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8:36am - The last few days have been a big mess for me. I've been trying to do an on day each day and it hasn't worked out. Today, I took my meds and ate a muffin for breakfast, and I'm going to start with on day stuff because this schedule is important to me, as are the things I'm doing.
I decided to work from my bed today, at least to start, because I find it's a good place to think about social change. That's what I'd like to start with today.
In the long term, I'd like to completely restructure our economic system into something planned and more fair, but that's not something I can just flip a switch on. I do think having a solid idea of what we're aiming for is important too, but in the interim there are ways to make what we have better and closer to the sorts of systems I want to have.
There's an idea I've been thinking about for a while now, and I'd like to share it and flesh it out some.
In the current economy, I'm a big fan of crowd patronage systems. For many people and creatives in particular, you can switch from producing something and having to restrict access to copies in order to sell them as products, to just being paid to do what you do. Some folks choose to still restrict their produce to those who paid in, which I don't think is fair, but that's their choice. I just hope they'll change.
11:14am - Spreading the idea around and improving the way I describe it took longer than I expected, and more work. I'm almost out of time for today, but I think I did a good thing. I'm going to pop off early, I've only got 15 minutes left anyways, because I'm actually painfully hungry and have stuff to do in a little over an hour.
A problem with this logistically is that in order for people to use a crowd patronage system, they have to transfer money from the patrons, each individually. Usually this is done through a payment processor like Stripe, or a service like Patreon or Subscribestar, who handle the payment processor relationship for you. (They both also use Stripe, I think.) There is a cost to them per transaction, and for it to be worthwhile they have minimums. On top of that, most creators I've seen ask for a higher minimum in order to get their most basic 'perks' like seeing their work early and such, restricting it for a month or something after it's done so that there's a benefit to the subscriber, though it's more like they're creating a problem for non-subscribers to encourage them to join. ^.^;;
Generally these minimums are something like $1 USD. A bunch of creators I've supported on patronage systems asked for $3 CAD or $7 CAD. It's kind of strange to look at that and call it high, but it kinda is? It's nice we can support an artist, but supporting just one artist with a monthly payment like that, consider all the other art-related things that people pay monthly. Streaming services, game subscriptions... I pay ten bucks a month to Amazon Prime Canada, and the things they provide are kinda nuts, but that's only ten bucks a month, right?
But also, I have a pretty fixed budget, and a ton of artists I'd like to support. Having to pick and choose is something I kinda want to avoid, and as a result I often don't do any of it, due in part to the emotional labour.
You can divide a dollar a hundred ways. A penny might not seem like much, but they add up. Is there a way to get past the "You need to pay at least a dollar" limit on the transactions? Well, no, but there's a workaround. If you share a patronage system, you can split the income. For every dollar donated, a hundred artists get a penny. I think a lot of folks would be more willing to give, then, and so you might be able to go from having under a thousand one-dollar subscribers to over ten thousand one-cent subscribers, and make that money right back.
Functionally speaking, I can think of two ways to do this. Using traditional sorts of crowd patronage, you could pay for a bunch of artists from one subscription as a 'bundle'. You'd still have to pay at least a buck or whatever the transaction minimum is, but you'd be helping more artists to do their thing.
The other way would be to set up a different sort of crowd patronage service. Right now I'm supporting two artists on Patreon. I had to pull back because I was giving too much and I was facing financial danger. When Patreon charges me each month, it doesn't do two or a half dozen tiny charges. It charges it all as a single fee.
What if we set up a crowd patronage system where instead of having minimums for each patronage account, there's just a minimum transfer into a sort of 'patron wallet' on the site? Then you can give any amount to the folks you support without worrying about the transaction fee for each. The patronage target would still need to recieve a minimum amount to cover the transaction fee of getting the money, but I don't think that's unreasonable.
In my own case, I think I'd be comfortable giving $20 cdn split to a whole mess of artists and open source projects each month, to help them keep doing their thing. How about you? I definately know there are people with a lot of money who are eager to give, and a lot of people with hardly any money who can spare a buck if it gets split a hundred ways.
So, those are some ideas.
9:05am - All that in just a half hour. Now that I've written it down, I'm going to shop it around, post it to some places. Maybe format it better. Probably.
