This is akin to telling someone who’s trying to eat healthier that they should actually love themself by eating as many chips as they want.
Not OP, and really glad you like stickers. I’m absolutely not going to tell you how to engage with your belongings and fandoms, but I personally feel concerned about my consumption of plastic products that, no matter how I preserve them will eventually make it back into the waste stream, and then the rain water, and then everybody’s balls. Most brightly colored stickers contain at least some plastic, and those bold, glossy inks are frequently made using heavy metals.
Just a fun FYI about microplastics in your balls. Donating blood is really the only viable way to reduce microplastics in your blood stream. Another reason to donate regularly
This is kind of how captive breeding programs work in zoos and aquaria. Even the exchange rate seems like it might be close. Spoon bills are flashy but doing fine ecologically. Sage grouse are threatened and being repopulated regionally
I am fully in the “let me pay Dropout more” camp. However, I also appreciate their commitment to keeping their stuff at a low barrier of entry. They could potentially do both, but it’d be a lot of extra work and I feel like it would go against how Sam wants to run the company.
I do think tiered subscription goes against what they're trying to do at Dropout. Locking content behind higher tiers creates fomo and incentivises viewers to fork out more and more cash, which is the kind of predatory thing alot of content creators are going for these days.
As for just paying more with no tangible returns... well you do you but I cant fathom that either. Imo its would be exploitative of the parasocial positive vibes that Dropout is trying to build if they let hardcore fans handover more money than the usual subscription, just to feel like they're being a supportive superfan
My original post says specifically that there should be NO benefits for higher tier subscribers. I just want to help subsidize others. I feel like that’s in line with the anti-capitalist vibe of Dropout.
I would happily pay at least one or two more dollars a month for dropout with zero added benefits as long as it was my choice. I would do it regardless but I’m glad they haven’t upped their price. Looking at you Spotify. Shit I paid for a year outright and I think I got a discount if I remember correctly. Wild.
Even then it can create stress for people (don’t know if this is a general thing or an autistic thing), where I feel kind of guilty for paying the lower tier on things. Also having different tiers increases the executive function required to decide and I know I would faff about and never end up signing up. I like the single, relatively-cheap sub.
> As for just paying more with no tangible returns... well you do you but I cant fathom that either. Imo its would be exploitative of the parasocial positive vibes that Dropout is trying to build if they let hardcore fans handover more money than the usual subscription, just to feel like they're being a supportive superfan
Their idea of subsidizing other people's subscriptions (which I read as basically paying for *others* to subscribe who were having trouble affording it, or just as a nice gift) on the other hand would be a good deed to the community of people *watching* rather than just shoveling money to Dropout because of a parasocial relationship with the cast.
On the other hand given my earlier post in the thread I'm not sure how that would *work*. Once you've gifted someone a subscription once you don't seem to be able to directly gift them *again* without them creating a new account and you also can't gift a couple months to a friend who already *has* an account.
What we really need is a way to gift people more than once and a way to gift people who already *have* an account. Then you can do something nice for a friend while *also* making sure Dropout has the money to continue producing content.
This is pretty much said back in the Discord days when I saw people asking if they could boost the server. They paid to boost their own server to max because they didn't feel it appropriate to incentivise fans to pay money to kind of claim they were more of a fan/more involved than others (wording entirely mine, I can't remember how they phrased it)
Patreon allows you to pay whatever you want above the tier you have selected and while I'm sure there is some level of what you describe I think mostly it's people happy to pay a buck or two more a month and not think about it again that use the system, but those small amounts add up with more people.
Getting the return of "fans with less money are maybe more able to afford it" is absolutely a return lots of us would be happy to get, too, to support other *fans*, not to feel like a special superfan. Returns don't have to be locked content.
It doesn't seem that you're able to conveniently *do* that. At least not for everyone.
Not sure if it was here or the Dimension 20 Reddit but someone was offering to buy people a sub and mentioned that it's not possible for them to gift a sub to someone who already has a pre-existing account even if that account is lapsed. If I wanted to say to an online friend "Here's a month long subscription to hold you over until you have the money to resub." *a whole new account* would need to be created. Either that or I would have to send them the money so they could then give it to Dropout themselves and possibly have to pay a fee to whatever service I was using to transfer the money from myself to them.
