Sam Harris closes his Patreon account following a slew of deplatformings

[jehurey 3,227]

1 hour ago, Hot Sauce said:

Yes. The crux of your argument is that it's a publicity stunt. I was just pointing out that the subscription offering isn't new.

 

 

Very odd that you acknowledge this since it.........

 

1 hour ago, Hot Sauce said:

Leaving Patreon is absolutely a sacrifice.

 

IMMEDIATELY undermines what you proceed to type in your next sentence.

 

Do I need to go over that point again?????? It seems you figured it out by inadvertently. Its NOT a sacrifice if he already has a method for getting subscriptions to podcasts.

 

1 hour ago, Hot Sauce said:

An average person would see a pretty significant cut in revenue by switching from Patreon to a self-hosted setup even if they kept every single patron because of transaction consolidation and hosting/maintaining/securing a site to host a payment processing API.

 

Harris already has the website, so it's largely a fixed cost on the hosting/maintaining/securing side and he's really only losing the transaction consolidation. Net is probably in the 4% range for each patron that converts for Harris. The question becomes, does a 4% gain offset the loss of using Patreon as a platform for advertising? Well, he's had the payment options on his site even before he used Patreon and he's still ended up with the 14th most patrons on Patreon. Expecting 96% of them to switch over is pretty absurd.

 

 

.................So................you somehow think Patreon performs these services for free for Sam Harris?

 

Patron and taxes and transaction fees take away 10%. I wasn't expecting to dismantle your attempt at math that easily, then again I wasn't expecting you to forget something that obvious.

 

Not to mention that he now has a much more detailed list of customer for having people sign up, he knows where they live, they can be marketed through newsletters, their information can now be shared with advertisers if Harris desires.  More importantly Harris would use the opportunity for direct-marketing with them. Possibly send them notices of upcoming speaking events in their area, refer other people/books/events (which he does for compensation), etc.

 

 

1 hour ago, Hot Sauce said:

Podcasting revenue isn't his only revenue stream and Patreon isn't even the only platform for that podcasting revenue stream. I would guess it's a pretty significant cut of it, though. He's estimated at $44k per podcast through Patreon and does 2-4 a month, or ~$1.5 million/year even after fees.

 

He hasn't written a book in a few years and I doubt they sold well enough to compare. His most successful book reportedly sold 250k copies. It has a list price of $16.95 so we'll just say every copy was sold at that price and give him well above industry standard royalty of 20% and you get $850,000. Bit over half of his annual Patreon take.

 

And a really busy one at that. I wouldn't know where to begin to ballpark what he makes yearly on public speaking gigs.

 

You act as if books somehow expire. You also seem to think that book deals are entirely dependent on a percentage of sales.  Where'd you get that idea?

 

He's got an entire section of his website devoted to selling his books, both physical, digital, and audiobook versions. That section is separate from the merchandise shop.

https://samharris.org/books/

And, lo and behold, he has a recommended reading section. Gee golly I wonder if he received some cut from posting those listings linked through his website.

https://samharris.org/recommended/

And lastly.......well, he has a good ole fashioned merch shop:

https://shop.samharris.org/

 

Seems like Sam Harris still thinks that he's a business of selling books. And now those incoming subscribers can view them on the website they sign up on. Continually receive newsletters on.

 

Oh and by the way, I'm fairly sure where you got your estimate of his highest-selling book being 250K copies...........that's from an article from 11 years ago.

 

1 hour ago, Hot Sauce said:

Cheeky.

 

I don't think his other revenue streams make the loss of Patreon insignificant and I don't see them increasing enough as a result of the "publicity stunt" to offset the $1.5 million he's giving up by shuttering his Patreon account. Suggesting that is pretty ridiculous and I just can't see you saying that if the circumstances were different and it was somebody you agree with more often.

Let's recap:

You completely botched the math and failed to account for Patreon's fees.

