. However for me it is a reasonable way of giving something back to the content creators I view. I watch content from hundreds of different creators. I simply couldn't afford to pay them all €5 per month on Patreon and I dont follow any channel enough to justify it. On the other hand I don't object to them getting a small bit of revenue every time I watch one of their videos and I believe that is what Youtube premium does. The fact that it also removes adds is a small bonus and not a very good one. There are still plenty of advertisements built in to the videos anyway.
 

Yes, but as a consumer, is there any sort of obligation of mine to financially support somebody in his risky life choice?

No, but personally I don't mind paying for good content I consume, even (and especially) after the fact. Free-to-play games are the same thing, and I usually end up paying 5-10E by buying "beginner packs", when I'm well into the game, just to give something back to the creator of a game which occupied me for many hours.
Of course I do because I can afford it, and there are some content creators (like CDP Gray) who clearly state that you should support them only if you have a job and are financially stable and that students, etc. are perfectly fine freeloading.
 

There seems to be enough people out there with enough disposable income to support a ton of various creators on top of the revenue they get from YouTube views.

I watch a bunch of movie reactions and there is not a ton of difference in quality or quantity between the ones with 100k subscribers and 1000 patreons or the ones with 7k and 50. I think people are always happy to accept more money though from people who want to give it to them. Especially when they are indicating that they need the support to keep creating.

I have done the buy you a coffee thing before, but not for maybe 5 or 6 years because you have said you don't need it and I would also assess that you don't really Need it. I try to focus any money I give on younger folk who probably don't have a regular well paying job and don't have a lot of subscribers, usually because they have a narrow niche of content. Or if someone is incredibly good at what they do.

Another thing I consider is the expense of making the content. You may have hosting expenses, but I imagine that is nothing compared to all the equipment needed for good video content and the cost of a good editor if they aren't skilled enough to do their own editing.
 

As often, everything is a bit more complicated :
Some time ago, I supported the (your ?) Maison du Chaos. Because the counterparts were rather interesting to me (French language content - my mother tongue- for role playing, in a world where original non-english docs are not so easy to find), and because I was interested in your blog. Being far away from Belgium, I don't expect to visit your club someday, but you "influenced" me to support people I share hobbies with.
You are a settled engineer, and I do not think that giving you direclty some 20 euro would make sense... However, I am ready to send some (little) money for specific projects revolving about this kind of content. As an example, I support "professional" youtubers who produce well-sourced content related to real-world history.

Whatever, I appreciate your blog. I found it when I was looking for informations to play a healing priest during the burning crusade. It is just difficult to find a way to show it.
 

I've read your blog for many years and just sent a small coffee payment. Not easy to do - there is no link I could see on the mobile version of the page and paypal won't accept donations from the country my account is from.... Anyway thanks for many years of commentary - a great reminder of the good old days of MMORPGs...