Patreon - Full Time/Passive Income?

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. And today, um, want to talk a little bit about passive income, full-time income, uh, ways people, uh, find to make money. When I start the channel, I want to deal with that topic a bit. And passive income pretty much is defined as cash flow on a regular basis with little to no effort required to maintain it. So little to no effort, that's very important. And we want to talk about Patreon in relation to that, and Patreon being this Basically, it's like a subscription service where content creators, artists, uh, you know, people who make videos, YouTube videos, uh, various things like that, where they can get support from their fans and subscribers and viewers and things like that to help them to, uh, you know, for the day-to-day costs and operations of of, you know, keeping her channel going and things like that. But, you know, what I found through checking out venues like, or sites like Patreon, is that some people are, you know, making or bringing in quite a great deal of money from Patreon. you know, far beyond probably what's necessary to keep their day-to-day operations going and to, you know, produce their content and things like that. So it kind of branches off into passive income/full-time income, and that's what we want to talk a little bit about today, our thoughts on that, and is that going to be a solution for maybe some of you who are considering getting various forms of content. It doesn't just have to be YouTube type things. It could be, you know, if I understand correctly, it could be, you know, various things that artists and content creators, you know, create, you know, educational things, documentaries, art, drama, you know, what have you, wherever people derive value. And so before I get into, uh, you know, talking about, uh, how Patreon is being used to get full-time income and how it's used to get, uh, passive income and things like that, uh, I want to start off talking about my childhood a little bit. And I think this is going to relate a great deal to, you know, Patreon and the stigma with Patreon, how people look at Patreon. But As a kid, I remember watching Sesame Street. I loved to watch Big Bird and Elmo and, you know, all that. And I remember every year, maybe 2, 3 times a year sometimes, you know, as I'm watching Sesame Street, it goes off and I was watching on PBS, the public broadcasting station. And they'd have these large drives, you know, they'll go on for hours where they're trying to collect money and they're trying to keep Sesame Street on the air because apparently what had happened, you know, I guess the station couldn't afford to stay up and running and producing high-quality programming for us to watch. As you know, the public broadcasting station was free. It was brought to us for free. And, uh, you know, as a kid, you know, it started to dawn on me that, uh, you know, there's a cost required for me to be able to watch Big Bird every day on TV, you know. And so they just go on and on for hours, you know, with these drives trying to get money. And so, uh, you know, Patreon seemingly also serves this purpose of keeping people who are, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, uh, don't have the cash flow, don't have the resources to, to, uh, produce content for their channels. It's a way for, um, you know, funds to be delivered to them where they can keep their programming going and their content going. Uh, and, uh, you know, with this all, one of the, the issues or problems, the stigma with Patreon is that people who use Patreon, one idea is that they're like beggars, they're begging for money. Not only are some beggars that are begging for money, but some are just greedy, you know, where they already are getting enough money in, or they're making enough money off of other, you know, ways video creators make money, whether it be through Google AdWords— or I'm sorry, Google AdSense— or whether it be through, you know, promoting some affiliate programs or other donations or things like that, or selling ebooks. Uh, besides that, they're doing Patreon just to get more money. So they're, so they're, you know, they're just greedy. And so all that kind of works into it. And so this kind of creates a, this kind of bad atmosphere against Patreon, something that, uh, you know, was created, uh, which I feel was a good idea and, and works well and it's objective. Uh, but that kind of creeps in and it's kind of turned some people off from, from Patreon. But I want to say this, uh, you know, uh, to that, much like the story I just heard, some of these videos and some of this content that we watch on YouTube is so high quality that, uh, the documentaries, docudramas, the, uh, you you know, various things. When I'm watching it and I'm watching something on a premium channel or, uh, or some type of, uh, high-value streaming service, uh, there's very little difference between some of the content I watch on YouTube done by, uh, video content creators and what I see on some of the, uh, higher-valued, uh, streaming services and premium services and things like that. So in cases like that, I think it's quite inappropriate to call video content creators, to call them greedy or beggars or anything like that. Because if you're gonna do that, then you may as well call many of these large streaming services beggars. And, you know, because, uh, you know, a lot of these content creators are creating value, you know, a large amount of value, um, and they're creating, um, uh, entertainment for people. And some people find that valuable. And I think that's really what it comes down to, uh, you know, if the, uh, the subscribers to those channels and things like that find this content valuable, uh, and they want to give back, I think they should have have the right to do that. Now, with saying that, uh, you know, in, you know, when me, uh, starting