“Should Subscription-Based Content Creators Display Their Earnings on Crowdfunding Platforms? Evidence from Patreon”, 2021-11-01 (; similar):
This study exploits a natural experiment that occurred on the Patreon platform.
Patreon creators must decide whether to make their earnings visible to the public.
We find evidence [using Graphtreon] that removing earnings visibility increase subscribers [although total earnings are then invisible].
The provision of social information does not lead to an increase in subscribers.
In January 2017, the subscription-based crowdfunding platform Patreon allowed their users (creators) the ability to hide their earnings from existing and potential subscribers. Prior to this, all monthly earnings were visible.
We investigate what effect this policy change had on creators’ subscriber numbers over the following 6 months. Using double-robust and endogenous treatment estimation techniques, we find evidence that creators who removed the visibility of their earnings had more subscribers as a result. This suggests that the provision of social information does not lead to an increase in subscribers.
[Keywords: crowdfunding, Patreon, entrepreneurship, natural experiment]