• Best selling author Jordan Peterson and talk show host Dave Rubin have announced that they’re working on a fan funding site that will rival Patreon
• This announcement comes days after popular content creator Carl Benjamin (who uses the pseudonym Sargon of Akkad) was banned from the Patreon platform
• Thousands of users have left Patreon since Sargon’s ban and many of them have expressed the need for an alternative fan funding platform
• Peterson says he has been working on this project for the last six months and he expects it to be live before Christmas
Jordan Peterson, a best selling author and clinical psychologist, and Dave Rubin, host of the talk show – The Rubin Report, have announced that they’re getting ready to launch an alternative to the fan-funding site Patreon.
Patreon allows users to support content creators through monthly donations and currently funds over 100,000 creators. However, it has recently faced heavy criticism from some users for its decisions to ban certain creators from the site. The banning of Sargon of Akkad (whose real name is Carl Benjamin) was the final straw for many people and thousands of users have left Patreon in protest since he was banned.
According to Patreon, Sargon was banned for violating Patreon’s community guidelines around hate speech and using language it considers to be harmful and degrading. However, Sargon and many others argue that the statement he was banned for is being taken out of context and didn’t violate Patreon’s community guidelines. Many users now feel that Patreon can no longer be trusted to honor its community guidelines and are actively seeking alternatives.
Peterson and Rubin both suggested the Sargon ban was a primary reason for announcing their project now with Rubin stating this “is a massive move of that line of what’s acceptable.” Peterson also suggested that moving to an alternative commercial provider that’s outside of their control isn’t going to be viable and referenced what happened to SubscribeStar.
SubscribeStar is a Patreon alternative that experienced a surge in popularity after Sargon’s ban with many new users joining the site. However, activists targeted SubscribeStar shortly after the ban and its PayPal account was closed.
Peterson said he’s been working on a system for six months which will allow creators who engage publicly on intellectual issues to interact more effectively with their audience.
He believes this system can be modified to incorporate a subscription model and serve as an alternative to Patreon. He also said this system will have some features that are better than those offered by Patreon. However, he didn’t elaborate on what these features will be or if this new platform will be open to creators who focus on other topics such as comedy, gaming, and tech.
The duo didn’t announce when the project will go live. However, Peterson said, “imagine this could take somewhere between a week and a month to sort out properly” and that it should be live “hopefully before Christmas.”
