FranLab is getting evicted

[EEVblog]

She has released a new video on Patreon about FranLab 3.0 from the factory.
TLDR;
She works for the Patrons now, not Youtube subscribers, and is asking for a people to help out with Youtube comment moderation.
Off the hampster wheel of daily videos, back to projects and more videos in the factory with new lighting and sound upgrades.

Sounds great from a content point of view, but no changes to the financial situation. She mentioned she's good for a least another quarter.

[james_s]

I'm really not a fan of Patreon. If they supported one-time donations there are content producers I'd support occasionally, but I have a severe allergy to recurring subscription bills.

[John B]

Well that good news at least, all this talk of getting rid of perfectly good equipment and spare parts was starting to sound like heresy.

[artag]

I think she deserves a new thread. She's not getting evicted, that's way out of date.

[Bud]

Yes, lets call the new thread "FranLab's serial begging"

[Ed.Kloonk]

and is asking for a people to help out with Youtube comment moderation.

 

Fuck that.

Sounds great from a content point of view, but no changes to the financial situation. She mentioned she's good for a least another quarter.

A Patreon audience can certainly carry you. But you have to keep asking the audience what they want to see and then do that content. That's a treadmill if there ever was one. I wish her all the best. I'm happy when people walk away from bloody youtube but not for this reason, obviously. Nag her to release occasional content on YT and ODSY to keep jagging new Patreons.

[EEVblog]

and is asking for a people to help out with Youtube comment moderation.

Fuck that.

Why? From a creator perspective it's rather helpful, especially for those who can't handle the bad comments, or get so many of them it's overwhelming.
Very common. Louis Rossmann has them for example, and he strikes me as a guy who can handle flack like a boss. In fact he gave me moderator privledges on his channel.

[Ed.Kloonk]

and is asking for a people to help out with Youtube comment moderation.

Fuck that.

Why? From a creator perspective it's rather helpful, especially for those who can't handle the bad comments, or get so many of them it's overwhelming.
Very common. Louis Rossmann has them for example, and he strikes me as a guy who can handle flack like a boss. In fact he gave me moderator privledges on his channel.

Whilst I see your point, yt comments can be a dumpster fire. The algo seems to work against everybody. A good community will shout down the numpties. But at the same time she's saying to the yt audience the focus is elsewhere. I'm following the logic but not the sense.

edit: I added more to the above post to try and balance out the response.

[EEVblog]

I think she deserves a new thread. She's not getting evicted, that's way out of date.

Best to keep everything in the one serial thread. And she's actually been evicted twice already, a third one is sadly not out of the bounds of possibility.

[EEVblog]

Whilst I see your point, yt comments can be a dumpster fire. The algo seems to work against everybody. A good community will shout down the numpties. But at the same time she's saying to the yt audience the focus is elsewhere. I'm following the logic but not the sense.

That's the risk. Ignoring Youtube in favour of focussing on Patrons.
Seems obvious because the major bulk of revenue comes from Patreon, but as a creator on Patreon I can tell you it's rather weird, and Fran's audience on Patreon is no different.

By weird I mean that you'd think that your paying Patrons are the most loyal audience who will watch every video you release and vote in every poll etc, but that's not actually the case.
When I (and other creators) release a video early on Patreon as one of the perks, we are lucky to see 10% of the Patrons actually watch the video (and it's easy to get that stat). Same goes for polls on Patreon, maybe 10% might respond.

A lot of us creators have actually discussed this stuff many times over the years, and what are the benefits of actually releasing videos and other perks early on Patreon. When it seems that the majority (say 90%) of Patron just see it as some sort of automatic donation because they like your channel.
So the risk if you try and focus on Patrons exclusively, you might lose the potential 90% or whatever that are just ordinary Youtube subscribers.

[EEVblog]

A lot of us creators have actually discussed this stuff many times over the years, and what are the benefits of actually releasing videos and other perks early on Patreon. When it seems that the majority (say 90%) of Patron just see it as some sort of automatic donation because they like your channel.
So the risk if you try and focus on Patrons exclusively, you might lose the potential 90% or whatever that are just ordinary Youtube subscribers.

