Lens by Patreon - Patreon stories from its creators

@jackconte @rrhoover This is interesting. Clearly the next step for Patreon was to start hosting content for distribution to customers; this always had to be on the map I would imagine. I like that there appears to be a tool to designate between content that is open to the public and content which is open to patrons only; that's a nice middle-ground on the fence of the whole walled-garden dynamic (which I am typically critical of). However, it's also worth noting a couple of things just to keep things in perspective (really, no pun intended here haha): 1. *Most* Patreon creators raise around $200-$300/month, which is still a very tight, shoestring budget (certainly in the music world, it's a drop in an ocean). This could potentially help that, but that leads to the second consideration: caliber & reach. 2. Because most Patreon creators are raising less than $300/month, this implies (rightly so) that as with any crowdfunding source, most of the money raised is concentrated in a small area, most likely the bigger-name creators who have amassed million-person followings. This isn't an objectively bad thing, it's just a realistic thing. As a result, the exclusives and behind-the-scenes content which Lens is intended to promote may only be interesting insofar as there is a *desire* for that content. That desire is predicated on being an avid consumer of the traditional content, which is predicated on knowledge of the creator, which is predicated on awareness of creative content outside one's own normal feed. This is exactly the problem of "discovery" that curation has not solved (arguably, it's made it worse). So, bringing it back to Lens, I can see this being a good thing for Patreon overall and am intrigued to see how it evolves. I just caution against attributing any magic-bullet aspect to it (not that anyone was specifically, just in general). Will be interesting to see how this rolls out though for sure!