 

You forgot that Sam Harris sells products directly from his website (quite a bit)

 

You are using really old information to determine just how much Sam Harris receives from his book writing ventures.

 

And you combine ALL OF THAT to come to an incredibly flawed conclusion that he is receiving the majority of his money from podcasting revenue.

 

Sam Harris' speaking fee for one event was $25,000............................11 years ago. Well before he got internet famous post-2012.

 

You want us to continue breaking this down for you?  You genuinely think that this man suddenly came across a cash cow within the past 2-3 years? and he's bravely giving that up?

 

Like.....for real, is that you are saying?

Edited December 17, 2018 by jehurey

[TLHBO 2,160]

14 hours ago, Truno2018 said:

Right wing spelling has gone down the toilet.   

I type fast on my phone while multi-tasking....sue me.

 

But sure distract yourself with jokes about spelling mistakes, or whatever degenerate garbage in the media they throw at you. Stops people from having to see the crisis that's right in front of their face.

 

Edit: holy shit what is that wall of text above me. Jerry takes the award for longest post in SW history.

Edited December 18, 2018 by TLHBO

[Hot Sauce 2,727]

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

Very odd that you acknowledge this since it.........

 

IMMEDIATELY undermines what you proceed to type in your next sentence.

Acknowledging your argument and agreeing with your argument are two different things. You can believe it was a publicity stunt whether or not you thought the subscription option was new, you would just be working off of bad information if you thought it was new.

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

.................So................you somehow think Patreon performs these services for free for Sam Harris?

 

Patron and taxes and transaction fees take away 10%. I wasn't expecting to dismantle your attempt at math that easily, then again I wasn't expecting you to forget something that obvious.

It was already calculated in the net for each patron that switched to a subscription and I was being conservative, so here's the full explanation.

 

Patreon charges 5% and transaction fees are 2.9% + [$0.30 - $0.35] on and off Patreon. The average patron pledges twice a month. With transaction consolidation, multiple pledges by a user in a month only invoke a single transaction fee. At an average of 2 pledges per month, that cuts transaction fees in half even if the patron is making that second pledge elsewhere because the reduced cost is split between all backers the patron pledged.

 

Leaving Patreon eliminates the 5% Patreon cut, but also prevents you from benefiting from the transaction consolidation they offer. Using the average number of pledges it's a loss of 1.45% + [$0.15 - $0.175]. The net gain on just the percentages is 3.55% and much lower when considering the flat amounts. I didn't bother with the flat amounts and just rounded up the 3.55% to 4%, but the average pledge is $6.70 and puts a $0.30 flat fee at 4.5% of the revenue. Again, missing out on that hurts the net change from making the switch and the net change gets brought down to 1.3%.

 

Taxes wouldn't change anything because you'll pay taxes on and off Patreon.

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

Not to mention that he now has a much more detailed list of customer for having people sign up, he knows where they live, they can be marketed through newsletters, their information can now be shared with advertisers if Harris desires.  More importantly Harris would use the opportunity for direct-marketing with them. Possibly send them notices of upcoming speaking events in their area, refer other people/books/events (which he does for compensation), etc.

The subscription process on his website asks for the same information that Patreon gives to creators and you can do everything you mention here via Patreon.

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

You act as if books somehow expire. You also seem to think that book deals are entirely dependent on a percentage of sales.  Where'd you get that idea?

I'm not acting like books somehow expire, just that the revenue generated pales in comparison to his Patreon.  He'll receive royalties for those books for as long as they're selling, but book sales are pretty front loaded and Harris' have never been big enough sellers that royalties years down the line are into the seven figures. I'm sure the total of all the book royalties on an annual basis is nice, but in a five figure way rather than seven.

 

What do you think book deals are dependent on? Because the advance is taken out of royalties until it's paid off and I'm not sure why that advance would matter in 2018 for books written 3+ years ago.

