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If Patreon is really going to fuck creators and supporters over small pledges, I will replace them with paypal and a yearly reminder.

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PayPal has a fee too. Are they really fucking creators? Still not sure about this math. People think contributions will decrease, but I have only seen anecdotal evidence to suggest this is actually the case. Gonna wait and see.

I think the only thing that is fishy is why the credit card fees are not completely hidden from users. There are fees when you buy food at the grocery store, but they hide them from you completely. In a way, Patreon is being more honest about them, opening itself up to criticism. But also they are not being open enough that we are getting the whole story.

They’re indirectly fucking creators due to pissing off backers like myself. Patreon is charging the equivalent off the credit card processing fee per pledge despite only paying that fee once per month for the lump sum and taking 5% off the top. Turns out, they’re not being greedy, just stupid. I’m not sure if that’s worse.

Patreon will be taking a quarter of the money when I support half a dozen webcomics and podcasts with $1/month.

Venmo, not Paypal.

Venmo is a service of PayPal, Inc.

I wonder to what extent Paypal (etc.) could take this opportunity to steal patronage-as-a-business from Patreon.

The only for sure thing I see is that, it makes less sense to contribute a small amount to many people as the fees seem to hit you harder then than in any way to give.

I don’t like this as this is basically what I do. I contribute the minimum I can to many places, So it’s like a wow subscription but instead of a database I support really nifty content.

Weren’t they previously taking that money, just on the back side instead? Let’s do a math with your half-dozen $1/month pledges.

Previously you paid $6 and Patreon took 5%, so creators got $0.95 each. Then creators had to pay the PayPal or other transaction fees, so they got even less than the $0.95, and thus their income was rather inconsistent as fees changed.

Now you pay $1.38 per creator, or $8.28 total. An increase of $2.28. The creators are actually going to get $0.95 each.

So yes, it does seem fishy that they are charging you the transaction fee once PER creator when they only charge you once. But wait, they were previously charging all the creators the fee once per patron, even though patrons were still charged once.

All they’ve done is flatten the fees to make them predictable, and transfer the burden of them from the creator to the patron. Creators actually end up with more money because patrons pay more money.

PayPal fees are 2.9% plus $0.30. Basically only 5 cents less than the Patreon fee.

The way I see it both the old way and the new way suck. What Patreon SHOULD do is just take a flat cut. If the 5% cut isn’t big enough, they should increase it to 10% or more. It’s their fault for not setting it high enough to cover their costs in the first place. Neither patrons or creators should even have to think about credit card processing fees. Just like how you are unaware of them at the grocery store.

Also, people get mad at change no matter what. The old Boston Citgo sign. When it went up people were made. When they wanted to take it down, people were mad. Twitter redesign people were mad. Patreon logo change people were mad. Microsoft Office added the ribbons and people were mad. Every release of iOS people were mad.

When I see people instantly reacting to any change with anger I dismiss it. I need to wait and see if it’s actually a problem or not before I’ll believe it’s not just humans being mad because someone moved their cheese.

Well now. https://d.rip/

Yeah, Kickstarter’s d.rip is recent. But it is invite only, at least for now. Did perhaps they sabotage the Patreon?

More money, but for small pledges it’s wastefully inefficient.

https://twitter.com/wombatoverlord/status/938859319344484353

https://twitter.com/cwbuecheler/status/938787629738397696

What if the new Patreon pricing scheme was the old one and the old one was the new one that was just announced. Pretty sure you would still see plenty of hand wringing.

That said, numbers will tell the tale. Let’s see how much money get and how much they pay after the change goes into effect.

I for one don’t care too much about the extra costs, but would prefer paying one flat fee vs per-creator of course. Ultimately it won’t affect my pledge decisions, and ultimately with inflation and everything the $1 pledge may eventually have to become a $2 one anyway. If this bumps the creators a few extra pennies per pledge then good for them.

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Still not the same thing.

You Only YOLO Once = YOYO

You Only YOYO Once = YOYO

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Sylvia Henry and Sidney Fonda both sound like real people.

As a person whose family has always worked in service roles, and having literally always worked in retail or customer support roles, I don’t understand jobs that close down after Christmas. Y’all are weird.