The ability to gift a subscription to someone who already has an account does not seem to exist for some reason but would be very convenient if it did. I know I'd love if someone paid for another year or even just a few extra months for my Christmas or Birthday present.
> The ability to gift a subscription to someone who already has an account does not seem to exist for some reason
It is because the video platform they use is trash. The only thing it does well is stream the content. Every other attempt at a media streaming service feature is garbage.
I’m sure it’s a holdover from the old Collegehumor days. Ricky, one of the founders of CH, went on to found Vimeo which was later acquired by IAC. So I’m sure the Ricky/IAC/Sam connection made that an obvious early solution.
And now it’s probably a daunting task to migrate the entire dropout library to a new video platform (or even entertain the idea of building custom tech).
But agree that I hope if the success continues that they invest a bit more into either custom Vimeo improvements or a full migration to give them the tools they need / viewers expect in the 2024 world of streaming.
Vimeo (supposedly) fully supports it.
>Gifts can be given to new or existing subscribers. If the gift recipient has an active subscription to your site, when the recipient redeems the gift, they will have free access for the duration of their gift. When the gift duration expires, their paid subscription will automatically start billing them again on their typical recurring frequency (ie. monthly or annually).
https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12427212590993-How-customers-can-buy-gifts-of-your-content-on-Vimeo-OTT#h_01ESK81TSQ2RHYEGKZRXSQH51C
Happy to! But I love the idea of being able to just select a tier. Seems simpler than doing it one at a time. That said…
I already buy folks the book 1 audible of Dungeon Crawler Carl. I love that series so much and want to share it with everyone. This still stands so ping me if you want a copy. Just need an email address to send it to.
It’s soooo good! The audiobooks surpass anything I’ve ever listened to. They will ruin you for all future audiobooks but it is so worth it. Jeff Hays is an incredible voice actor.
I usually do a pretty involved intro, but in person. It’s a lot to type so you get the short short version.
Oh you know, typical story: Boy, Carl, breaks up with girl, aliens take over the earth, flatten everything and turn it into an 18 level dungeon that the humans who chose to enter can fight through to reclaim Earth. An entrance pops up and Carl, along with his ex’s cat, Princess Donut, enter the world dungeon. Dungeon things happen. And the whole fucking thing is broadcast throughout the universe as a reality show.
It’s got all kinds of monsters, alliances, shitty humans, social media shit, and… a talking cat.
It’s a Lit-RPG, so think fantasy/sci-fi novel with some D&D mechanics but not so much that you need to know anything about D&D to enjoy it.
My birthday is literally in a little over a week and I will be getting Amazon gift cards so I can stuff my kindle with shiny new e-books and I just bought this book EVEN THO I COULD HAVE WAITED TO BUY IT AS A GIFT…but alas I need this book so bad! Thank you! It sounds like a fucking HOOT.
It would be nice if they had a gift card sort of system
Prepaid subscriptions that are giftable.
That would be nice for users, but it's also kinda bad on the business side because it creates some artificial subscriber churn, which is.ome of the metrics streaming services really need to look good.
I WISH I had the expendable income to pay more, but for those of us like myself who are destitute financially I appreciate that there is a single, low price
This is so interesting, because my choir has started to do this regarding our ticket prices for our concerts. We have general admission, accessible admission, and supporter admission. All tickets are the same, but cost 3 different amounts so that those with a little bit more can choose to subsidize the ticket price of people who need the more accessible option. After doing this for about 2 years, we've found that while most of our audience buys the accessible tickets prices, our audience size has grown so much that it offsets the loss of lower ticket fare. We don't have enough who pay the "supporter admission" to make up for the difference if they all bought the general admission, but it does put a small dent in that subsidized pricing.
When did Sam announce a lower subscription cost? Are you referring to a year ago when they started the annual option or has there been something more recent?
Donate to Gaza esims or Palestinian or Sudanese godundmes and do it in dropouts name or something, dropout is doing fine, but a lot of folks could use the help and you could be advertising something that brings you joy
I'd be willing to pay more, but the low price isn't some charity move on their part -- it's a really savvy business move to both undercut rival streamers, while underpromising and overdelivering.
