An announcement about the next month

I love you're videos, keep it up:-)

First, I hope your relocation goes smoothly and to plan. Many of the other creators I support have needed to also take a pause early this year or late last year, both for relocations and refreshes. May you also feel that relief during this time. I lived in the city with that same 7m down/ 768k up and I have been floored that people ever uploaded video they create on such a thing. My parents are miraculously able to use a fixed wireless ISP that is better than that although somewhat unstable at night. Rural broadband in Idaho is weird.

Benjamin Rippel

I loved the can opener video! Agreed, not your deepest vid, but well worth the time spent watching it. Thanks also for the fireside chat vid here. It's nice to be reminded that the folks making this you tube stuff have real lives too. I would love to chip in my bit during your pause, after all, I believe in paid vacations, but I totally understand. Whatever it takes to get far enough away from work for a while. Best of luck with the move and stuff. Looking forward to your next video.

Just learning about your terrible internet situation is compelling content!

I Move for a Bad Science Thingy

Holy moly on the work internet connection. I’d check public libraries and if they are well endowed, they may have gigabit internet. I’m glad my library’s system installed WiFi that saturates WIFI 5 and the desktop PCs are gigabit internet so in theory fast uploads.

I tell all the creators that I follow, take your time. Love the content and if it comes slower, /meh, I would rather have quality than quantity. One other thing, we are not your bosses, if you need the time, take it. As you go along, I do find it interesting how creator structure your studio and gear so if you just want to drop a vlog every now and again, that would be cool. Just something freeform. I am toying with the idea of being a creator so every idea helps me in my considerations.

Michael Ford

Good luck with your move! I fully understand and support your reasoning.

James Dore

Take a break! It's a marathon, not a sprint. CPG Grey warned us about the All Room danger. Go hug a tree.

Joe Johnston

Know the Internet and distance issues, my adsl max speed is 0.5mbps down 1mbps up, so also use a mobile phone data conection and also lose it in the summer as where I live in north wales is verry busy with tourists, My kids school trip is 24 mile round trip, closest shopping centre is about 80 mile round trip, good luck with the move

Simon Upton-Millard

Hoping it's more adventurous than arduous. Have fun.

Jim Hewlett

I feel you on that cellular internet thing. Before my wife and I were married, she lived on the shore of Lake Erie on the Canadian side, on a street that had no wired internet access options. She had a cellular connection only, and in the summer when the rich Americans who had summer cottages all came over, the internet access was unusable. It would claim to be connected, but every connection would time out. Ping times were on the order of 30,000 milliseconds (yup, 30 SECONDS round trip). For those who don't know, ping times on a decent internet connection would be in the TENS of milliseconds. Anyway, I'm glad you're taking some time for yourself and I look forward to your return! Loved the can opener video, BTW!

Circuitmike

Catch you on the other side!

Mikael Lindberg

I know how you feel about a lot of this. Cheers. You're awesome!

Arthur Robillard

Have a nice February :)

Tom G

Is this a side effect of that toxic midwesterness? Nevertheless, it's good that you can identify that you need the break and can take it. I joined your Patreon based on the can opener video, and realized that you deserve support to do what you need and love to do, since I love to watch someone who's got passion. Regardless of the release schedule.

Everyone deserves some time off. I know other small businesses which pause their business temporarily while they take a vacation, and they just pause sales during that short amount of time. You've built your own business, so you're in control of your own time. Now you're learning how to manage your work/life balance.... and I think a lot of us run into that kind of issue, regardless of the type of job we have. I think you're doing the right thing. Take care of yourself and your family, and have a good break ^.^

Spectre

Those of us in regular jobs get around a month of paid holidays so why shouldn't you? I'm with the many others that think you should take the time off you need without pausing the funds.

Mike Oreilly

congrats, dude. so happy for all the good stuff that's happening for you. and i most certainly get that point about not feeling like you have that separation when your work is basically at your home. i'm a web dork, and if anything, you often find yourself pushing through even more work because it's like "well, it's not like i have to commute anymore..."

Maurice

Take the time you need, we are ready when you are!