As an example, here is a behidn the scenes video I released to Patrons. It has 87 views from over 1000 Patrons.



But I will revise my number on polls. My last poll on Patreon got 175 responses, but that's still only like 15% response.
My current pre-release video on Patreon has 61 views.

[magic]

I think it's the liberal in you, trying to prove to yourself something that you believe.

And what do I "believe"?
That there is a solution to Fran's financial problems? Yes, I believe that, in fact I'm pretty sure it's demonstrably true. But it's not up to me to make the leap.

Well, if there is a solution, and if it's a simple one, why it hasn't been applied yet?

Political correctness blinds you (and others) to a big red flag: you are dealing with somebody deeply and obsessively involved in engineering how others perceive them, even beyond the usual scope of the "politically correct" issue that you may think explains it. I recall you noticed something like that at one point and remarked it's unhealthy, but I don't think you appreciate full implications of your own statement.

My experience with people so devoted to perception engineering is that no matter what it is they try to engineer, they share a few common traits: their personal lives are a constant and all-around mess of incomprehensible dimensions, it's all tediously hidden from bystanders behind more perception engineering, until it can't be contained and blows up and leaks into professional or public life, and then people are caught by surprise and don't know how to react and try to help by addressing whatever tip of the iceberg issue they can see. If you are in this position, your best bet is probably going to patreon.com

About this case you surely know more than I do, I have just watched a few videos linked on the forum and correlated with other events.
There is likely still much more to be known than you know.

[EEVblog]

About this case you surely know more than I do, I have just watched a few videos linked on the forum and correlated with other events.
There is likely still much more to be known than you know.

Correct, I know a lot more about this than most people.
I stand by my comment, there are solutions to the financial situation, but she is the one that has to make the leap, and be comfortable doing it.
Of course they aren't easy solutions from her point of view, otherwise she would have taken them already.
Fortunately the Patrons have come through and she doesn't have to make any changes, at least for a while. In fact she seems very happy again and we can expect some great content.

[nctnico]

So the risk if you try and focus on Patrons exclusively, you might lose the potential 90% or whatever that are just ordinary Youtube subscribers.

The way I see it is that Patreon and YouTube work hand in hand. You watch content on YouTube and support the creator through Patreon. So yes, YouTube is important. I noticed many creators ask to support them through Patreon.

[sokoloff]

Whilst I see your point, yt comments can be a dumpster fire. The algo seems to work against everybody. A good community will shout down the numpties. But at the same time she's saying to the yt audience the focus is elsewhere. I'm following the logic but not the sense.

That's the risk. Ignoring Youtube in favour of focussing on Patrons.
Seems obvious because the major bulk of revenue comes from Patreon, but as a creator on Patreon I can tell you it's rather weird, and Fran's audience on Patreon is no different.

I'd expect YouTube to be the major funnel to Patreon patronage for most video creators; is that not the case?

If so, ignoring the realities of YouTube seems unwise, even if you only need Patreon to stay steady or grow very slowly.

[EEVblog]

I'd expect YouTube to be the major funnel to Patreon patronage for most video creators; is that not the case?
If so, ignoring the realities of YouTube seems unwise, even if you only need Patreon to stay steady or grow very slowly.

Yes it is the case.
Massive Patreon creators like AvE could probbaly survive for many years off their 10,000+ Patrons by only posting content exclusively on there. But sooner or later Patrons are going dwindle away and you won't have anything on Youtube brining in a new audience to replace them.

[alm]

That's the risk. Ignoring Youtube in favour of focussing on Patrons.
Seems obvious because the major bulk of revenue comes from Patreon, but as a creator on Patreon I can tell you it's rather weird, and Fran's audience on Patreon is no different.

By weird I mean that you'd think that your paying Patrons are the most loyal audience who will watch every video you release and vote in every poll etc, but that's not actually the case.
When I (and other creators) release a video early on Patreon as one of the perks, we are lucky to see 10% of the Patrons actually watch the video (and it's easy to get that stat). Same goes for polls on Patreon, maybe 10% might respond.