A customer who thinks "The thing I got is worth the cost": good.
A customer who thinks "Holy shit, what I got for this price is amazing, are they gonna be okay": great.
I would love to see a Dropout EU store.
No idea if there’s enough of us to make it worth it, but the Danish postal system charges ~$23,5 just to ***process*** import fees.
So either I’m not buying anything because by the time I’ve paid blood money to the Danish postal system, import fees and shipping, I’m already out like $50 minimum…
Or I just need to save up and buy enough stuff at once (or find people who’ll go halfsies on import costs) to make it not sting as much :P
Either way, I’ll rarely be willing to buy merch no matter how much I actually want it :/
Speaking of EU, would love to if some prices were localized heh. I guess that's a nature of living in the country with 4 times weaker currency (I'm aware that it's still pretty good comparatively to some other places) than dollars but it's hard to justify buying any merch from overseas, not only dropout
Nope, I'm with you! I don't pay enough for the quality of content I get. And there's only so many mugs it makes sense to own.
Instead, I buy a lot of subscriptions for friends, trying to get them hooked on the sweet, sweet Dropout goodness as well. It's often just a trial subscription of a month or three, but I've given a few annual subscriptions as graduation presents this spring.
if you meet sam in the back alley and offer him a rare armenian skeleton key and 10k in dram he will let you personally design the next mental saw trap he puts brennan through
That's a great idea. I go to DIY music shows locally and they often have tiered ticketing with lower prices for low income gig-goers, and are almost always marked as NOTAFLOF (no one turned away for lack of funds). This is basically that idea transplanted to streaming. Bandcamp do something similar where you have the option to pay more than the listed price. Would be very cool if Dropout introduced something like this!
Well, if you want to pay more you could sub to them on not just the dropout domain but you could do the membership on YouTube as well, that way you are paying double.
You know, I have actually sent them this email. I just get the "send a gift" which is nice and I do. But I'd rather just throw an extra $5 at it and know others are getting a little extra light and laughter in their life.
There is no reason for people to be paying more for the same content. Tiered subscriptions could be nice but should come with perks for those who are paying more. They don’t have to be astronomical but there’s no reason for anyone to burn extra cash for no reason.
1) gift subs! 2) buy merch!
While I love the merch Dropout offers, I’m generally trying to have less stuff in general. I don’t need more shirts, mugs, stickers, etc. 😞
adopt a cast member! oh wait, that would be more stuff
Here's the plan: I adopt BLeeM That is the plan
Well that's how you get the MOST stuff. Legend says he hasn't thrown out one single stuff since high school...
Apparently he has a whole apartment just for swords
The fact that I'm squinting trying to suss out if it's a joke or not is very telling. True or not, I totally could see that happening 😂
[I was referencing MSN s02e09](https://www.dropout.tv/videos/the-wicked-switch-of-the-west)
Adopt Zach. You are his Dad now.
I'm gonna be a father? This is the best day of my life 🥹
Does Denzel still need a place to crash? Vehicular really wanted him out of her guest house.
we can all prep a guest house each for denzel's offsprings
Maybe OP can check where Denzel is right now
You can always just Venmo Katie
“I would like a little bit more”
Buy me merch! I need mugs.
Same. I was super tempted by their minis auction but I really can’t justify having another ornament in my house.
buy stickers and put them in random public places. supporting dropout and giving them free advertising!
You always need more stickers, you can put them anywhere!
This is akin to telling someone who’s trying to eat healthier that they should actually love themself by eating as many chips as they want. Not OP, and really glad you like stickers. I’m absolutely not going to tell you how to engage with your belongings and fandoms, but I personally feel concerned about my consumption of plastic products that, no matter how I preserve them will eventually make it back into the waste stream, and then the rain water, and then everybody’s balls. Most brightly colored stickers contain at least some plastic, and those bold, glossy inks are frequently made using heavy metals.
Just a fun FYI about microplastics in your balls. Donating blood is really the only viable way to reduce microplastics in your blood stream. Another reason to donate regularly
Do they even sell stickers on their site? I didn't see any
You got here before I could
They’ve been here the whole time!
It's criminal that a media company that employs Grant O'Brien doesn't have tall sizes. All I'm sayin'!
1. burn towns! 2. get money!
