To those whom I back on Patreon:
I love you.
I've received worried emails from several of you due to the fee change structure. I agree, it is stupid. Especially as it affects $1 donations. Those're damn near 40% up, and that's stupid.
That being said: I haven't thought about what to do about it as the amount of money I put through Patreon (~20 / month?) is sufficiently low that I've got other things to worry about.
Which is to say: I'm not going anywhere. That'd take more work than sticking around and I treat this with some benign neglect.
I know not everyone is in the same place, money wise. That sucks, too. I wish everybody had money! I don't know how to solve this problem, and this post is not the place to try!
As for me, I'm not going anywhere and I will be fine with business as usual. Please, borrow no anxiety on my behalf!
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I'm pretty sure that this change will be rolled back in a few days, tops.
ReplyDeleteOr at least a standardized 3%. It's the % + $ that is really dumb.
ReplyDeleteSo the thing I couldn't figure out from reading the email (cursory I admit) was is it +$ per charge (month) or +$ per pledge cause that would certainly effect any decision I made, if I actually got around to doing anything....
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm not sure what to do either. It's easier to deal with the subscription model than relying on people to contribute to a tip jar or something every month.
ReplyDeleteHopefully they'll roll it back.
It's per transaction. So per month or post depending on the creator's settings.
ReplyDeleteI hope they roll it back or I'm considering dropping all pledges and sending 3 or 4 creators a month a PayPal or Kofi payment for 1/3 or 1/4 of what I was commiting monthly.
It's naked greed. If they don't backoff quick, I'm going to have to find alternate ways of supporting people...
ReplyDeleteI don't WANT to stop supporting anyone, but I have to. I cannot stand by and let myself be ripped off for a total of 38 cents of every dollar I pay to someone. That is frikking robbery, and I will not tolerate being robbed. Granted, its not so bad for the couple I pay $5 too, but for those I throw a dollar out, its still outrageous.
ReplyDeleteIf only there was some corporate conglomerate pretty good at this sort of thing that could kinda solve the problem.
ReplyDelete... wouldn't that be nice, Shane Liebling?
I would agree with you William Nichols that would be nice... That said, my gut sys this is related to twitter.com - Chris Buecheler on Twitter
ReplyDeleteIf that is the case I highly doubt this is going to get walked back. They'll press on assuming people will just deal with it.
Shane Liebling: I don't buy his analysis, mostly because it flatly contracts their stated fee structure.
ReplyDeleteBefore you pay $1, patreon gets 5¢ (they have a 5%) fee, and the creator gets 95¢ - paypal/stripe fees. If you have many pledges, they evenly divided the payments fees.
Now, you pledge $1, pay $1.37, patreon gets 5¢ (because they still have a 5% fee, on the pledge, not the dollars), the creator gets 95¢ flat (no -fees), and there's 37¢ left over to pay paypal/stripe... (except they're not charging that much).
Huh. There's been a lot of complaints at the low end -- a buck becomes almost a buck 40! -- but, Shane Liebling, that tweetstorm suggests:
ReplyDeletea) credit card fees are static, such that
b) they are making the money on the big fees.
Is it true that CC fees are static? I thought they were a percent?
So another wrinkle that came out today: patreon are removing bundled pledges. Now they'll charge you 1 month from your first pledging/whenever a per-work post is uploaded, hence the per-pledge fees. I've seen the suggestion this was pressure coming down from PayPal to stop bundling pledges and increase the transaction fees, but however it shook out there's greed somewhere in the chain.
ReplyDelete"Greed" is being bandied about as if it is an emotion no one understands. I think Shane pointed to the problem: The income to valuation is crazy. They've raised way too much money, and that VC has a right to structure the company so they can make a profit.
ReplyDeleteI don't like it. But, Shane's helped me get it.
I don't think they're going to roll it back. There's an update as of 4pm. blog.patreon.com - We’re Updating Patreon’s Fee Structure. Here’s Why.
ReplyDeleteWhat the fuck.
ReplyDeleteNow, instead of one monthly bill, I'll have as many as there are people I support?
Fuuuuuck that.
That means when reviewing my CC, I cannot see a single line item that is Patreon. I won't know how much they are charging me. If they tell me, I have no reason to believe it -- I never believe merchants when they tell me, that's why I look at a CC bill.
Nope. This is bullshit. This is creating intentional ambiguity on how much they are charging me, so that they can charge me for things I didn't get. Complete garbage bullshit.
I'm not going to subscribe to any new patreons. I suggest those who I back move to another service -- such as Drip. If I follow you and you'd rather get a check in USD delivered to you once a month? Let me know.
I (probably) won't take much actual action beyond that, but this may change.
Yeah I just read that update and the argument is basically: creators wanted charge-up-front - and the only way to make that work is to do monthly anniversary charges instead of once a month charges. That means a shitton of fees. So instead of hosing the creators (who asked for the feature) or ourselves (like we'd do that) we'll hose the patrons. Oh, and we'll do this across the board - not just for creators who explicitly want charge-up-front.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that they are implementing it across the board makes it a money grab. This should have been a feature creators could use or not at their discretion...
And as Vincent Baker said in a patreon update: if Drip doesn't come out of private beta in the next couple days, they're "asleep at the wheel." They would get a massive influx of users!
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking now that patreons leadership are bad at negotiation, as this reads like that are giving all that money to the cc companies.
ReplyDeleteIf so, they really need to negotiate their cardmember merchant agreement. They are getting hosed.
Well unbundling creates tons more transactions
ReplyDeleteThey could unbundle on the user side and still bundle in the PayPal side. If you pledge for a thing and the thing happens you will be charged, even if you unpledge, but not right now, because that would be dumb.
ReplyDeleteI'm working on changing my amounts to 1 / month / person, while keeping the maximum dollar amount the same.
ReplyDeleteSo, like, if I back 3 times at $2 each? Screw it, it's six bucks now for the first one.
.
ReplyDeleteHuh. The folks who said they'd undo it were on the money. That's Anna Kreider, first comment.
ReplyDeleteFolks who said otherwise were basically the rest of us. Huh. I love it when smart people disagree with each other.
I agree. I think the mass exodus fueled the change in policy though.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do think they've signalled their long term priorities pretty clearly. I'm not staying forever.
ReplyDeleteI'm expecting Drip to come along real quick.
ReplyDelete