Paying for good things

Like a lot of people my age in the UK, I had an Amiga when I was younger (some that didn't had an Atari ST, the poor bastards). And, like a lot of them, the times I paid for a game were few and far between, as pretty much everything I got was pirated.

It has been said that piracy killed the Amiga. Maybe it did. I'm not proud of what I did, but at the time it didn't feel wrong at all. I had no money and the games were very freely available - I knew a guy that knew a guy, and the games just appeared for me to copy.

I don't copy games any more, but I do still get a lot of things for free, or ludicrously cheaply. Look at the internet and how much time you spend there, and how much of it you pay for. Look at things like Steam sales, and Humble Bundles. Look at Wikipedia. Look at your favourite news sites, or webcomics.

Now I have a proper job and I'm something of an adult, I have even started paying for things where I don't have to, because I think they are worth some of my money for the entertainment they give me. I'm not talking charity, I'm talking paying for things that give me a benefit. I subscribe to the awesome Shut Up & Sit Down, not because of the stuff they mail out every quarter, but because they have entertained me, I want them to keep doing so, and that is worth some money to me. Although the Reference Pear die is pretty cool.

I have also recently subscribed to Matt Lees' Patreon. Matt  makes videos about video games, amongst other things. He is most famous for the abridged videos where he compresses press events about video games (amongst other things) and talks over them in funny voices...I'm making them sound crap. Just go watch one. He also does a mean impression of Don Mattrick. He will be doing exclusive Q&A videos for his patrons, but the content that he is producing, will be free to everyone. No ads, no corporate sponsorship, he can just do what he wants because a few hundred people think what he does is cool and want to give him a bit of cash to continue.

I love that, unlike Kickstarter, you aren't paying for something that might exist in the future, you are paying for something to be produced now. Don't like it any more? Stop paying for it. Arts partonage used to mean rich bods commissioning art, but now its something everyone can do. I love that too.