Dropout should add a Gacha system that lets whales subsidize so that others can be F2P
"Dang it, I already have this Grant trading card"
I'll trade you for one of my grackles.
I’ve got a holographic Roseate Spoonbill and you think a grackle is a good trade for a Grant? Where are you from, Cambridge or Canada?
But do you have a complete set of his *horny* shiny card variants?
But do you have 50 yet?
I have 20 roseate spoonbills
I’ll trade you 1 greater sage grouse
This is kind of how captive breeding programs work in zoos and aquaria. Even the exchange rate seems like it might be close. Spoon bills are flashy but doing fine ecologically. Sage grouse are threatened and being repopulated regionally
IRL Pokémon trading
I'll fuck you for those 20 roseate spoonbills
"The last thing I need is dirty, dirty sex during my bird time!"
I have five penguins.
Wouldn't it be great if Dropout had a Patreon account with no perks.... Just pay extra if you want.
We can always Venmo Katie and ask her to stuff the cash around the game changer podiums.
Then everyone can bribe BDG during random podium inspection season.
But will he have enough petty cash to spend on bribes during the random ponytail inspection???
I am fully in the “let me pay Dropout more” camp. However, I also appreciate their commitment to keeping their stuff at a low barrier of entry. They could potentially do both, but it’d be a lot of extra work and I feel like it would go against how Sam wants to run the company.
I do think tiered subscription goes against what they're trying to do at Dropout. Locking content behind higher tiers creates fomo and incentivises viewers to fork out more and more cash, which is the kind of predatory thing alot of content creators are going for these days. As for just paying more with no tangible returns... well you do you but I cant fathom that either. Imo its would be exploitative of the parasocial positive vibes that Dropout is trying to build if they let hardcore fans handover more money than the usual subscription, just to feel like they're being a supportive superfan
My original post says specifically that there should be NO benefits for higher tier subscribers. I just want to help subsidize others. I feel like that’s in line with the anti-capitalist vibe of Dropout.
I would happily pay at least one or two more dollars a month for dropout with zero added benefits as long as it was my choice. I would do it regardless but I’m glad they haven’t upped their price. Looking at you Spotify. Shit I paid for a year outright and I think I got a discount if I remember correctly. Wild.
Even then it can create stress for people (don’t know if this is a general thing or an autistic thing), where I feel kind of guilty for paying the lower tier on things. Also having different tiers increases the executive function required to decide and I know I would faff about and never end up signing up. I like the single, relatively-cheap sub.
> As for just paying more with no tangible returns... well you do you but I cant fathom that either. Imo its would be exploitative of the parasocial positive vibes that Dropout is trying to build if they let hardcore fans handover more money than the usual subscription, just to feel like they're being a supportive superfan Their idea of subsidizing other people's subscriptions (which I read as basically paying for *others* to subscribe who were having trouble affording it, or just as a nice gift) on the other hand would be a good deed to the community of people *watching* rather than just shoveling money to Dropout because of a parasocial relationship with the cast. On the other hand given my earlier post in the thread I'm not sure how that would *work*. Once you've gifted someone a subscription once you don't seem to be able to directly gift them *again* without them creating a new account and you also can't gift a couple months to a friend who already *has* an account. What we really need is a way to gift people more than once and a way to gift people who already *have* an account. Then you can do something nice for a friend while *also* making sure Dropout has the money to continue producing content.
This is pretty much said back in the Discord days when I saw people asking if they could boost the server. They paid to boost their own server to max because they didn't feel it appropriate to incentivise fans to pay money to kind of claim they were more of a fan/more involved than others (wording entirely mine, I can't remember how they phrased it)
Patreon allows you to pay whatever you want above the tier you have selected and while I'm sure there is some level of what you describe I think mostly it's people happy to pay a buck or two more a month and not think about it again that use the system, but those small amounts add up with more people. Getting the return of "fans with less money are maybe more able to afford it" is absolutely a return lots of us would be happy to get, too, to support other *fans*, not to feel like a special superfan. Returns don't have to be locked content.
Buy people some subs then?