The pauses don't actually change anything on our end much, aside from not charging us and sending us an email. We still get access to everything that's already up. Here's an example from another person who didn't charge for a month: "Hey Kaz Redclaw, Thank you so much for your support this month! You might have noticed you weren’t charged for ___. Worry not, you are still an active patron! ___ paused their creator page to ensure you wouldn’t be charged today. You can learn more about why creators pause their creator page here. Have a great day! Patreon"

Kaz Redclaw

Good luck with the move! Maybe "conscience" was the word you were looking for instead of "sanity", but either way you should do what's right for you. I also moved to get more work\life separation, so I empathize.

Jeremy

I hope the move goes well! We'll be here when you return! Never feel bad about it.

Jim Hooke

Exactly my thoughts, you are just too decent, Alec.

Dr. Bjoern Bieber

I hope the move goes well, Alec. You deserve a break. That said, I think you deserve paid vacation time like every one else (well, everyone here i Europe), but I understand your position on this.

Kristian Høy Horsberg

Can't wait for what's next! I hope that move goes well.

Justin Collier

Alec, I'd have had no problem if you wanted to take a sub off of me for your break. Your content is always "different" but in a good way. Anyway go get yourself sorted out and we'll hopefully see you sometime in March. All the best.

Enjoy your time off! Everyone needs holiday, and these last mumble months are still no exception. While I would be happy to continue my contributions, I appreciate that you need to be willing to accept them -- so that's the closest I will get to arguing the point.

Graham Reed

do the paaaaaaause! (that internet connection situation that you're describing is *nauseating* by the way)

matt

So...no Technology Connections videos for a month? But with the Patreon pause, I get the money for a pint of beer. When that happens, I'll raise my pint of beer to you, your successful move and future videos. Cheers!

Matthew Lawrenson

I get your reasoning... but most folks get paid vacation, I didn't sign up to your Patreon to "get my moneys worth", so I would have had zero issue.... but I do understand you just not wanting to feel the pressure. Congrats on the move!

Enjoy your time off, we'll all be here when you get back :) Can't believe the rigamarole you were going through to upload videos lol, let's hope you never have to do that again.

Erik Granlund

Out in the boonies? Fat chance of that fiber happening. It's one of those things that's really easy for us city dwellers to not notice. Internet service is mostly a city thing, even in the US. What constitutes "urban enough" to get decent internet has gone down over time, but I'd be surprised if we've gotten to the point where we have good internet out to places that are more than 10 minutes away from their nearest grocery store.

Some Ed

Cool, enjoy your time off!

I've said it to other content creators, and I'll say it to you as well. I enjoy supporting YOU, and not necessarily just the content that you produce. YOU deserve a break, as you have provided so much knowledge and enjoyment for me and my family! I wish that just like there was an option for creators to 'pause' their subscriptions, there was an option for subscribers to turn these options back on, knowing the pause is in effect. I would gladly continue my support for you during your time off, but ONLY if it still allowed you to actually take a break. You deserve the time, and we'll be here when you get back.

Isaac Rivers

I lived off of my Verizon Hotspot which used to be just 5GB per month and plugged into your USB port for 7-8 years until COVID happened. I lived off of that for all that time. Now since I'm work from home permanently even when the office reopens, I pay for DSL with 80/10. But you can live off of 6/1 pretty easily.

Brian M Knoblock

You deserve a break Alec, I mean look at you, living in a basement, not getting regular haircuts and nothing to eat but cans of beans from Wal-Mart:) Seriously, glad to know that you are taking well-needed break, even if you have to use that time to move into new digs. Do people still say 'digs'?

Mark Hesse

take the time you need, we'll be here waiting. :-)

Chris Waldrip

Enjoy your time off! Now you've made me feel bad. I took a few weeks off over Christmas and didn't know I could pause Patron payments. I'll do that in the future.

Big Car

Thanks for the update Alec. We appreciate all your videos.