this channel, uh, uh, you know, a great deal to talk about passive income things and various topics like that, uh, I, I also, you know, would have to say that although I think Patreon is a good, uh, a model and create some good opportunities for video content creators, I also think that you know, as far as dealing with the passive income side of it, um, that we sometimes have to be careful when dealing in certain operations and businesses that can't sustain themselves. And what I mean by that is going back again to the Sesame Street, uh, uh, you know, example that I give when I was a child. Going back to Sesame Street, well, uh, as we fast forward to now, Sesame Street has actually left PBS, the public broadcasting station, and moved to HBO, which is a subscription, you know, premium channel that gets monthly income. So what's the lesson there? Uh, it's funny because, uh, I was, uh, when I found out that Sesame Street had moved to HBO, there was this article about it and it was saying the letter B is for broke. You know how they always said you would learn the new letters and things like that? They would always use that example. So that's what's said in the article. And, um, uh, so I think the lesson to that, guys, is that Sesame Street learned that it had to move on to a sustainable model. So in saying that to video and content creators, If you're creating something of value but you find that the business model of it is not very valuable or it's not very useful in how it sustains your business or, you know, or the, the platform, then you may need to address that as well at the root cause as to why you may need funding and why you might not be getting the funding. Through, you know, through normal means. So I, I mean, that's just something to think about. Uh, but, you know, uh, you know, all things considered, uh, at the end of the day, uh, I don't think there should be a stigma around Patreon because I think we all reserve the right and have the right to basically determine what we find valuable, you know, whether it be you know, some type of entertainment or reaction video, which, you know, some people think reaction videos— at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter if we think they're silly or not. If people are getting entertainment from them and find them valuable, then that's of importance to them. And entertainment is just as important as education, things like that. People need those things in their lives. And, uh, I, I don't think that is wrong to support people who provide those things need to you, whether it be monetary or otherwise. So that's why I don't think there should be any stigma against Patreon. But you know, in saying that, personally, me with my channel, I've, you know, I've opted not to use Patreon. And that's not because I think Patreon, you know, is bad or anywhere or anything like that. I think in my particular case, I already have quite a monetized channel, and I think my channel is just set up to be under a certain business model that, you know, will be sustainable to the point where the channel is gonna run. It's just created in a way where it's gonna be sustainable. How it's done, it's not done on a high budget to where I gotta hire several dozen people and where I got to constantly have people going, coming in and doing things like that. And, you know, and that's to me, I like sustainable models. I can keep this going no matter what. Donations or not. And I just, I just like that type of model. But in saying that, I don't think it's anything wrong with having a model that's producing very high quality content, but maybe you're cash short, you know, and now you got to try to get people to come in and try to help keep you going. You know, sometimes it works out, sometimes it ends up like Sesame Street and you got to move on to a different type of venue. But no, I think that this is something we should consider as passive income, in some cases full-time income, using a platform like Patreon. And I do recommend it. I won't be using it because simply because of the setup on my channel. It's very small, it's very new still. A lot of Patreon, you know, people use Patreon, they probably been on YouTube for years, I have a very large following, and they can be supported by their subscribers and various things like that. And I think that's very smart. I think it's a good way to go because we need full-time income streams, we need passive income streams, and we all need this. And if you don't have it, we should all, all be thinking about getting it. Because the only way we have to create income and have money coming in is through ourselves, meaning us, our bodies, and that body being the money machine. You go out and you generate money. But what happens when the money machine wears out? You know, when you become, you know, unable, you know, maybe you become disabled, maybe you you know, your family gets larger and you just can't— the level of education you have and the level of opportunities you have to make money to support your family just isn't, you know, there. And the economy goes bad and maybe that job you did have yesterday you don't have tomorrow. So we should always be thinking about ways to for our cash flow to be performing more than we're performing or outperforming us. That would be more ideal because it's only so much the human body can do at a time, only so much it can produce, um, you know, in certain, uh, situations. So, uh, that's something to think about. Um, another thing too I just want to say is that you are— if you are some type of video content creator and Patreon is not your thing, this is not a passive income thing you want to take, maybe you just don't like the idea of asking for money or getting people to donate money to you because there are some things about Patreon that I do find a bit uncomfortable. That's the— it is a monthly subscription service, so if you have a fan base