Howdy everyone. Please share this. I don't care how, I don't care to whom, but you need to listen and you need to send this around.
Patreon has been mobilizing on a lot. 3D Face Scanning technology requirements, increasing scrutiny on content published, purges of various NSFW kink artwork through the years, but this last chapter in Patreon as a Queer-enabling Platform is likely to close with a hell of a bang.
Allegedly, Patreon will be going Public very soon. For those not aware, going Public means the company is going to offer Shares to Investors via the Stock Market. An Initial Public Offering (IPO) is a big deal for a tech company like Patreon, which follows the model of many Silicon Valley start-ups of blitzscaling and then retroactively changing the rules of business with their non-worker clientele. Articles from Summer of this year suggest that the company may be going Public during 2024, or perhaps right at the end of 2023. The company isn't doing so hot based on projected valuation, this might be the moment they have to go full hog.
Read on for more details. SFW content, NSFW blog, just as a heads up.
I don't think this is tumblr all over again. I think it's worse.
Yes, NSFW art is their primary target at the moment. But the point of being a public company, in abstract, is generating shareholder value first and foremost unless you have some REALLY excellent leadership.
No, it's probably going to manifest as far worse than just a purge of people who would be undesirable to the random investor.
Because the way you make profits as a public software company, is with cost cutting, and squeezing your users for whatever you can get out of them.
If they IPO, and you rely on patreon for income, this is like if your chill company merged with GE or Amazon -- Your employer will change so much and decide you mean so little, that they'll squeeze you for more and more of everything you've got that's still legal to take.