Alright, well now that I'm actually awake, that last post was made literally 5 minutes into the process of procrastinating waking up to go to work, here's a more well put together argument for it.
Warning: I'm about to get a little froo-froo sentimental about online media, so if you don't believe in that or it turns your stomach, probably best to look away.
Online media, content creators, youtubers, all of it is all about community, at least the good ones are (yes yes, no true scotsman whatever). Whether it's Nerdfighteria (Too many projects to list, but the fact Hank manages to run DFTBA.com, a site specifically selling nerdfighter and online media based products, that says a lot also, http://www.projectforawesome.com/), PhillyD's nation (One of the few self sustaining internet shows ever), the Harto's (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hello-harto), or even the place we used to call DiF, everything about being online and being an actual part of the online population is about community. I mean look at us, we all came here for much the same reason, because we liked listening to Teague, Brian, Dorkman and Trey argue and rip apart movies for 2 hours. But out of that we've grown a place where I can spend 10 minutes talking to someone on the other side of the planet (sorry Bullet, i don't actually know where you live 
) about web design in the middle of the night, a place where (given enough time) we can make a movie about a million people going a roadtrip, without ever meeting any of the other people in the movie. None of that has anything to do with the podcast, but we do it cause we're a community of people that enjoying doing shit like that.
Now to bring it over to Patreon. That's also about community, or rather it's something that could be embraced by a community, (as clearly Jack Contes community has, he's currently sitting at over $1700 donated per video). It's something they do together, it's a movement by the people that are a part of that community to get some shit done and help out the person they like watching. While ALSO being a place where Jack can give back to his community and engage with them outside his videos and vlogs (In the form of the patronage rewards).
It's about creating that 2 way street of interaction that serves to bind the community of Jack Conte fans closer together. It's something they are doing as a group.
You don't, no, can't, get that by saying "Here's a paypal link, if you want to, you know." That's an isolating event, it's just you and your paypal account.
And before you go saying, "Well then it's just a con job to get people to pay you so they can feel good." I'll remind that on more than one occasion this community right here has sacrificed a LOT to help out the guys. Just last week a bunch of people gave the guys a couple hours of their time to make new episode images. Before that, the (I'm blanking on the name) but mass effort to catalogue quotes for the DIF video. I mean we all did that, for them. It's not money, but it's as good as. And doubt that could have happened this community didn't exist and everyone in it didn't go "Alright fuckers let's do this, CHARGE!"
Alright that's my rant about why I think Patreon is an awesome idea for the way the world of youtubers and online creators is, take it or leave it, there it is.
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