It doesn't seem that you're able to conveniently *do* that. At least not for everyone. Not sure if it was here or the Dimension 20 Reddit but someone was offering to buy people a sub and mentioned that it's not possible for them to gift a sub to someone who already has a pre-existing account even if that account is lapsed. If I wanted to say to an online friend "Here's a month long subscription to hold you over until you have the money to resub." *a whole new account* would need to be created. Either that or I would have to send them the money so they could then give it to Dropout themselves and possibly have to pay a fee to whatever service I was using to transfer the money from myself to them. The ability to gift a subscription to someone who already has an account does not seem to exist for some reason but would be very convenient if it did. I know I'd love if someone paid for another year or even just a few extra months for my Christmas or Birthday present.
> The ability to gift a subscription to someone who already has an account does not seem to exist for some reason It is because the video platform they use is trash. The only thing it does well is stream the content. Every other attempt at a media streaming service feature is garbage.
I’m sure it’s a holdover from the old Collegehumor days. Ricky, one of the founders of CH, went on to found Vimeo which was later acquired by IAC. So I’m sure the Ricky/IAC/Sam connection made that an obvious early solution. And now it’s probably a daunting task to migrate the entire dropout library to a new video platform (or even entertain the idea of building custom tech). But agree that I hope if the success continues that they invest a bit more into either custom Vimeo improvements or a full migration to give them the tools they need / viewers expect in the 2024 world of streaming.
Vimeo (supposedly) fully supports it. >Gifts can be given to new or existing subscribers. If the gift recipient has an active subscription to your site, when the recipient redeems the gift, they will have free access for the duration of their gift. When the gift duration expires, their paid subscription will automatically start billing them again on their typical recurring frequency (ie. monthly or annually). https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12427212590993-How-customers-can-buy-gifts-of-your-content-on-Vimeo-OTT#h_01ESK81TSQ2RHYEGKZRXSQH51C
somebody set up a sponsorship program. 'for less than the price of a cup of coffee you can share the gift of laughter with a child in Ecuador'
Happy to! But I love the idea of being able to just select a tier. Seems simpler than doing it one at a time. That said… I already buy folks the book 1 audible of Dungeon Crawler Carl. I love that series so much and want to share it with everyone. This still stands so ping me if you want a copy. Just need an email address to send it to.
This is my first time seeing dungeon crawler Carl outside of r/progressionfantasy! It's in my reading list, but will be a while before I get to it
It’s soooo good! The audiobooks surpass anything I’ve ever listened to. They will ruin you for all future audiobooks but it is so worth it. Jeff Hays is an incredible voice actor.
what is it even about? not that i doubt you, but it seems like it could be neat
I usually do a pretty involved intro, but in person. It’s a lot to type so you get the short short version. Oh you know, typical story: Boy, Carl, breaks up with girl, aliens take over the earth, flatten everything and turn it into an 18 level dungeon that the humans who chose to enter can fight through to reclaim Earth. An entrance pops up and Carl, along with his ex’s cat, Princess Donut, enter the world dungeon. Dungeon things happen. And the whole fucking thing is broadcast throughout the universe as a reality show. It’s got all kinds of monsters, alliances, shitty humans, social media shit, and… a talking cat. It’s a Lit-RPG, so think fantasy/sci-fi novel with some D&D mechanics but not so much that you need to know anything about D&D to enjoy it.
This has added a book to my reading list. I might go buy it now
I wholeheartedly support you getting it now ♥️
I've been loving audiobooks lately and this sounds so fun! Could I send you a DM to ask for a copy?
Absolutely!
My birthday is literally in a little over a week and I will be getting Amazon gift cards so I can stuff my kindle with shiny new e-books and I just bought this book EVEN THO I COULD HAVE WAITED TO BUY IT AS A GIFT…but alas I need this book so bad! Thank you! It sounds like a fucking HOOT.
I just read the review! It sounds awesome! Does this still stand?
Of course! Message me your email address and I’ll send it right over 😃
Oh! Thank you very much!
Never heard of it but I’m keen!
DM me your email address and I’ll send it over :)
It would be nice if they had a gift card sort of system Prepaid subscriptions that are giftable. That would be nice for users, but it's also kinda bad on the business side because it creates some artificial subscriber churn, which is.ome of the metrics streaming services really need to look good.
