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If you have a website online and ask people to support you via patreon and reward them with some kind of extra feature on the site would this be seen as them pa

by chippy 11y ago

If you have a website online and ask people to support you via patreon and reward them with some kind of extra feature on the site would this be seen as them paying for this feature? Contractually, or legally for example? A bit like the idea of crowd funded projects could accept money but not delivering anything were looked at negatively in terms of legal contracts and people paying for things and services. In my case, my hobby website of a few tens of thousands of users could benefit from some extra development time (backups, caching etc) and I was thinking of Patreon rather than a paid service to reward the donors with these new features. Would Patreon be a better fit for "support this and as a side effect get somewhat improved access to new features" rather than "I will give you X in return for your money". Seems like a Patreon donor may consider their donation as a service they have paid for, rather than a gift.

jlgaddis 11y ago
> ... would this be seen as them paying for this feature? I can't give you an answer that I know is 100% correct and back it up with a primary source. However, I believe that it would be and let me explain why. I recently received a renewal notice in the mail for an organization of which I am a member. A while back I had already decided that when renewal time came around, I would become a "life member". In the marketings materials with the renewal letter was an offer for a slight discount on a lifetime membership along with the option to receive a "free gift" (of my choosing, out of three or four choices) or to forego the "free gift" entirely. If I did not select a free gift, 100% of my membership would be tax-deductible. If I did choose one of the gifts, part of the membership fee would be applied towards that gift and only the remaining amount would be tax-deductible. It's a slightly different situation, obviously, but I believe the decision of whether they are paying or not paying (legally, at least, in the USA), would hinge on whether or not the "donator" was receiving ANY "compensation" -- regardless of what that compensation is.

by chippy 11y ago

jlgaddis 11y ago

> ... would this be seen as them paying for this feature? I can't give you an answer that I know is 100% correct and back it up with a primary source. However, I believe that it would be and let me explain why. I recently received a renewal notice in the mail for an organization of which I am a member. A while back I had already decided that when renewal time came around, I would become a "life member". In the marketings materials with the renewal letter was an offer for a slight discount on a lifetime membership along with the option to receive a "free gift" (of my choosing, out of three or four choices) or to forego the "free gift" entirely. If I did not select a free gift, 100% of my membership would be tax-deductible. If I did choose one of the gifts, part of the membership fee would be applied towards that gift and only the remaining amount would be tax-deductible. It's a slightly different situation, obviously, but I believe the decision of whether they are paying or not paying (legally, at least, in the USA), would hinge on whether or not the "donator" was receiving ANY "compensation" -- regardless of what that compensation is.