[acolytic]

Disclaimer: I'm working on a platform that allows you to contribute to open source as a whole and which distributes your money proportionally to how much you care about various projects. I'm thinking of taking 30% as well.

I think people are just getting hung up on the number without thinking deeper on what it costs to make things sustainable.

5% of the 500 million Patreon claims to be able to process is 25 million. According to their team picture on their website (https://www.patreon.com/about), they have 74 employees. That amounts to $330000/employee. Halving that to account for benefits (chair, table, wifi, insurance, etc) leads to $165000/employee for salary which seems reasonable average for a senior employee in the Bay Area. Notice this doesn't account for infrastructure, taxes, outside counsel/contractors, etc. It's crazy that after working for 6 years and creating half a billion of value, a company can barely afford to keep the lights on, let alone make a profit. I agree 30% just makes sense for a platform - you need enough to hire properly, pay all expenses and make enough of a profit for this to make sense. The alternative is half a billion of value disappears to save on a few million which I think is incredibly myopic.

[zzzcpan]

Common, as a VC-backed company Patreon doesn't even pursue a sustainable business model. Most of those 74 employees are for anything, but sustainability. When they first started they had like a few people and pretty much the same service as they do today.

[falcolas]

$165,000 for a chair, a table, wifi, and insurance... is a really outlandish assumption about per-employee costs.

An high quality chair is, say, $500 amortized over 5 years. A table, $100 amortized over 5 years. Open office space (at 65 square feet per employee and $100 per square foot per year) is about $6,500. Insurance is about $7,000 a year per employee - total.

So, under 10% of that extra per-employeee revenue is what the actual costs for those "bonuses".

[gamblor956]

If you're charging 30% then donors and the projects they support are better off leaving you out of it and just interacting directly with each other as you don't appear to be providing any significant value to either side.