A lot of us creators have actually discussed this stuff many times over the years, and what are the benefits of actually releasing videos and other perks early on Patreon. When it seems that the majority (say 90%) of Patron just see it as some sort of automatic donation because they like your channel.
So the risk if you try and focus on Patrons exclusively, you might lose the potential 90% or whatever that are just ordinary Youtube subscribers.

For me, Patreon is a way of supporting someone whose work I like. The perks range from nice to have to don't care. For example, I support you, Mike and Shahriar on Patreon because I think you all provide good, technical content. But I don't care about being the first on the block to see a video, so I'll only watch a pre-released video if I find it really interesting, and others I might watch some day when I purposely visit your YouTube channel or when YouTube recommends a video. The battery is one example that I will watch eventually, but did not enough to watch the pre-release on Patreon, which I find more cumbersome. I might only enjoy a fraction of your videos, for example I'm not hugely interested in solar power or RF, but there's still enough to be worth the $1/month.

So in my case it's the YouTube videos that make me pay on Patreon.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Don't know how many of you might of saw a video from Joe Scott's other channel from a week ago. 30 days of posting shorts. Also went into why the subscription and the home listings suck.

I wish I could display the subs in such a way that occasional youtubers who only put out a video occasionality are not lost in the wake of the 5-videos-a-day-ers.

[SiliconWizard]

I can read a lot of "free" advice in this thread, and a fair amount of judgment.
Heck, I also gave some I guess, but that was restricted to maybe shrinking the "factory" (knowing that if she doesn't make pedals anymore, she may not need all the equipment and - well ventilated - space for painting, which is expensive), and possibly otherwise start outsourcing the production of her pedals (which I know may not look enticing, but is the only way of selling any these days IMO, unless maybe you make handmade, 100% custom ones with gold and diamond casing maybe, and you'll seel one a year).

Now those would be things to try, but I don't mean to neither know exactly what Fran's constraints are, nor whether those things would actually turn out any better than what she currently does. As I said, life is constantly changing and nothing is definitive anyway. You may come up with the best of intentions and end up worse than you ever were. So I don't blame her for sticking to what has actually *worked* for her, even if that's not very stable. It *has* objectively worked. And it's quite possible that any of the stuff we suggested in this thread would work out less well and could even get her bankrupt.

As the saying goes, advisors are not the payers.

[james_s]

I think she deserves a new thread. She's not getting evicted, that's way out of date.

Well we can let this one trail off and go dormant until the next time she's getting evicted, and you can rely on there being a next time, I'd bet money on it. Nothing has changed, she's merely managed to kick the can down the road a few yards/meters.

[SiliconWizard]

she's merely managed to kick the can down the road a few yards/meters.

Isn't that what life is all about though?

[Kasper]

It'd be cool to see Fran or Dave or any of the other tech educators create a makerspace / incubator / school.

[Nominal Animal]

By weird I mean that you'd think that your paying Patrons are the most loyal audience who will watch every video you release and vote in every poll etc, but that's not actually the case.

This is very similar to what Eric Flint and Baen Publishing found out about free ebook downloads two decades ago.

You'd think they decrease sales, but the opposite happened.  It just caused the people who read the genre to buy even more by the same authors.

Before widespread streaming services like Netflix, those who pirated most movies or games, were also the ones who bought most.

What does this mean for content creators, then?  In my opinion, that the traditional model of "they who pay, decide" is not going to work too well.  Even discussing choosing the next video based on what might get a lot of views can alienate viewers, because that's not interesting content.  I would guess that the model AvE and Dave are doing –– do videos on what you find interesting –– works best; but there is always a clear arc in interest, as nothing lasts forever.  (But obviously, I'm not a creator, just an interested passer-by.)

[PlainName]

Even discussing choosing the next video based on what might get a lot of views can alienate viewers

That might be because, as the followers grow, the content changes from "this is cool, I'll make a video of it" to "got to make a video of something." Viewers that are there for the former will shy away from the latter.

[EEVblog]