Just when you thought Facebook couldn't get any sillier.
Facebook reached out to offer Hard Drive early access to a "fan subscription" product. I asked my editors about it and the complete distrust amongst our team was kinda funny. We read through the terms and found a couple things that were hilarious when compared to Patreon's 5%.
— Matt Saincome (@MattSaincome) February 26, 2019
TechCrunch's Josh Constine reports that Facebook is launching a fan subscription service á la Patreon, but unlike Patreon's 5% cut of the tip jar, Facebook plans to take away 30%.
Because of course.
The policy document attained by TechCrunch shows Facebook plans to take up to a 30 percent cut of subscription revenue minus fees, compared to 5 percent by Patreon, 30 percent by YouTube which covers fees, and 50 percent by Twitch.
Facebook also reserves the right to offer free trials to subscriptions that won't compensate creators. And Facebook demands a "non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use" creators' content and "This license survives even if you stop using Fan Subscriptions."
Distrust of Facebook could scare creators away from the platform when combined with its significant revenue share and ability to give away or repurpose creators' content. Facebook has consistently shown that it puts what it thinks users want and its own interests above those of partners. It cut off game developers from viral channels, inadequately warned Page owners their reach with drop over time, decimated referral traffic to news publishers, and most recently banished video makers from the feed. If Facebook wants to win creators' trust and the engagement of their biggest fans, it may need a more competitive offering with larger limits on its power.
More at TechCrunch. Below here is more of Matt Saincome's original Twitter thread on the subject, on which the TechCrunch piece was partly based.
"Facebook may in the future change these Terms such that Facebook keeps a revenue share of up to 30%. We will give 30 days' notice of any such change."
— Matt Saincome (@MattSaincome) February 26, 2019
"Facebook reserves the right to offer discounted and free trials for fans from time to time in our discretion, whether to incentivize Subscription sign-ups or otherwise. Where we do so in relation to your Fan Subscriptions, your revenue share will be reduced accordingly"
— Matt Saincome (@MattSaincome) February 26, 2019
"If you are providing (or allowing us to access) any data, content, or other information in connection with your use of Fan Subscriptions (collectively, "Supplemental Data"), then you grant us …
— Matt Saincome (@MattSaincome) February 26, 2019
(and our affiliates) a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use such Supplemental Data. This license survives even if you stop using Fan Subscriptions."
— Matt Saincome (@MattSaincome) February 26, 2019
So you can give away our content for free to boost your numbers, change the rev share to 70/30, and use all the content we provide to subscribers however you want? And this is after we built an audience on your platform that you now drastically limit? https://t.co/cASSxiBQAP
— Matt Saincome (@MattSaincome) February 26, 2019