I expect it'll take time to get responses, but I'll deal with them as it goes on. I'll probably work on some other things after posting it places.
I decided to work from my bed today, at least to start, because I find it's a good place to think about social change. That's what I'd like to start with today.
In the long term, I'd like to completely restructure our economic system into something planned and more fair, but that's not something I can just flip a switch on. I do think having a solid idea of what we're aiming for is important too, but in the interim there are ways to make what we have better and closer to the sorts of systems I want to have.
There's an idea I've been thinking about for a while now, and I'd like to share it and flesh it out some.
In the current economy, I'm a big fan of crowd patronage systems. For many people and creatives in particular, you can switch from producing something and having to restrict access to copies in order to sell them as products, to just being paid to do what you do. Some folks choose to still restrict their produce to those who paid in, which I don't think is fair, but that's their choice. I just hope they'll change.
11:14am - Spreading the idea around and improving the way I describe it took longer than I expected, and more work. I'm almost out of time for today, but I think I did a good thing. I'm going to pop off early, I've only got 15 minutes left anyways, because I'm actually painfully hungry and have stuff to do in a little over an hour.
A problem with this logistically is that in order for people to use a crowd patronage system, they have to transfer money from the patrons, each individually. Usually this is done through a payment processor like Stripe, or a service like Patreon or Subscribestar, who handle the payment processor relationship for you. (They both also use Stripe, I think.) There is a cost to them per transaction, and for it to be worthwhile they have minimums. On top of that, most creators I've seen ask for a higher minimum in order to get their most basic 'perks' like seeing their work early and such, restricting it for a month or something after it's done so that there's a benefit to the subscriber, though it's more like they're creating a problem for non-subscribers to encourage them to join. ^.^;;
Generally these minimums are something like $1 USD. A bunch of creators I've supported on patronage systems asked for $3 CAD or $7 CAD. It's kind of strange to look at that and call it high, but it kinda is? It's nice we can support an artist, but supporting just one artist with a monthly payment like that, consider all the other art-related things that people pay monthly. Streaming services, game subscriptions... I pay ten bucks a month to Amazon Prime Canada, and the things they provide are kinda nuts, but that's only ten bucks a month, right?
But also, I have a pretty fixed budget, and a ton of artists I'd like to support. Having to pick and choose is something I kinda want to avoid, and as a result I often don't do any of it, due in part to the emotional labour.
You can divide a dollar a hundred ways. A penny might not seem like much, but they add up. Is there a way to get past the "You need to pay at least a dollar" limit on the transactions? Well, no, but there's a workaround. If you share a patronage system, you can split the income. For every dollar donated, a hundred artists get a penny. I think a lot of folks would be more willing to give, then, and so you might be able to go from having under a thousand one-dollar subscribers to over ten thousand one-cent subscribers, and make that money right back.
Functionally speaking, I can think of two ways to do this. Using traditional sorts of crowd patronage, you could pay for a bunch of artists from one subscription as a 'bundle'. You'd still have to pay at least a buck or whatever the transaction minimum is, but you'd be helping more artists to do their thing.
The other way would be to set up a different sort of crowd patronage service. Right now I'm supporting two artists on Patreon. I had to pull back because I was giving too much and I was facing financial danger. When Patreon charges me each month, it doesn't do two or a half dozen tiny charges. It charges it all as a single fee.
What if we set up a crowd patronage system where instead of having minimums for each patronage account, there's just a minimum transfer into a sort of 'patron wallet' on the site? Then you can give any amount to the folks you support without worrying about the transaction fee for each. The patronage target would still need to recieve a minimum amount to cover the transaction fee of getting the money, but I don't think that's unreasonable.
In my own case, I think I'd be comfortable giving $20 cdn split to a whole mess of artists and open source projects each month, to help them keep doing their thing. How about you? I definately know there are people with a lot of money who are eager to give, and a lot of people with hardly any money who can spare a buck if it gets split a hundred ways.
So, those are some ideas.
9:05am - All that in just a half hour. Now that I've written it down, I'm going to shop it around, post it to some places. Maybe format it better. Probably.
I expect it'll take time to get responses, but I'll deal with them as it goes on. I'll probably work on some other things after posting it places.
