Patreon Chess

A few days ago I wrote a post titled The Week in Podcasts, subtitled 'Interview with Mark Crowther'. Although the focus of that particular post was chess960, another topic also caught my interest. At about 21:00 into the interview, Crowther talked about remuneration for his work. He said,

Charging for TWIC is a non-starter, so I have to find some other way of financing my own time to do it. It's more than justified in terms of its utility.

Having prepared for the topic, the interviewer, Ben Johnson, launched a dialog:-

Q: Here's a question from Greg Shahade, a name that may sound familiar. He says, 'Why doesn't Mark have a Patreon page? He would make huge money.' • A: I'm sorry? • Q: Do you know what Patreon is? • A: No clue at all. That's probably the answer to his question. • Q: I'll tell you, because Perpetual Chess has a Patreon page. Basically it's a way for people to support independent art.

I had never hear of it either, so I located its home page, Patreon.com ('Best way for artists and creators to get sustainable income and connect with fans'), and its Wikipedia entry, Patreon:-

Patreon is a membership platform that provides business tools for creators to run a subscription content service, as well as ways for artists to build relationships and provide exclusive experiences to their subscribers, or "patrons." It is popular among YouTube videographers, webcomic artists, writers, podcasters, musicians, and other categories of creators who post regularly online. It allows artists to receive funding directly from their fans, or patrons, on a recurring basis or per work of art.

I found the interviewer's Patreon page at...

• Ben Johnson is creating Perpetual Chess Podcast

...and then found a number of pages for creators of Youtube chess videos, whose work I have admired many times:-

• Daniel King is creating Chess videos
• ChessNetwork is creating fun and educational chess content
• Coffee Chess is creating Entertaining Games That Will Inspire The World to Play Chess!

I'm sure there are many more like these. I frequently use TWIC for research on chess history and would certainly contribute to a TWIC Patreon page. As usual with anything involving money, some caution is required. How much of a donation eventually reaches the content creator? That's a question that I'll leave for another day.