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

He's got an entire section of his website devoted to selling his books, both physical, digital, and audiobook versions. That section is separate from the merchandise shop.

https://samharris.org/books/

Yeah, and? It's just his products at retail shops. I'm sure he pointed people towards them on Patreon.

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

And, lo and behold, he has a recommended reading section. Gee golly I wonder if he received some cut from posting those listings linked through his website.

https://samharris.org/recommended/

They're just affiliate links. Could do that with Patreon, too.

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

And lastly.......well, he has a good ole fashioned merch shop:

https://shop.samharris.org/

I'm sure you can guess my response to this.

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

Seems like Sam Harris still thinks that he's a business of selling books. And now those incoming subscribers can view them on the website they sign up on. Continually receive newsletters on.

Selling books, but not writing them anymore. Wonder why.

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

Oh and by the way, I'm fairly sure where you got your estimate of his highest-selling book being 250K copies...........that's from an article from 11 years ago.

I saw it in an article from 2017. If you have any other figures, though, post them.

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

Sam Harris' speaking fee for one event was $25,000............................11 years ago. Well before he got internet famous post-2012.

Do you have any figures for 2018 that we can work out? Number of speaking events?

 

3 hours ago, jehurey said:

You genuinely think that this man suddenly came across a cash cow within the past 2-3 years? and he's bravely giving that up?

Yes. I think anybody walking away from $1.5 million, regardless of how much of their total income that amount makes up and what percentage of subscribers may stick with the switch to a new platform, is doing more than virtue signalling.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Hot Sauce

[Cooke 2,026]

Jehurey posts look a lot like getagrip posts

[jehurey 3,227]

Just now, Hot Sauce said:

Acknowledging your argument and agreeing with your argument are two different things. You can believe it was a publicity stunt whether or not you thought the subscription option was new, you would just be working off of bad information if you thought it was new.

 

Which, one again.........has no bearing on what my statement is implying? Doesn't it?

 

I don't think attempting to reset the argument is going to change the basic facts that we've repeated about 3 times already.

 

1 minute ago, Hot Sauce said:

Patreon charges 5% and transaction fees are 2.9% + [$0.30 - $0.35] on and off Patreon. The average patron pledges twice a month. With transaction consolidation, multiple pledges by a user in a month only invoke a single transaction fee. At an average of 2 pledges per month, that cuts transaction fees in half even if the patron is making that second pledge elsewhere because the reduced cost is split between all backers the patron pledged.

 

Leaving Patreon eliminates the 5% Patreon cut, but also prevents you from benefiting from the transaction consolidation they offer. Using the average number of pledges it's a loss of 1.45% + [$0.15 - $0.175]. The net gain on just the percentages is 3.55% and much lower when considering the flat amounts. I didn't bother with the flat amounts and just rounded up the 3.55% to 4%, but the average pledge is $6.70 and puts a $0.30 flat fee at 4.5% of the revenue. Again, missing out on that hurts the net change from making the switch and the net change gets brought down to 1.3%.

 

and you are assuming that Sam Harris charges people two separate times a month during his website like they would on Patreon?

 

6 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

The subscription process on his website asks for the same information that Patreon gives to creators and you can do everything you mention here via Patreon.

 

 

Not necessarily:

 

Quote

 

Information Shared with Creators

If you are a patron, the following information is shared with the creators you support:

1. Your email address and other profile information.
2. Any messages you send them through Patreon.
3. Your physical address, city, state, country, and phone number, if you have signed up for a reward that requires shipping.
4. All information about your pledge, including amount and start date, but not your full payment card information.
5. Some aggregated and anonymized data about how you use Patreon that cannot be linked back to any individual user.

 

1.  

Which would not apply if all you are selling is a podcast. Profile information can be substantially different than a credit card, or it simply may not have information filled out.

11 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

I'm not acting like books somehow expire, just that the revenue generated pales in comparison to his Patreon.  He'll receive royalties for those books for as long as they're selling, but book sales are pretty front loaded and Harris' have never been big enough sellers that royalties years down the line are into the seven figures. I'm sure the total of all the book royalties on an annual basis is nice, but in a five figure way rather than seven.

