Creator Economy

Discord Takes Back Turf from Patreon; Facebook Boosts Tipping

Discord is testing a new feature that allows creators to charge fans for subscriptions on the chat app. Photo: Bloomberg
By
Kaya Yurieff

It’s long been popular practice for creators to sell access to their private Discord communities as part of paid subscriptions on Patreon, YouTube and Twitch. The arrangement kept creators, such as gamers with big followings, conversing with their fans on Discord. But the chat app didn’t get any subscription revenue; the other platforms did. That’s now changing. 

The San Francisco startup on Tuesday said it was testing new premium memberships, allowing at least 11 creators to charge fans to access their Discord communities, which the company calls servers. It will take a 10% cut of paid memberships.