ncase
patreon
An update on that Patreon thing
🕑 Added 2017-12-08 17:00:57 +0000 UTC Hi all -- as you may have seen by now, Patreon sent out an email announcing a change they're gonna make to fee collection. And, as you may also have seen by now, a lot of artists and their supporters are very miffed at Patreon.Here's the infographic Patreon sent out:
First off -- as someone who makes visualizations -- what the heck is going on in that chart? The bottom chart mixes percentages with absolute values, also I think the bottom-right box is the wrong color and has a typo? That's supposed to be "Patreon's", right?
Ryan North (the Dinosaur Comics guy) summed it up a heck of a lot better than I can: https://www.patreon.com/posts/15758286 Long story short, this new change is pretty crummy for fans who can only afford to pledge $1 or $2. Which, by the way, is 725 of you. Because that's a $0.35 fee per pledge -- that's 35% higher for fans who pledge $1 amounts! And that's not even a real transaction fee, because Patreon charges your cards at the end of the month in one lump sum.
So, just wanted to say: if you have to cancel your pledge for now, I totally, completely understand. This is literally not what you signed up for! I'm still grateful for all the support you've given me thus far. :)
Anyway, the good news is that this fee change has not taken effect yet -- hopefully, with all the backlash, coming from both artists and their fans, Patreon will reconsider before the end of the month.
Honestly, it's a pretty bone-headed decision on Patreon's part. It's bad for the supporters, which means it's bad for the creators, which means it's even bad for Patreon itself. (a lot of supporters have been quitting Patreon in droves for the last two days)
I'm gonna assume Hanlon's Razor for now: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” I hope Patreon will learn from the feedback, and reconsider the change, or figure something else out. If someone from Patreon is reading this: if you need to increase revenue to stay afloat, I understand, but please take the cut out of MY end, NOT my fans'. (and I know you must already be considering this option, since the fee-change FAQ asks "Q: What if I want to take the hit for my patrons? Can I pay those fees?" and the answer is "A: no")
Anyway, we'll see. And, whether or not you have to cancel your pledge, I understand, and thank you so much for helping me this far anyway. :)
edit: Patreon posted an update explaining their reasoning a bit more. Judge for yo'self: https://blog.patreon.com/updating-patreons-fee-structure/
- - - - -
Oh, also, JOY.JS Version Zero will be out December 20th, Wednesday.
Here's a screenshot of one more example made with JoyJS: a generative music toy:
I'll send out the custom-drawn character reward surveys soon, for those of you who've picked that reward!
Also, thank you all for your concern & advice last time, after I talked about how I was burning out and needed to take a short two-week break. My break totally failed, where I ended up both neither relaxing nor actually getting work accomplished, so, I'll try again over the holidays. Either way, thanks for putting up with me, and I'm excited to share Joy.js Version Zero with you all soon!
<3,
~ Nicky Case
Comments
Jessica Osio
Aaaand I am back! Good on them. =)
Nicky Case
> hope it's gonna get better. It just did! <a href="https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/">https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/</a>
Nicky Case
Yup! They just announced they're not doing the fee change after all! <a href="https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/">https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/</a> I'll post another update later today/tomorrow
BeyondWakanda
I'm given to understand they're backpedaling on that, meaning the whole thing's canceled, it's gonna be fine.
tuxayo
Can you setup an alternative to Patreon for recurring donations ? In case you need a suggestion, there is <a href="https://liberapay.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://liberapay.com/</a> - it's libre/open source - it's better for small donors - it better for people not speaking English well enough - it's better for EUR users - it's not funded by the worst of capitalism, AKA VC funding. So it's less likely to get bad. And if it's does, as the platform itself is libre/open source, not everything will be lost.
Josh 'Cheeseness' Bush
The upcoming changes make me uncomfortable both as a creator and a supporter. I love your work and definitely want to continue supporting you. Regarding the reasons in their updated post, I can't help but feel that it's inappropriate to dramatically change creator/supporter relationships for all 3 models of charging when it's only one that supposedly needs it. IMO, creators who want up-front charging paying any additional fees for that feels like a fair trade-off.
Jonathan
I wonder what would happen if all the creators quit Patreon en masse? Several alternatives are being mentioned on news articles about this.
Olive Perry
Re: their update, "it's actually all just about enabling monthly with charge up front": Seems like a system-wide drastic change that adds complexity + a lot more fees in order to address an edge case (the "double charge" thing). If there was only a forth of a month left when someone pledges under this structure, couldn't they just do a one-time 25% charge and then get them on the normal schedule? EDIT: looks like lots of other people have proposed similar/better fixes than this, but to the same effect. I also like how they're trying to pass off the graph with more than twice the number of fees as the solution to the problem "there are too many fees".
nothings
They've updated the image with the blog update, but they still left the colors broken, and the new one suffers from a deceptively small service fee; somebody on twitter measured it and worked out that the image corresponds to a $52 pledge, and it would be much larger with a $5 or $10 fee, and obviously much much larger with a $1 or $2 fee--plus it looks like they used the worst-case transaction fee for the image "before" case.
Jessica Osio
Make sure to make a public update if/when things change! I'll be checking back at christmas and if Patreon has addressed the issue I'll renew the pledge in time for January =)
Nicky Case
No worries, and thank you Jessica! It really means a lot to hear your dad could use my lil' games in class. :D (also aw yiss, purple heptagon avatar!)
Jessica Osio
In order to get the message across to Patreon, I am going to "vote with my wallet" and temporarily suspend my contributions. But Don't worry! The work you are doing is straight-up making the world a better place and empowering people. My dad REALLY loved the trust game and showed it to some students he was substitute teaching for. I'll be back after Patreon's next announcement!