 

What do you think book deals are dependent on? Because the advance is taken out of royalties until it's paid off and I'm not sure why that advance would matter in 2018 for books written 3+ years ago.

 

You have no data to back up that point.

 

It is only logical that all of his book sales have seen an upswing of sales as he has grown more popular. Which would compel him to marketing himself through publicity rather than simply banking on a podcast format that is based on a subscription format that will not last forever.

 

The podcast doesn't cultivate his fame. He has to do that on his own, and then direct people to his podcast and his website, and maintain that fame so that he can continue to get speaking engagements for big paydays.

 

By that metric, if he needed, IF he needed to........he'd offer his podcast for free, because its more important for him to maintain his relevance.

 

You honestly think this 60 year old person who comes from the (psuedo)-academic world is basing his future revenue on an unproven monetized-podcast format???????

 

Is your to that YES?

17 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

Yeah, and? It's just his products at retail shops. I'm sure he pointed people towards them on Patreon.

 

They're just affiliate links. Could do that with Patreon, too.

 

I'm sure you can guess my response to this.

 

 

Affiliate links makes him money. T-shirts and selling books directly eliminate resellers.

 

It clearly means that he has an incentive to direct people to his website. Or else why not just say that he an Amazon store?

 

19 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

Selling books, but not writing them anymore. Wonder why.

 

 

Because he is enjoying constant book sales, and he doesn't need to release another book until he sees sales of those existing products stagate.

 

This concept shouldn't be foreign to you if you on a forum where people complain about why Nintendo has period where they pace their products out far out, or even moves them over to another platform in order to sell them again.

 

A telling sign of that is that, for some of his earliest books, he didn't audiobook versions of them until 2014/2015. Clearly implies that there was an opportunity to sell old product to an incoming audience.

 

Y'know, the Vini's and Cooke's that were coming youtube videos of him around 2015.

 

23 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

I saw it in an article from 2017. If you have any other figures, though, post them.

 

 

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2007/06/07/how-well-are-the-atheist-books-selling/

 

 

Quote

 

How Well Are the Atheist Books Selling?

By Guest Contributor

June 7, 2007

 

 

 

 

Publishers Weekly has an article discussing how books about atheism are in vogue. There’s nothing you haven’t heard before in the article, but I did think it was interesting to see how all these books have been selling. The numbers aren’t exact (they’re lower than the actual amounts), but they give you a good estimate of the relative successes of the various books:

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins: 282,000 copies sold

The End of Faith by Sam Harris: 250,000 copies sold (says this article)

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris: 123,000 copies sold

God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens: 58,000 copies sold

Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett: 52,000 copies sold

God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger: 60,000 copies shipped

I Sold My Soul on eBay by Hemant Mehta: 99,213,912 copies sold. (Ok, I made that up… But maybe if you bought a couple million copies, I wouldn’t have to do that.)

 

The link in that Friendly Atheist website is to the Telegraph newspaper, and its (unsurprisingly) dead because its a link from 2007.

 

So you saying that, as far as you know, no book of his has not more than 250K........that estimate has to be grossly out of date.

28 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

Do you have any figures for 2018 that we can work out? Number of speaking events?

 

He has actual "concerts" on Live Natio

 

He's going to the Fillmore in Detroit. So let's do some math.

 

Seats 2,900, Tickets range anywhere from $35 to $260, so let's make the average about $70. (Live Nation will get their money with $10-$15 surcharges on TOP of that).

He's sharing the stage with another person, Eric Weinstein. But he has developed this "tour" and is clearly the lead here, so he will probably get the bulk of the revenue.

 

So we're talking about $200,000, the venue probably takes about 10-15% (probably less since they get concession fees), and its nothing more than a speaking engagement, so the cost for the "production" is laughably small. Whatever a table and two chairs and some pitchers of water costs.

