Dobson's Patreon was up to 110 dollars, now it's back on 105 dollars and 42 patreons. Can't be bothered to make a screencap.
Looks like the "I don't really want to pay"-exodus has started.
It is really telling and pathetic. Those numbers reveal the true nature of the audience that he manage to garner when he was on DeviantArt; majorly penniless preteens that don't know any better and it is not surprising than that is the kind of people he attracted with his "Talk out of my ass beliefs and I'm beyond critique, block anyone who doesn't agree!"
Just look at the numbers, Patreon works for many creators the same way "free-to-play" works in the mobile space (I know it is a strange comparison but bear with me). Just as in F2P platforms the people who developed the app count that at the very least 1% of the entire userbase of people that downloaded it will pay for content, so say an app gets 1 million downloads, of which 1% (10,000 costumers) will pay for in-game purchases, making the app successful and profitable for the developer. I too have noticed that this similarly works for artist with big audiences, an artist with say 20,000 followers as an example will get around 200 patrons that are willing to give money to said artist, it is not an absolute metric but it is an educated estimate of what to expect from good artist producing good content.
Here are some statistics from Patreon itself:
- $1 pledges account for 33% of all pledges (and 5.2% of earnings)
- $5 pledges account for 22% of all pledges
- $10 pledges account for 10% of all pledges (33% of earnings from $5 and $10 combined)
- $10 pledges and below account for 90% of all pledges (50% of earnings)
- $50+ pledges account for 2% of all pledges (26% of earnings)
- $100+ pledges account for 0.65% of all pledges (15% of earnings)
Now look a Dobson's numbers: he managed to attain 56,000+ followers on DeviantArt, that is HUGE for any artist, so at the very least 1% (560 Patrons) should be willing to donate each month. Lets see how would this theoretically translate IF Dobson were actually a good artist with a honest, discerning and well-off audience with disposable income:
560 Patrons
- $1 pledges account for 33% of all pledges ( 188 patrons * $1 = $188 )
- $5 pledges account for 22% of all pledges ( 122 patrons * $5 = $615 )
- $10 pledges account for 10% of all pledges ( 56 patrons * $10 = $560 )
- $10 pledges and below account for 90% of all pledges (50% of earnings) (This is 32.35% of patrons donating between $1-$10 = Avg $5.5 179 patrons * $5.50 = $984.50)
- $50+ pledges account for 2% of all pledges ( 11 patrons * $50 = $550 )
- $100+ pledges account for 0.65% of all pledges ( 4 patrons * $100 = $400 )
So any artist with that big of an audience should be pulling around approximately $3293 ( and I know this is a very rough estimate since there is a margin of error but I made the same estimate using the Yandere Dev Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/YandereDev?ty=h and it came off just $134 off mark of the real amount but results may vary, anyone out there with a working knowledge of statistics and math can correct me anytime. )
Now lets look at Dobson's reality, of 56,145 DA followers only he managed to convert that into 42 paying patrons, that's a conversion rate of aprox. 0.075% ... That's right, the guy cannot even manage 1/10th of 1%. If this isn't the biggest reality check anyone can have as to establish how much of a failure Dobson is, nothing else is.
TL;DR Version: Anyone with Dobson's number of followers should manage a respectable Patreon but "The Dobson Way" has managed him only utter failure. 
