It's a great idea, and I'm glad you're giving it some potential "air time" here!
I'm glad you're exploring this from the perspective of someone who has been part of the community for a long time.
As I recall, there was an initiative some years ago to have some kind of crowdfunding/artist support system here but it never went very far because the execution of the idea was too complicated and awkward.
Hive is amazing, but it's biggest challenge is — and always has been — a level of complexity and a learning curve that makes it difficult to persuade Web 2.0 users to give us a shot.
Way back when, I advocated "light" Hive accounts that would allow people to pretty much get a "log in with Google" account — with the account creator holding on to the keys and the Light account only having posting keys — that they could test drive and get to know Hive with. When/if they like it, they could "Upgrade" to a full account and get full access to their keys... and if NOT, and the account goes dormant... any HivePower in the account is powered down and burned, and keys shredded.
As a Patreon replacement?
That's a tough nut to crack. One of the problems being that your current setup has a sort of "first mover advantage," meaning that you will lose a good number of people... unless you're prepared to run BOTH in tandem for 2-3 years, maybe more. Maybe if you put enough Hive "teasers" in your Patreon content, people will gradually drift over.
My thought (and I have a Patreon account, for my art) is that it would be something that requires a lot of attention to carefully mapping strategies and then having a lot of patience because it might be three years down the road before Hive equals your current Patreon.
But definitely worth a try!
We think you're right about this. It's one of the things that has prevented us from changing or trying to migrate to different systems in the past. We have approximately 200 patrons and we are certain that if we migrate everything full stop, we will lose a lot of people. It's more likely that we could create some different kind of use case for our new project and run them in tandem. What is special about Patreon is the exclusivity of being a part of the inner circle. That isn't really the point of HIVE in many ways.
You're also absolutely right that the learning curve on HIVE is very steep. I would say that today it is the most user friendly it has ever been, but it's still far more complicated than any Web2.0 platform. People are extremely lazy and their attention spans are short these days. We will have to make very strong arguments and incentives for people to take actions. The brain is churning...
Maybe part of the approach here could be to offer Hive as a sort of benefit to your existing patrons... instead of phrasing it as "a move" phrase it as a new "benefit" that offers patrons an opportunity to earn crypto as part of supporting you on Hive.
I see you have five different tiers on Patreon, so depending on which tier, someone coming over to Hive might get a Hive account loaded with anywhere (just shooting numbers randomly, here) from 50 to 1000 HP delegation for as long as they stay active.
You'd likely need a "How to Follow and Help us on Hive!" guidebook post either pinned or regularly recycled on your Patreon post feed... and it has to carve everything out in cardboard, almost like a Wiki of sorts.
I say that, not really having researched Patreon's policy on talking about off-Patreon venues...
I'm just brainstorming with you here, as someone who has noodled the same questions, both for my art, as well as for my wife's nonprofit.
This is an excellent idea. I think that this could be something that we could even use on our other social media channels and try to expand out even further. There are likely many Fans of ours who would like to support on Patreon, but the thought of monthly payment and investment has caused resistance.
What we're thinking is we will separate the content slightly so that the Patrons continue to get exclusive, "regular" behind the scenes content during the creation process of our new Story Album and Show. The remainder of the information related to the Story Album would be built here on Hive.
We could offer perks to people on Patreon - I LOVE the HP Delegation based on Tiers (we could also use a % of the funds we are receiving from Patreon to DCA into HP each month which would then be delegated back to new members). One could argue that becoming a member of the Patreon community could be seen as an investment if they were to then become active Community members on HIVE and earn rewards...
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