 

Sam Harris walk away with $100,000 for one night's work (his partner probably walks away with $50-$60K). He has about two shows a month.

 

And that's not even SPEAKING engagements at colleges and universities, which he will get year round. And those estimate to be about $50,000 each.

 

39 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

Yes. I think anybody walking away from $1.5 million, regardless of how much of their total income that amount makes up, is doing more than virtue signalling.

 

I think I have sufficiently proven that podcast revenue is not his main source of revenue.

 

I have no doubt that he must be PLEASANTLY surprised that he has generated as much revenue as he has..........but he is not changing his business strategy.  The podcast serves to keep him relevant, for books and speaking engagements.

 

If he needed to maintain his relevance as a main priority........he would make his podcast free because accessibility to his audience is more important to maintain his other business ventures.

 

Notice how this all fits quite logically?

[jehurey 3,227]

40 minutes ago, Cookester15 said:

Jehurey posts look a lot like getagrip posts

No, they really don't.

 

Nice try, though.

[Cooke 2,026]

1 minute ago, jehurey said:

No, they really don't.

 

Nice try, though.

Yeah they really do

[jehurey 3,227]

3 minutes ago, Cookester15 said:

Yeah they really do

I use sentences, type statements that have beginnings and endings, like properly paced thoughts.

 

Let me know when you can prove otherwise, instead of pathetically finding the laziest path to trying to discredit someone.

[McWicked 825]

1 hour ago, TLHBO said:

Stops people from having to see the crisis that's right in front of their face.

You're right.  We've got to stop these freaks from quitting social media platforms of their own free will.

[Vini 430]

4 hours ago, McWickedSmawt85 said:

You're right.  We've got to stop these freaks from quitting social media platforms of their own free will.

Lmao this guy calling others freaks and then posting resetera level idiocy

 

 

[54212 432]

Uh-oh, Hot Sauce has been caught in the gravitational field of Jerry the Human Time Sink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[54212 432]

One thing that's interesting is that progs have given up on winning fairly in the arena of ideas and instead have resorted to deplatforming and defunding their opponents. They've abandoned civil libertarianism and the principles of Skokie.

 

Another thing that's interesting is if you define totalitarianism as the belief that all human activity is political, and you define authoritarianism as advocacy for a narrow Overton Window--which I think is a simple, clear way to define the two terms--then progressives have become totalitarian authoritarians.

 

With the Sargon issue: Sargon lies somewhere in the center of the current mainstream Overton Window. My understanding is that he called the white nationalists "n-ggers" because he was throwing their slurs back at them to try and jar them into an awareness of their own hypocrisy. Far-left tech writer Quinn Norton got fired by the NYTimes shortly after being hired for doing a similar thing with channers, but it stopped there. She wasn't deplatformed beyond that, and she wasn't defunded in any way. She's still on Patreon without issue. The double-standard is pretty clear. And the most telling thing is that he's a centrist and not far-right. That's how far progs have been able to move and narrow Silicon Valley's Overton Window. 

 

More to the point, when Sargon and Co. moved over to Patreon-alternative SubscribeStar, the progs revved up their Sleeping Giants censorship operation and got SubscribeStar deplatformed by PayPal and the major credit cards within a couple of days. Then when they're called on it, they holler, "But Milo's a neo-Nazi!" when he's clearly not. Milo's most controversial position is that he thinks transgenderism is a mental illness, which the DSM agreed with until 2013. So DSM-IV was a Nazi manual? Is that it, lads? 

 

The progs have become as authoritarian and censorious as the Evangelical right in the 90s. They stared into the abyss too long. I remember when they lobbied to bring back the Fairness Doctrine to break up the right's monopoly on talk radio. They believed in fighting fairly within the arena of ideas instead of with censorship. Too bad those days are gone.
 
It’s a pretty ugly and dumb moment in time.