I'm a patron for another person who took a pause in January for rest, so I can tell you that it just quietly skips the billing. I can still see all their posts, and my email receipt just doesn't list them. If they hadn't made a post announcing it, I very likely wouldn't have noticed at all (which is kind of strange actually; I'm surprised Patreon doesn't send an email notification). I appreciate your commitment to the pause; it's always great to see someone holding themselves to a higher standard than what others expect. Good luck with the move! If it helps, the channel Evan and Katelyn recently made a couple videos as well as a podcast episode about their move for relatively similar reasons (their house was just too small for all their YouTube stuff), so maybe those will be informative for you.

David H

About 6 years ago I moved out into a rural area of Tennessee. I had a very short list of things that I HAD to have. One of them was good internet. I live about 25 miles from the nearest larger city so I can relate to having to spend quite a bit of time getting basics. But I would be lost without the internet. So .... I wish you well with your move. I don't envy the task ahead of you, but hopefully things will all work out. Plus, I've been watching you for over 5 years, and I can imagine how much work must be required to do what you do. And I sure wouldn't be able to do it for so long without a break. Enjoy your time off. Put the channel out of your mind. The people that enjoy your content will still be around when you get back. Good Luck with it alol.

Robert McCullough

Still on 6/1 line? Holy moly! Thought you'd gotten an upgrade by now! I had 5 down and 0.3 up myself, but moved finally and got 1000/1000 fiber. And uploading videos now can be done in a jiffy. I get the download, but uploading 4K must be hell! I tip my hat to you though for staying with it. Also Espen Kraft drives into the woods to upload his videos using his cellphone subscription deal. You're not alone it seems. :D Hope they lay down some fiber nearby soon. :)

Anders Enger Jensen

Hope the move goes smoothly!

Jurassic_Jacob

Ah, imposter syndrome ❤️ Hope the move goes smoothly, Alec - take it easy.

Ben Prescott

Regarding the cat--your kitty just wants to be with you... until you give him attention, then he probably wants none of it. On other topics, thank you for the notice and hope your move goes well.

Don Eitner

Alex for governor!

Galen Thurber

So how long has that eraser been sober?

Galen Thurber

Ah, 6 down, 1 up; I only recently went from 7 down/ 0.7up to a whole whopping 9 down/1 up -- which is fine when it's just me at home, but works less well with two additional occupants in the house. I too have signed up for Starlink, even though my sky view is awful. They actually have a customer support site now (since October I think -- https://www.starlink.com/account/home) that you can dredge up info about your reservation. In my case, I had to go "recover" my account (in reality, I'd never been prompted to create one in the first place), and then I was able to get my status. Signed up in Feb. 2021. Current estimated delivery: 2023. Good luck, fellow no-options-for-real-Interneter!

Travis Snoozy

Honestly you should get a paid vacation like most jobs but you should obviously do what makes you comfortable. Your internet problem sucks, my parents house sits in an area surrounded by highspeed internet options that they have no access to because it hasn't expanded down their road. Seriously less than 5 miles away can get better internet. Plus the best option is DSL at equivalent to what you were getting. Super sad the infrastructure is so bad. Have a good break and hopefully all the stuff you need to get done goes smoothly.

Good luck with the move and enjoy the time off! I'd be happy to keep paying but understand why you want to pause.

Have a good break and recharge!

James Oliver

Enjoy your time off, I hope the move goes well! Take care!

Working and living in the same place is definitely hard. Even though I _could_ WFH all the time, I still go in to my company's office 1-2 days per week, to make myself get out of my apartment.

Michael Dunn

You will absolutely need the entire month for moving, guaranteed. In fact, good luck since you chose the shortest month of the year! But the good news is, as you unpack, you're going to find _all kind of things_ that you packed away and forgot about that you intended to make videos about. Congratulations on your new home! Get Aging Wheels to help you move. He has a truck or two, I'm sure. :D

Timothy Kepple

Like many here, I’d argue that you deserve a paid holiday once in a while, but I can totally understand your reasoning for pausing the billing cycle. Thanks for the transparency and I wish you the very best of luck with the move!

Paid time off is a thing, but do what you need to do. We'll be here when you get back. If we didn't love ya, we wouldn't be paying ya. Good luck with the move. I last moved 14 years ago and swore that the only thing that would make me move again would be a tornado, which, since I live in Oklahoma, has seemed a possibility a few times, but not yet.

