About Patreon's policy changes

They rolled it back, so I'm back!

Austin Eschweiler

We won for now. Well I didn't do anything but I'm still including myself like a lazy out of shape sports fan saying "we" won when refering to their favorite team. I have no problem with Patreon wanting to make more money. They're a business. If they really want to do it without having to keep growing like they already are, and just want a higher cut, let them be upfront about it and I'll respect that as long as they're fleecing everyone proportionally to their gains/donations. As for what they were pretending to want to fix like fake patrons doing the fun and run technique, a simple "available after first payment" option for individual rewards would fix that instantly. Took me 20 seconds to think of it and any novice programming student could do that in a day. Still, I'm very pleasantly surprised to see a major online company listen to feedback, admit they were wrong and fix their mess. I blame Google for making me so cynical.

Abel Cassius

Directly: <a href="https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/">https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/</a>

Dundough Breadbox

Cap Dis has a patreon? Also, in case you didn't know, Primitive Technology has a patreon...

Josh Kallen

Woo hoo! Looks like Patreon is scrapping the fees: <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/13/16772556/patreon-drops-service-fee-plan-apology-update" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/13/16772556/patreon-drops-service-fee-plan-apology-update</a>

Bill Lehecka

I only support 3 projects on Patreon: Captain Disillusion, Red Letter Media, and Jenny. I'm going to continue supporting those creators, but it will make me reconsider supporting anyone else. Remember kids, love with your heart, use your head for everything else!

Daniel Staniforth

Wait, so instead of me having to ensure that my card has a couple hundred monies left before the limit on one set day at the start of every month, I'm going to have to ensure it stays a decent amount below the limit throughout the whole month as they bill me slightly more in bits and pieces? That's extremely inconvenient; I don't like that. Okay I'm starting to understand why this is A Bad Thing now.

Shaun Cheah

Thanks for the comments. I'm not happy with this either, as a supporter, but for now I'm not changing my monthly donations. I will wait and see if Patreon blinks first. Not holding my breath though.

CJ Carpenter

I also hope Patreon backtracks on these changes. If/when you do choose to set up another possible avenue for us to support you, I will move my support to that platform. Until/unless you do, however, I'll stick with Patreon. As much as I dislike the change, I don't want to reflexively punish the creators I support because of what Patreon did.

Derek Hiemforth

Jenny’s is the only active channel I support so it doesn’t matter too much to me but I can see it being very annoying for some people. I had hoped to give a bit to RLM but I’ll hold off for now. (Also, the best I could come up with was the Jenny Furs and we’d have to start wearing tails for it to make sense).

Stuart Payne

But that's the problem with the new system they are implementing. Today all your pledges are collected and billed in one total sum at the beginning of the month. In the future each pledge will be handled and collected individually including the additional fees (for both "per month" and "per post" pledges). So it hurts mainly people who pledge many small amounts since there is always the $0.35 flat fee on every transaction regardless of amount pledged. Currently: 10x $1 pledges = $10 2x $5 pledges = $10 in total $20 in one single payment In the future: 10x ($1 + 0.35 + 2.9%) ~ $14 2x ($5 + 0.35 + 2.9%) ~ $11 in total appr. $25 in small chunks

Günter Grünn

Thanks for the continued transparency.

Ello Asty

I only kinda sorta understand why this may be upsetting to people; I need a YouTube video with neat infographics to fully explain the change. Right now I don't mind the change so much but then I'm kinda pretty awful at finances so I'm probably not representative of patrons in general. Basically the way I use Patreon is I just give a dollar to everyone even remotely good on YouTube and such and to the people who are really, really good (right now just Jenny and Steve) I give the big donation, then I wait until the end of the month and just pay whatever that amount ends up being without actually checking how much it really was. So yeah, not good at finances over here but I do enjoy feeling generous.

Shaun Cheah

Patreon definitely messed up, but you’re right it doesn’t make sense to change anything on your end. And while obviously I’m sure you enjoy your job, if anything were to ever happen I’m sure that you could book and awesome writing job in no time!

Daniel Stephan

Thanks for addressing! As for support, I have long since abandoned cable for the creators who are killing it on youtube. That said, hope you don't lose too much support, I'll bump up a bit as well. Supporting artists is crazy important to me, and kind of crappy that Patreon is messing with this structure in such a negative way.

