BEYOND CROWDFUNDING
Patreon is changing how creative types make a living. Now it wants to help them build media empires.
by Harry McCracken
Oct 01, 2017
3 minutes
In the spring of 2013, musician Jack Conte was frustrated with the challenge of supporting himself as a creative person in the internet age. Conte, who performs both solo and—with his wife, Nataly Dawn—as part of an indie-rock duo called Pomplamoose, had sunk $10,000 of his own money into a wildly inventive sci-fi–themed music video, complete with a singing robotic head. It soon racked up a million YouTube views. But Conte’s share of revenue from the ads the site stuck on his work amounted to a pittance: about $150.
“It was so weird to see such a
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