Irisarc

Take the time you need. We'll still be here.

Mark the K

It's not the first time someone I pledge to is pausing their patreon. IIRC Patreons will get an email with an explanation what it means for them. Have a smooth move. I'm glad you take care of your mental health. Don't break yourself for youtube.

Magnus Köhler

The message was rambling. But yes. Sometimes you need to take a mental health break. I hope you can get everything done that you need. WoW! Dsl at 6 mbps? The best Dsl does here in Tucson is 1.5 mbps. I went with CommunistCast which gives me 100 mbps down.

Thanks for the heads up. I’ll try to remember this when I notice a discrepancy in my upcoming Patreon payments.

Trevin Beattie

Totally understand your reasoning! It is truly wonderful to be stable enough to be able to just take a break from things. :-) I'm sure the vast majority of us will be happily waiting here for when you return, and looking forward what ever new-(or old)-fangled gadget or concept you bring to us!

CloudHackIX

I'd be one of those to tell you to continue the billing, but I'm also completely in your shoes that it would kill me in your place not to.

äymm

Hope the move goes well! Enjoy your time off, we'll watch all your old videos while you're afk :)

I didn't even realize you were in Chicago. I'm surprised you've never come to the Vintage Computer Festival.

The 8-Bit Guy

As one of these weird Europeans with 20something days of paid vacation to use every year I can't help but think you shouldn't feel guilty in the slightest about taking some paid time off! Thanks for making such interesting and engaging content over the years, hope the move goes as smoothly as is possible and that you get to have a few days to relax in your new place before launching into more fascinating videos :)

Andrew Chappell

I was just looking at all the stuff in my house... old rolleiflex, a planimeter, a fire piston... all just sitting on a shelf.. I wondered what 'your' house must look like, and all the cool stuff you must have laying around :)

I do recall seeing Vi Hart post during her pause, so Alec shouldn't have any issues with that.

Daniel Welsh

I had an uncle who once said, "Every time you move you should cut off a finger. Then, the next time you think about moving, you look down at your hand, remember how awful it was, and think, 'Yeahh, I don't think so...'" But seriously, good luck with the move, hope it all goes smoothly and painlessly.

Tnarg42

Just bumped to $5 tier for when billing resumes 😂 problem for you is I’m also from the Midwest (Central Illinois) so we have competing Midwesterness… hope everything goes smoothly with your move. My only thought/concern for you is how far will this put you away from the studio?

Now go make some chili with all those cans you opened!

Michael Steeves

LGR had a video about this issue a few years back, IIRC he solved the issue by setting up his work in a specific room, and only doing work in that room on a schedule, and not considering work outside of it.. To give that break that you were talking about when you came home from your hotel job. Beyond that, Dude, Take all the time you need. I understand your argument that it'll be more restful pausing patreon than keeping it going, so I wont say anything about that.. but I will say, Please, take all the time you need. You deserve a break man., You deserve many breaks, We are blessed with your videos, not deserving of them, So focus on what you need to make you happy and better, and don't fret it. We'll be here when you're ready to come back.

Honorary Octopus

Please, the rest of the world allows for paid time off. It’s not like you’re the IRS and plan to close your videos while you’re away. One month’s Patreon cost is literally the price of an entrée at a medium-scale restaurant. I don’t think many people will be concerned about it.

Sean Hearrell

As far as pausing Patreon, I do agree that's the right plan because perhaps not everyone wants to contribute while you're on pause. However, it would be nice if it were possible to contribute on the side while you're paused.

Not in a position to watch the video right now, yet upfront based on the other comments: there should be no reason to pause Patreon payments. As others said, paid vacations are a thing. And for your top tier, you can always do something special later for them.

Raphaël

To answer your question: Patreon sends (or used to send; the last time I had a creator pause was last June and I think a number of creators have soft-paused since?) an email saying "Membership Pause Notification". I don't think they send an email when the creator unpauses, however, as I haven't seen one, and all three of the ones I have say "this month".

