Brace Yourself: Upfront Charging is Coming

Since inevitably that one evil person finds a way to ruin anything cool for everyone else, Patreon is rolling out Upfront Charging over the coming months. I'm going to delay mine until September 1st for simplicity's sake, but I wanted to take a moment to sit down with you guys and talk about what that will mean for your patronage going forward. For most of you? There will be absolutely no change. You'll get billed on the 1st of each month, possibly the 2nd or 3rd if things go sideways. There are a few situations that will be handled differently, though:

• Patron A decides that he's tired of just seeing everyone else's art go by and wants a sketch of his own. He increases from $5 to $10 on the 11th of Whenever, and is immediately charged $5 (the difference in what he paid this month and what his new tier is). On the 1st of each month to follow, he's charged $10.
  
• Patron B decides that he's okay with simpler art every month and drops his patronage from $100 to $50. Just like right now, I keep what he was charged for the current month and then his billing downshifts to $50 on the 1st of the following month and stays there.
  
• Patron C decides to hop in on the 6th at $10 so he can poke around through all my posts before pulling out on the last day of the month. He's immediately charged $10 on the 6th before being allowed access to any posts, and I keep that $10 whether he stays, leaves on the last day of the month, or even leaves a few minutes later.

The tl;dr version? Unless you're sketchy, you're going to be completely unaffected by this change save for if you increase your patronage at any point. But at the same time, I can now do more tier-centric postings without worrying about someone being able to access content and then run off without paying what the rest of you are. And if I do go to that content model, it'll allow you to access higher tier posts immediately upon an uptick in patronage instead of being forced to wait until the 1st of the following month, so I feel like that's better for you all anyway?