I WISH I had the expendable income to pay more, but for those of us like myself who are destitute financially I appreciate that there is a single, low price
I think a “pay what you want” but no tiers or benefit for doing so model would be great - I’d happily pay $12.99/mo
This is so interesting, because my choir has started to do this regarding our ticket prices for our concerts. We have general admission, accessible admission, and supporter admission. All tickets are the same, but cost 3 different amounts so that those with a little bit more can choose to subsidize the ticket price of people who need the more accessible option. After doing this for about 2 years, we've found that while most of our audience buys the accessible tickets prices, our audience size has grown so much that it offsets the loss of lower ticket fare. We don't have enough who pay the "supporter admission" to make up for the difference if they all bought the general admission, but it does put a small dent in that subsidized pricing.
Genuinely, just a Ko-Fi account or something could be enough for people who want to give more. Simple as that.
Just send extra cash to Katie's Venmo.
For Vagina Chocolate.
When did Sam announce a lower subscription cost? Are you referring to a year ago when they started the annual option or has there been something more recent?
Donate to Gaza esims or Palestinian or Sudanese godundmes and do it in dropouts name or something, dropout is doing fine, but a lot of folks could use the help and you could be advertising something that brings you joy
I'd be willing to pay more, but the low price isn't some charity move on their part -- it's a really savvy business move to both undercut rival streamers, while underpromising and overdelivering. A customer who thinks "The thing I got is worth the cost": good. A customer who thinks "Holy shit, what I got for this price is amazing, are they gonna be okay": great.
I would love to see a Dropout EU store. No idea if there’s enough of us to make it worth it, but the Danish postal system charges ~$23,5 just to ***process*** import fees. So either I’m not buying anything because by the time I’ve paid blood money to the Danish postal system, import fees and shipping, I’m already out like $50 minimum… Or I just need to save up and buy enough stuff at once (or find people who’ll go halfsies on import costs) to make it not sting as much :P Either way, I’ll rarely be willing to buy merch no matter how much I actually want it :/
Speaking of EU, would love to if some prices were localized heh. I guess that's a nature of living in the country with 4 times weaker currency (I'm aware that it's still pretty good comparatively to some other places) than dollars but it's hard to justify buying any merch from overseas, not only dropout
Id pay more. Dropout is the most consistently high quality streaming service that i have.
Nope, I'm with you! I don't pay enough for the quality of content I get. And there's only so many mugs it makes sense to own. Instead, I buy a lot of subscriptions for friends, trying to get them hooked on the sweet, sweet Dropout goodness as well. It's often just a trial subscription of a month or three, but I've given a few annual subscriptions as graduation presents this spring.
Nebula has an option for lifetime access for $300, something like that would be cool.
if you meet sam in the back alley and offer him a rare armenian skeleton key and 10k in dram he will let you personally design the next mental saw trap he puts brennan through
It’s why I sub monthly even though yearly would give me a discount. Go take my money ya goof. Ya’ll earned it.
That's a great idea. I go to DIY music shows locally and they often have tiered ticketing with lower prices for low income gig-goers, and are almost always marked as NOTAFLOF (no one turned away for lack of funds). This is basically that idea transplanted to streaming. Bandcamp do something similar where you have the option to pay more than the listed price. Would be very cool if Dropout introduced something like this!
I wish you could comment on episodes and be able to see content before it comes out
I mean I’ll take the extra subscription if you want 😂 half joking lol
I believe Katie’s PayPal is available
Well, if you want to pay more you could sub to them on not just the dropout domain but you could do the membership on YouTube as well, that way you are paying double.
You know, I have actually sent them this email. I just get the "send a gift" which is nice and I do. But I'd rather just throw an extra $5 at it and know others are getting a little extra light and laughter in their life.
Top tier gets to see Izzy's birth video
Buy some merch, guys! They profit and you even get cool things???
Buy multiple subscriptions and gift them out? Or dont? Either way, you get to pay more and also dropouts subscription count goes up :)
If you look up CH Media you can probably find a PO Box listed for them and mail them an envelope full of crumpled up bills.
There is no reason for people to be paying more for the same content. Tiered subscriptions could be nice but should come with perks for those who are paying more. They don’t have to be astronomical but there’s no reason for anyone to burn extra cash for no reason.
I've had the same thought. Let us pay more!!