detwiller

THOSE AWFUL PATREON CHANGES

Added 2017-12-08 17:50:04 +0000 UTC

I've been on Patreon for awhile. To date, the service has been sometimes frustratingly opaque, sometimes just weird, but it's always been worth it, up until this last policy change. It's made it possible for me to connect with my readers in a way that just wasn't possible previously. But...

How do I feel about the Patreon changes? Well, three guesses. I've filed my grievances with them, but there's very little I can do beyond that. We were not consulted on this, and have no real control over it. The "we're passing 95% of the earnings on to you!" message was just completely fake, tone-deaf, and condescending. I've worked in a start-up, and it's no accident this change coincides with a funding round.

The whole "we're just trying to make ends meet" also doesn't wash (the structure of their additional charges levied on the patron is not equivalent to the "credit card fees" however you slice it.)

While Patreon was IT previously, that's no longer the case. Other companies are jumping in on the patron/artist relationship model, not the least of which is Kickstarter.

The good news is I'm trying to get something similar running on the new Kickstarter service Drip. So, if you have a little patience and hang in here, I can make an announcement of where to jump to (in this case, a much less inconsistently run service).

In any case, stay tuned. I'll make announcements when I can, but it will take some time.