Pietro Gagliardi

Good luck with the move! - Lots of folks end up in careers different from their degrees and do well, life is full of twists and turns. For example I work in web development but the only degree I have is a BA in music. Unless you’re doing something that has a specific certification process like an MD, the degree isn’t as important as most people think. It represents a specific experience a person has had and work one has done, but isn’t necessarily an indicator of how inquisitive, creative, articulate, or intelligent a person is. Your non-engineering background is probably an asset in your work now explaining technical stuff to a general audience.

Dawn Anthes

Good luck with your move!

This type of honesty and integrity is why I think so many of us didn't hesitate in contributing in the first place. Enjoy your break, good luck with the move, and see you in March!

Moving sucks; it also consumed most of last year for me. We'll still be here (and watching your older videos in the meantime). Take care!

Daniel Welsh

Do you have a Kofi or something else we could use to toss some food money at you? That way it's voluntary and you don't have to worry about the stress of being "salaried" while not making videos.

LegitBinary

Out of curiosity what are your plans with your current place? Are you going to finish it and put it on the market, sell it as is or do you have other plans? With how crazy the housing market is (it's the exact same here in Canada to) and the time you baught the house I assume you could probably make a decent amount on it with just how much it went up over the last 4 years, that's assuming you are able to find a buyer.

Wow, I think I would like keel over and die with only 6/1mbps internet, no more complaining about my 140/20mbps DSL. Upped my pledge too for when you unpause and return :-D Have a great time off!! PS Loving the long hair, growing mine out during the pandemic too :-)

100% Ditto.

As a way to participate in Alec having kind of a paid leave, I just upped my pledge for the coming months as a delayed payment for Alec's leave. I hope he won't mind. But he can't stop me, can he ;-)

I became your patreon in hopes there would be more Reed and more Figaro content. I am thoroughly dissapointed, yet continue to be please by all this... less meaningful content you keep releasing :) Take your time!

We love you too! Is there any way we can “donate” instead of pledge to you in your month off?

Justin Carvacho

Wish you all the best moving! (having just moved a couple of months ago myself, I know the work involved...) And yes, I'm also a person just telling you that I think also as YouTube creator on Patreon, you have the right on some paid holidays, but also respect it when you pause, it's your decision! Hope to have you back soon, your content is good!

MrHammond

Alec please give us some way to make extra one-time donations. We want to fund your paid leave :)

Please accept my Patreon subscription or give me some alternative way to buy you a dinner. I’m one of those wacky liberals who believes educators deserve paid vacation.

Daniel G

Take care of yourself, enjoy your time off.

Geez man do it! We will still be here. I am an online Professor. It gets stressful being on but I try to step back. I’m in mental health and substance abuse counseling. If you need a break, take it. You are as important as the rest of us. (Hands back the white board eraser)

Dr. Clyde H. Hedgcoth Jr.

I've been salaried and hourly, and I totally get the "if I'm getting paid my time doesn't feel like my own" thing. When I was hourly I had the freedom to just tell my clients I would not be working or billing some days and it was never a big deal, but requesting time off from a salaried job always feels like a bigger deal. So I get why you want to pause billing for your own sanity.

Paul Koepke

you're a good dude.

Brett Moore

Hey I’m in the 6Mbps internet club too! Glad that you’re taking a break to get things together. See you in March!

Ryan Colgan

it shows integrity

helly

Why would you pause Patreon when what you're doing will allow you to make even better videos! :) Do you have Ko-fi or something so we can throw some money your way for the move? :)

Thomas Fuchs

Enjoy the time off. Like others I'm fine with paying, but it is more important for you to feel comfortable with the situation. You've made your name and new content will speak for itself when you get it released. I look forward to anything that comes from your direction!

Michael Steeves

I don't see why you would pause the subscription just for a month.

No need to pause 'billing'.... Enjoy your time off...

Richard Thompson

It is sincerely for my own sake that I want to do this. I'm a midwesterner!

Technology Connections

Enjoy your break, and move! See you when you come back

Graham O'Mara

Even without a new video, it's still a month I'll be watching your massive back catalog, and you still deserve it, and I still want to support future endeavors! I admire the pride but also, let us pay the measly dollar :)

Leo