Ellery VanDooyeweert

Patreon should let you do 3 month 6 month or 12 month subscriptions. That makes sense to me. Patreon gets to invest that money until it is given to the Creator. Also, that would allow users to have less transactions on their accounts. It seems like the smart way to go about it.

Nick Steffensmeier

Thank you for writing about this topic. Right now you are the only creator I support so it doesn’t effect me too much; However, I am concerned that many others will cancel their support. Although I’ve only been a Patron for 2 months now I’ve really enjoyed the Jenny fan community (BTW we need a Jenny fan name!?). I will still continue my support wherever you end up. Thank you for all the great content and for being so open with us on these things.

Thank you for addressing this. If this was some sort of streaming service, I'd probably cancel my subscription in outrage, but this is a different case. I came to Patreon to support your (and some others) work, and I take that seriously. I think you are a very talented person, and I am happy to be able to support the creation of your content. I hope many, many others feel the same way. I hope you have a lovely time with your family, and a wonderful holiday season.

Daniel Fahringer

Thanks for caring about your fans Jenny! We love ya!

Daniel Paugh

Personally, I think people are making a big deal out of nothing. I can see how a 40 cent surcharge will discourage $1 patrons, though.

Brandon Blackmoor

I can understand why people with lots of Patreon subscriptions would have to reconsider things in light of this. Luckily in my case you’re my only subscription, so I don’t mind the additional cost too much — really appreciate the sentiment of this post though, so thanks!

Sam

Glad to hear that you're looking for an alternative. I would be happy to keep donating through a different platform and am rethining all my Patreon subscriptions due to this change, so if I cancel my patreon account obviously it's not due to any complaints regarding your great content.

Ryan Frazier

Due to the current monthly collection cycle which starts at the beginning of the following month of the pledge, there were cases when people pledged at the highest tiers to unlock the complete backlog of the artists (music, pictures, videos, ...) then download all of them and cancel their pledge before getting billed even once. So Patreon now switches to "bill immediately and at the same day every month after that". Unfortunately this will hurt mostly people with many low amount pledges, especially the "one dollar per post" patrons. For now I will see how this will turn out with my running pledges and decide further down the road if I need to adjust any pledges. (In addition to the fees we already have to pay 19% VAT on top of the pledges here in Germany)

Günter Grünn

I'm going to give Patreon until mid January to properly address this, if no Patron friendly actions are taken I will be cancelling all of my backings. Thi has nothing to do with the creators and I of course don't blame them (or you) but I won't support hostile business practices. You were the first person I backed on here and I hope I don't have to cancel my support. Thanks for openly and honestly addressing this.

Thomas Baxter

It seems that it would make sense for Patreon to have tiered creator platforms and let the creator decide if the fees should be taken on by themselves or the community. If a platform should be helping creators, they should empower creator to decide who should bear the financial brunt of these new fees. I understand that the fees exist, but I think deciding for the patrons if they should bear the financial burden is a bit of an overstretch.

Bill Lehecka

I think the reality is that Patreon will only reverse or modify this decision if it starts to hurt them financially. Don't feel bad about this change, as you say it's out of your hands. I hope it doesn't negatively impact you.

JK

Collectively, I'd like to see the different creators I support choose another platform and start using both platforms. Those who are committed enough to put in the extra effort to use a smaller platform can do so, and others can stay on the YouTube/Patreon duo. I realize this reduces YouTube views and generally dilutes the content effectiveness for some period of time. Even so, I feel like YouTube in particular has not handled its monopoly well and as a community it's time to do something about it.

dipique

I canceled a few other subs and upped mine to you bc financially it made more sense to support one creator rather than a bunch of smaller ones to other people (although mine is still quite low) I think the hardest part is the fee on top of the 20% VAT to the dollar as well. Ive been feeling so guilty over my cancellations, but bc of patreon I've had to do it. I hate that.

Ellie Kae

For me personally, I don’t mind paying a bit more because I really enjoy your content. If you move away from Patreon I’ll just switch to that, but for now I’m okay with it :)

Mathieu Le Francois