Facebook Aims To Start A Patreon Competitor - But The Package Is Just Too Bad For Creators

Facebook has recently rolled out with the Patreon-like-service, known as Fan Subscription, as they are now sending its invitations to more page owners, who would be able to offer exclusive content to their followers with little subscription fees. But the terms of using this latest feature from Facebook are turning out to be a big let down for the creators.

Announced back in March 2018, Facebook initially kept the Fan Subscriptions service to only 10 creators across the US and UK. Once it got ready for a wide beta testing, content creators began to receive emails from Facebook with an invitation to try out the new feature.

By choosing a monthly subscription of $4.99, users would be able to see the most exclusive content from their favorite pages or personalities. Moreover, every subscriber would also get a Supporter badge appear next to their comments on the relevant pages.

But with this, Facebook has also taken a rather surprising turn to increase its revenue.

According to the latest developments in terms and conditions, the company will take a share of 30 per cent from the fees - much more than Patreon’s 5 percent, once the feature formally releases on the app stores of Apple and Google.

Facebook will also continue to offer discounts and free trial period to fans with creators bearing the effects of it at large.
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In one of the invitations, which was sent to The Hard Times founder Matt Saincome, Facebook clearly states a rather unfair term related to the protection of one’s content. The company wants to own a lifetime license to use the creator’s work, even if they quit from Fan Subscriptions after a while. If this is compared to subscription services like Patreon, on the other hand, then they obtain the license to use creators’ work only when they want to promote the platform, which also is an advantage for creators since they get the maximum credit directly.

Some experts are predicting that with this strategy, Facebook wants to tempt all the content creators to continue with the Fan Subscription service and they would eventually also raise the cut after every while. But this time, Facebook might fall flat as publishers and large page owners are already not happy with the recent changes in its algorithms that now restricts the content to friends and family majorly.

Going into the details of Fan Subscription’s response, Facebook’s spokesperson told that only a few thousand creators are testing their new service as of now and they already know about the 30 percent revenue share policy.

Although the exact release date has not been confirmed as of yet, but in the meanwhile Facebook might consider a change in the controversial terms after getting a proper feedback.


Photo: AP

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