By the way, that's true for the number of patrons too, as modeled for 217K+ #Patreon projects, whether they report earnings or not: yet another log-normal distribution. (If you're curious, earnings correlates 0.84 with number of patrons.) #LifeInPatreonia 15/

I mean, maybe it looks sort of like a power-law distribution when you fit models for the earnings of the top #Patreon projects (over $1,000/month), but log-normal is still the better fit even there. #LifeInPatreonia 14/

Nerd time: Everyone talks about "creator economy" platforms as having power-law dynamics. Not so for #Patreon at least: project earnings are best modeled as following a log-normal distribution, like pretty much half the universe. #LifeInPatreonia 13/

For #Patreon projects, median earnings per patron is $4.50/month, $54/year. $100/year (or $200/year, etc.) patrons do exist, but the big problem is getting 1,000 (or 500, etc.) of them, enough to make big money. #LifeInPatreonia 12/

But didn't Kevin Kelly say creators just need to find 1,000 true fans (x $100/year/fan)? Chances of that on #Patreon are near zero: a miniscule fraction of 1% of projects meet that criterion, a slightly less miniscule fraction (above green line) get $100K/year any which way. 11/

These four subsets, each 10x the last, have comparable overall earnings, and are presumably roughly equally profitable for #Patreon assuming near-zero marginal costs for each new project. So hype up the top few creators to attract 10s of 1000s of casual ones. #LifeInPatreonia 10/

Finally, the next 100,000 #Patreon projects: median earnings $28/month, $340/year. For projects in the rest of Patreonia, #LifeInPatreonia is a "hobby business" for creators, unless they happen to live in a really poor country. 9/

Patreonville houses the next 10,000 #Patreon projects by earnings. At median earnings of $660/month, under $8K/year, a creator would be under the US poverty line without a day job or support from partner/family. But outside the US #LifeInPatreonia might be livable some places 8/