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
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.
A number of these alternatives exist but the reality is that if a creator advertises Patreon vs advertises Liberapay (or another alternative) you get more people signing up for the Patreon because it has better name recognition / marketing / whatever. In my opinion they got to their dominant position mostly* because “we” let them, and they also stay there because “we” let them.
*And partly because they were one of the earlier platforms (but by no means the first option for crowd-sourced financial support for creators), and they also started with lower fees than they have these days.
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.
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?
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.
“complete control over the content and products you can exchange for money”
This suddenly aligns with which creators had failed in my attempts at individual payment where the monthly bulk had failed (maybe due to including the ones which failed). One, an RPG supplement creator, has me scratching my head. I saw recently that the art of some of these has caused CC companies to deny payments. F that.
A rejected payment method leading to losing your subscribed list is 100% a Patron problem.
The issue at hand is not (just) rejected payments, they can be fixed. Its the inability of creators to keep their subscribers after it’s fixed.
Floatplane gang rise up