[Cooke 2,026]

Patreon has lost 12.5% of their patrons so far because of this

 

Business Insider: Top Patreon creators, of the 'Intellectual Dark Web,' say they’re launching an alternate crowdfunding platform not 'susceptible to arbitrary censorship'.
https://www.businessinsider.com/jordan-peterson-says-hell-launch-patreon-alternative-before-christmas-2018-12

[54212 432]

^ They're still susceptible because they can deplatformed by the payment processing companies and credit card companies like SubscribeStar just was.

 

[Hot Sauce 2,727]

1 hour ago, Tulsi & Nikki 2020 said:

Uh-oh, Hot Sauce has been caught in the gravitational field of Jerry the Human Time Sink.

 

I bounced when he started talking about the podcast being monetized.

[54212 432]

7 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

 

I bounced when he started talking about the podcast being monetized.

 

I had to laugh because you're the best advocate the left has on here by far, you only mildly criticized one of his minor points, and his ego still made him start up his Clavin on Adderall routine. He can't help himself. 
 

[Vini 430]

4 hours ago, Tulsi & Nikki 2020 said:

One thing that's interesting is that progs have given up on winning fairly in the arena of ideas and instead have resorted to deplatforming and defunding their opponents. They've abandoned civil libertarianism and the principles of Skokie.

 

Another thing that's interesting is if you define totalitarianism as the belief that all human activity is political, and you define authoritarianism as advocacy for a narrow Overton Window--which I think is a simple, clear way to define the two terms--then progressives have become totalitarian authoritarians.

 

With the Sargon issue: Sargon lies somewhere in the center of the current mainstream Overton Window. My understanding is that he called the white nationalists "n-ggers" because he was throwing their slurs back at them to try and jar them into an awareness of their own hypocrisy. Far-left tech writer Quinn Norton got fired by the NYTimes shortly after being hired for doing a similar thing with channers, but it stopped there. She wasn't deplatformed beyond that, and she wasn't defunded in any way. She's still on Patreon without issue. The double-standard is pretty clear. And the most telling thing is that he's a centrist and not far-right. That's how far progs have been able to move and narrow Silicon Valley's Overton Window. 

 

More to the point, when Sargon and Co. moved over to Patreon-alternative SubscribeStar, the progs revved up their Sleeping Giants censorship operation and got SubscribeStar deplatformed by PayPal and the major credit cards within a couple of days. Then when they're called on it, they holler, "But Milo's a neo-Nazi!" when he's clearly not. Milo's most controversial position is that he thinks transgenderism is a mental illness, which the DSM agreed with until 2013. So DSM-IV was a Nazi manual? Is that it, lads? 

 

The progs have become as authoritarian and censorious as the Evangelical right in the 90s. They stared into the abyss too long. I remember when they lobbied to bring back the Fairness Doctrine to break up the right's monopoly on talk radio. They believed in fighting fairly within the arena of ideas instead of with censorship. Too bad those days are gone.
 
It’s a pretty ugly and dumb moment in time.

100%

 

I like to use Maajid Nawaz term regressive left when describing these people I think the word progressive is still valuable and there are still non totalitarian progressive liberals out there. In fact they're probably the silent majority. 

 

[jehurey 3,227]

3 hours ago, Hot Sauce said:

 

I bounced when he started talking about the podcast being monetized.

Nah, you bounced when I debunked your theory of where his main source of revenue comes from.

 

Its not my fault that you thought you were trying to look clever attempting to debunk what you thought was low-hanging fruit.

 

Which seems to be your M.O. here most of the time.

Edited December 18, 2018 by jehurey

[jehurey 3,227]

lol i love how these guys have now trying to say that they've "won" the battle of ideas because they're being "de-platformed" lol

 

It is pretty funny when you have liberals have to explain to other people how free-market capitalism and privately owned networks work.

 

of course.......liberals don't really need to explain that, these people already know these principles, they're just trying to play dumb and pretend to be victims.

 

Its their preferred state.

[Cooke 2,026]

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