Many creators mentioning they lost hundreds of their patrons suddenly and patrons confused as to why their payments are being declined. Patreon is such an old company that hasnt done anything to improve their service for years while the CEO makes youtube videos and seemingly nothing with the company. I hate how much of a monopoly they have in the space, they clearly have no vision for improving their website or app.
I hate how much of a monopoly they have in the space
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Nope, same thing, different words used
The idea is it’s more personable, instead of subbing to a Patreon or doing a one-time PayPal or what have you, you “buy them a coffee” or “buy them a pencil” or some other low-cost item that most people both understand helps people AND are cheap/something they might get themselves, so they’re more likely to donate
Also I’m p sure Ko-Fi has a better revenue split with those who use it than Patreon does
Also I’m p sure Ko-Fi has a better revenue split with those who use it than Patreon does
This line made me curious so I looked. Best I can find is that Ko-fi charges either 0% or 5% on donations, dependent on the type of donation and the type of account the receiver has with them.
Patreon used to charge 5%, but now has: 5% for grandfathered pro accounts, 5% for lowest tier accounts, 8% for non-grandfathered accounts on a pro plan, and 12% for a higher premium tier.
So yup, Ko-fi has a better split.
There’s also Liberapay, which doesn’t take any cut for themselves. The only charges you get are for the payment processors
Is it actually better? There are things like open collective and GitHub sponsors too… Choices are great, but the choices aren’t clear
Is it actually better?
No idea, I don’t use either. I don’t even know what you mean by “better” in this context.
I mean, does it pay creators better/does it actually do the job of funding someone better? i.e. what’s the advantage? Is it just kind of a meaningless difference or will creators benefit?
I hate their entire policy around what you can and cannot say or do, on their platform or somewhere else.
When you use Stripe/Paypal as your payment processor you have to be willing to accept whatever demands they (and the banks backing them) decide to make on any given day.
Let’s not even talk about Visa and MasterCard. They could choose to end your business at any time.
Huh, I was wondering why 10% of our patrons disappeared overnight. It’s normal for a drop-off at the start of the month but not normally such a large one
I hate how much of a monopoly they have in the space…
It’s not necessarily Patreon that’s the root problem here. The problem is the foundations of the financial industry (banks, credit card companies, etc) have complete control over the content and products you can exchange for money.
If Wells Fargo decides that your product or content has offended some random executive, they will call up your payment provider (like Stripe) and tell them to close your account. And the payment provider will do it because they don’t really have a choice.
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He regularly releases songs with Scary Pockets
He uploads videos with Pomplamoose, Scary Pockets, and JackConteExtras
Mine went through just fine - I’m curious what subset of users this affected.
Regarding the list of who you supported, Patreon has sent me monthly “Your Patreon receipt is here!” emails that list out each supporter and the tier. I don’t believe I explicitly enabled these emails - they just started coming one month, so presumably one would have needed to specifically turn them off to not get the receipts.
Floatplane gang rise up
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Had the same thing happen to me. I got texts about fraud from my bank and an email saying I needed to update my payment. I was wondering what prompted this cause I’ve been using patreon for years and never once had an issue like this.
I know some creators that are moving to Substack and it really seems like a good way forward for certain content. I can’t blame folks for leaving, I’d be pissed if a platform caused me to miss out on income.
Wild how we even need a middleman like patreon to receive money.
You don’t need it, but its a convenient website to let people save their info and support people financially across multiple professions all from one account
Many creators use PayPal or similar to let people just one-time pay through said creators site or app, but Patreon/Ko-Fi/etc. Allow a little more without needing to do all the work yourself
You gave another corporate middleman as an alternative to needing a corporate middleman.
Mine looks ok so maybe it doesn’t affect everyone? I’m just a patron though.
As a creator, it doesn’t seem like I’ve lost any of my patrons. Someone new even joined last night
Oh, hey Wong; I still miss PWOT.
?
The dude tweeting used to run a site called Pointless Waste of Time under the pseudonym “David Wong.” Had a bunch of funny articles and the forums were great. Ended up going away when he became the (I think) chief editor at Cracked (before it was all list based) and they merged the forums.
Ah, nice
Patreon always has some lind of problem every now and then. To this day I haven’t been able to even create an account there because they won’t let me.
Are there no other services that creators/donators can use (apart from Liberapay that I see a bit lower in the comments)?
