Ending a channel hiatus, and diversifying off Patreon (Patreon)

Hallo, Hallo, all of my bright, shining Patrons! If I did not wish you a happy new year when it was the appropriate time, I wish you that now. 

It has been a very busy new year for me personally, but not for the channel, as you may have noticed. I managed to get all of one video out for 2019 as you are reading this, and seeing as it was a video regarding Fallout 76, it was remarkably, and characteristically, very late to the party.

To a certain degree, I feel like apologizing, but this break, or hiatus, or two months of doing nothing on Youtube or social media whatsoever, was probably a necessary one. My opinion of social media, particularly sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc, that seem to be less than forthright or ethical about user data, has declined somewhat, and it was high time for a break to think and evaluate my relationship to these sites. With my video on Fallout 76, I am intending to return to making content on Youtube, but my social media presence may be slower to return, if at all. The behavior of multiple social media sites has been more alarming than I had previously given them credit for, and I'm not sure how much benefit I actually get from using them. I've stayed active on places like Discord and Steam because they provide a direct link to the people who I want to talk with, and who want to talk to me, but for the others, not so much. I am aware of the benefits of communicating on Twitter, people can reach out to you in a very open and direct way, and I'm not considering breaking off use of sites like Twitter, just maybe limiting how much I'm on them. They just seem to be outrage machines, the cycle continuing over and over, like a modern public stockade, even witch-burning at times, and I'm not sure how healthy it is to remain a part of that loop.

In any case, I should be back to making content on Youtube, since it's something that I enjoy, and since you're here on Patreon, you probably do as well. Patreon itself has had some disturbing news lately, with a month of creators not getting paid, of introduction of new features that let you "pay out" ahead of time. To, of course, accommodate this shortfall on Patreon's end, for a doubling of the normal fee, of course, and in no way in a similar fashion to the forwarding of a paycheck or a loan service, of course. Several members of the site's higher-ups have also made disturbing references to "not, at this time, offering contracts to allow creators to keep their IPs", which sounds disturbingly like something someone would say if they were thinking about, maybe, trying to lay claim on the intellectual property of their users. Not that they would ever do that, of course, just like they said they would never ban people from their site for something they said on a totally different site. These all seem like the characteristic signs of, at best, an internal implosion and at worst, something that may effect everyone who uses the site. It has been high time for me to diversify my income streams while doing Youtube, and Patreon was the first step, several years ago, in doing this. I was far lazier than I should have been, I should have gone further, but I'm going to try and make up for that now. I currently have an account on Subscribestar, which appears to be a very popular alternative to Patreon, which you can check out now. It's by far not finished yet, but I'll be putting the pieces together slowly as I can. I will also be exploring setting up a Bitchute channel, and perhaps a Paypal.me for direct payments. I know that I've been late on these alternatives, but better slow than not at all, as it seems this channel's motto appears to be. 

The only issue that I have with Subscribestar at the moment is that it does not offer a by-the-work payment system, only a monthly system. As I've just mentioned, I'm not the fastest content producer, which is why I set up my Patreon the way I did: to pay me only when I finished work. Subscribestar's current setup is imperfect, I don't feel quite right about charging people per month, especially when the amount of work I get done per month varies greatly: I remember months when I got 6 videos out in a month, and for the last two months, none at all. If only for that reason alone, I will not be shutting down my Patreon when I get my Subscribestar all shiny. I am also aware that Patreon, for all it's flaws, does have a convenience factor for some of you, particularly some of you who I'm not in contact with on a frequent basis, and may not be entirely comfortable signing up to a new service. If, and I stress, IF, Patreon decides to go full AnCap and attempt to claim creator's IPs, I'll be gone. If Patreon decides to delve deeper into a well of treating itself like an employer, and not a convenience service, I'll be gone. Until then, I'll keep the lights on for my Patreon channel for those who don't want to switch over.

I know that I'm probably one of the slowest creators on the platform currently, hell, Jontron got three videos out in the space of time that I got one. I hope that those of you who have stuck around realize that, and have come to accept me for that. I want to continue to create stuff and get support from this community, so I am taking steps to ensure long-term suitability and sustainability while I do that. That's basically the tl:dr of this post. I hope you're all having a wonderful new year, and I hope to see you all again very soon.

https://www.subscribestar.com/jamesblack47