or subscriber base, then those people, you know, maybe they pledge to help you out, you know, one month and Maybe they find that they're unable to help you out the previous months, but, uh, you know, this thing kind of signs you up to where you're giving money every month. Uh, so that's a commitment, a big commitment, and you know, your fans have to make. But, uh, you know, they also have one where you kind of pay by video per, you know, uh, you know, content you put out, and they only maybe pay so much per that, as I understand it. But kind of the problem with that is then that kind of puts more pressure back on the video creator because because now you're forced to produce videos, a certain level of videos to, you know, to keep afloat. And, you know, maybe in the beginning you thought that was a good idea. Now you've come to the conclusion that maybe it's not such a great idea. And, you know, now you're being forced to create, you know, more videos than you wanted, or you're, you know, maybe the quality of your videos is not up to a certain level because you're trying to get so many out and things like that. Um, you know, I think in a case like that where you're looking for a passive income model similar to Patreon but you don't want to be in a certain Patreon, you know, they have other things like Kickstarter-type platforms similar to Patreon. I think Patreon does a better marketing job, but it's pretty much like a crowdfunding Kickstarter, pretty much the same. But you could either try something like that, or you could, you know, possibly just— if you just want to use it as a tip jar, like, I, I think for me with the size of my channel and the size of my audience, I think for me something would be better off just used as a tip jar. Just if you, if you're getting value from the content, if it's educating you, if you're entertained by it and you want to give something, uh, you know, you feel that you've, you've got so much value from it, then hey, you know, it's okay to donate whatever you like. Donate if you like or not. You know, I like putting my audience in, in a position like that, you know. And I found that a PayPal donation button pretty much serves, you know, the needs of that. So I'll start putting PayPal donation buttons on some of my pages, but that's only for people who've gotten value from my content. You know, if you've tried something on my channel, you've made some, some money, you're like, okay, I made a few bucks, I don't— I would like to, you know, share and give back to the person. Or you were entertained by something you really liked, or you discover something Uh, that's fine. I, I don't think anything's, you know, wrong about a tip jar, but I can only say that, um, specifically people on YouTube, we're already being paid by advertisers and things like that. And I do think in a business model, you know, you come on YouTube, we're kind of thinking in a business format, the business of YouTube, that we do need to try to create sustainable content. You know, I don't want to be, uh, took back to the situation I was, you know, as a kid watching Sesame Street and they're talking about, uh, you know, if a pledge doesn't come through, Sesame Street's going off the air. I'd rather Sesame Street be over at HBO and we just get HBO because, uh, you know, I mean, I, you know, as a kid I didn't want to be worried about, uh, you know what were the problems why Sesame Street wasn't going to be on air. I just want to turn on my TV every morning and see Big Bird standing there. So, so, you know, so I, I think we got— we have to all keep that in mind, guys. But all in all, I would say that Patreon is a great setup. I think it's— I, I think it's, uh, a great idea to kind of have your own subscription service where you're bringing content to people, just like Netflix, just like HBO, just like all these major companies doing it. I don't think it should be any different on how people look at video content creators there than they look at HBO or they look at any other of these streaming services and companies that ask for money every month or you don't get the product. So, you know, that's my thoughts on Patreon. And I just want to say, guys, yeah, people are making some, some real great full-time incomes. You know, some people don't this is all they need to do. Uh, I, I think one, uh, one, uh, person who makes the most right now, I heard it's near half a million dollars just from donations, you know, from, you know, from his, uh, patrons, you know, every month. So, you know, that's, uh, I don't think anything's wrong with that. I don't think they should apologize for that. I don't think they should have to explain themselves about that because the bottom line is this: if people are donating that type of money to keep you afloat and keep you going is because you're giving them something back important and you're giving them value. So you're not a beggar, you're not a person who's, uh, you know, some type of, uh, you know, uh, you know, what's the word for it, a peddler. You're not— you're none of that. Uh, you're a person who's giving valuable content to people and those people are paying you back. And they're having the— and better than that, they're having the option to pay you back or not, unlike streaming services that if we don't pay, our service is cut off, discontinued, like what was gonna happen with PBS and Sesame Street. Now they're over at HBO, we just pay HBO, but guess what? If we don't pay HBO, no Sesame Street. So that's all I want to say, guys, to that. Uh, if you like content like, like this, don't forget most importantly to like and subscribe and share it. Share it across social media, share it on all your platforms. And if you don't feel like doing that, if you don't feel like sharing or subscribing or watching, uh, you can always hit that PayPal donation button, donate whatever you like. All right guys, until next time, take care.