Patreon and Lipsey's/ AFR

[Default.mp3]

When I ran FirearmsTactical.com, I had no issues attracting people that were interested in the content I published.

If you produce valuable content/good products, people will come to you.

If you produce crap, then you have to rely on social media, YouTube, etc., to peddle your junk.

Comparing the current landscape online with the Internet a decade ago is not a fair comparison at all.

[Sig_Fiend]

Ad revenue on video hosting platforms (YT, Rumble, etc) is usually a waste of time these days for anything except fairly vanilla niches (e.g. music, entertainment, video games) that have potential for massive viewership on relatively noncontroversial subject matter. Where people have much better success with live streaming (not sure if that's something AFR has done) is in adding professional live streaming software to their stream to improve the user experience and add more monetization capabilities. For example, StreamYard or Streamlabs. You basically run your live stream through the software, and connect it to whatever video streaming/hosting platform you want. Through the software, you can take tips (sometimes big money-making potential), run sponsored banners, and usually quite a few other options to monetize. Every successful live streamer I've seen these days is doing it this way.

There are several separate components to this I think people mix up from time to time:

• Video hosting (YT, Rumble, Vimeo, Rokfin, BitChute, Odysee)
• Video streaming (YT, Twitter/X Live, Rumble, Vimeo, Zoom, GoToWebinar... a million others)
• Membership platforms (Patreon, SubscribeStar)
• Monetization platforms (Patreon, SubscribeStar, Buy Me a Coffee, Ko-fi, a million others)

Some companies cut across several of those components. Generally, if you have problems with one of those components, there are usually at least a half dozen or more alternatives. In terms of Patreon, SubscribeStar is an alternative membership/monetization platform. Getting kicked off one or two isn't the end of the world as there are plenty of others.

Other considerations are 1) monetization methods as well as 2) driving traffic (usually the hardest factor). Monetization methods are near limitless these days. You can use membership/monetization platforms. You can take tips/donations/superchats in live streams, or sometimes on existing hosted videos. You can sometimes run your own sponsored ads/banners (basically 10x+ revenue compared to fractions of a penny of ad networks) in stream. IMO, gated content can potentially be limiting when the traffic isn't already there in significant volume. In cases like that, sometimes leaning on tips on live streams or existing hosted videos might be more profitable.

Lastly, driving traffic; the worst part. These days, search results are quickly being obliterated with AI content. Hell, quite a few prominent gun YouTubers in the industry are using AI-generated thumbnails for at least some of their videos now. I recommend AGAINST that, personally, as I think that makes them terrible, low-quality people. That's, like, just my opinion man! Simply building a website and pushing it live is not enough. You will not get much traffic without starting to produce significant content (I'll say usually minimum ~25-50 pages to start ranking for at least several hundred keywords within maybe 4-6 months) and continuing to update or add to your site consistently over time. It's best, for a number of reasons, when that content stays focused primarily in the niche a site is oriented around. Quality, readability, as well as depth and breadth of topic coverage in that niche is important. For traffic, you have several channels:

• Direct (bookmarks, typing the URL in)
• Organic (search aka SEO)
• Paid (SEM aka search ads, quickest traffic driver, expensive, hard for gun-related content)
• Referral (links from other sites to yours)
• Social (links from social platforms, biggest/easiest traffic driver)
• Email (links from emails... build that subscriber list! linking is a recurring theme...)

Those are the basics. For anyone in the gun world, I really recommend getting a handle on some of these marketing and monetization components to better understand where the deficiencies might be in your current setup. Anyone feel free to PM me if you ever need links to resources to learn about some of this stuff.

[TGS]

Comparing the current landscape online with the Internet a decade ago is not a fair comparison at all.

Not to mention there being a huge difference in posting some articles as a hobby versus running a business you can live off.

Some of the guntubers are pulling 6 figure salaries. Some are higher overhead than others, like C&Arsenal, which spend an insane amount of time doing original research on historical arms and spending a significant amount of money on not only that, but also loading obsolete cartridges long out of production and having non-serviceable historical arms returned to a functioning state by way of one-off machining and fabrication. Their YouTube revenue is estimated to be about $130k/year, which probably just about breaks even on a ramen diet. They're very dependent on subscriber revenue/donations.

The fact they use YouTube, patreon, etc is hardly evidence they're "peddling crap". It's a full time job for them. Hosting a shit website with a bunch of other peoples' work isn't even in the same league compared to what some of these channels are doing today.

[FrankB]

The whole recurring credit card charge, along with name and address has me a bit reluctant to sign up. Going through Patreon was fine, but one never knows….

[HeavyDuty]

The whole recurring credit card charge, along with name and address has me a bit reluctant to sign up. Going through Patreon was fine, but one never knows….

I personally don’t worry about that part, but the reason I use Apple Pay is because recovering from having a credit card number jacked is much easier. It’s the same reason I prefer PayPal for a lot of things.

[Joe S]

And that's the other problem. Not everyone who owns a gun, or makes firearms content, wants to be associated with the Christian crusade.

This. It's bad business, bad politics, and just annoying.

[TGS]

This. It's bad business, bad politics, and just annoying.

I mean......the guy doesn't annoy me. He's literally a pastor and missionary. He's just doing his thing, and that's successful with a certain crowd.

People from that crowd just need to be aware of, 1) how small his crowd is; all that fervor does not equate to omnipresence, 2) he's not beating over youtube, and 3) Not everyone wants to hitch their wagon to him for a multitude of legitimate reasons, and that doesn't mean they're democrat plants that are trying to destroy Christianity and America.

ETA: Of course, if they realized that, then John Lovell would probably lose the majority of his income.

*shrugs*

[Joe S]

I mean......the guy doesn't annoy me. He's literally a pastor and missionary. He's just doing his thing, and that's successful with a certain crowd.

People from that crowd just need to be aware of, 1) how small his crowd is; all that fervor does not equate to omnipresence, 2) he's not beating over youtube, and 3) Not everyone wants to hitch their wagon to him for a multitude of legitimate reasons, and that doesn't mean they're democrat plants that are trying to destroy Christianity and America.

ETA: Of course, if they realized that, then John Lovell would probably lose the majority of his income.

*shrugs*

I don't have anything against Lovell. I just think it's not the most strategic way to do it, if you wanted to potentially convert folks to Christianity/gun ownership.

But I recognize that this might be the best way to get views overall, and thus maximize income, at least on a reasonable time scale.

PS.: OPSEC, dude. Anyway, I'll see you at the next gay, racially diverse, pinko commie Muslim Democrat meeting, where we plot to oppress the poor beleaguered underdog that is the largest demographic in the country.