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Unless I'm missing something, they seem to only have a monthly contribution model. There are many times where I find a content creator helpful (for example a v

Unless I'm missing something, they seem to only have a monthly contribution model. There are many times where I find a content creator helpful (for example a video tutorial on how to fix my broken washing machine), and I'd like to reward them. But I don't want to do it monthly, as I'll probably never watch another thing from them. So I'd like to be able to easily leave a one-time tip. Can Patreon do this, and it's just not obvious?

Torai 9y ago
Yeah, a donations per piece of content are obvious, but Patreon can't do it as the content (videos, music...) are hosted in other platform. Youtube, for example, could do it, but I guess it's not willing to stop milking the fat cow of ads, yet. I'm waiting for the time we will be able to donate as low as 5 cents even to a comment in HN.
- raesene9 9y ago
  Patreon works just fine per piece of content. I follow multiple artists who work on this model (e.g. https://www.patreon.com/scottbradlee https://www.patreon.com/scottbradlee, https://www.patreon.com/pomplamoose https://www.patreon.com/pomplamoose)
  - Torai 9y ago
    That's a subscription model, thus patronage. I mean donating to a piece of content you have just consumed or appreciate.
savanaly 9y ago
Sign up then immediately cancel? One month's payment should go through.
- WesleyLivesay 9y ago
  I just want to correct your comment unless anybody else sees this. By default this is not how Patreon works. For most creators you are not charged until the end of the month, so if you sign up on August 2nd you are not charged any money, and the money doesn't go to the creator, until September 1st. They do have a new setting for Patreon campaigns that lets the creators change this, but many have not.
patcon 9y ago
Hate to sound pessimistic to your well-intentioned suggestion, but if someone prefers not to support a creator monthly/regularly, then they are unfortunately choosing not to support them sustainably. I feel strongly that to ask for one-off giving is to ask for a badly designed system. People can't dedicate their output to creating value for you when they're living off a tip-jar. Consistency is the key to backgrounding the profit-motive, and allowing for the creativity you've probably come to appreciate in their work :) Disclaimer: quit my job to contribute to Gittip community, and have lots of a thoughts and feels on the patron/gratitude economy
- TheAnimus 9y ago
  The thing is sometimes you find something helpful, but don't think they are exactly an artist. I'm slightly ashamed that I couldn't figure out how to put the batteries in the Amazon wand they'd sent me, a quick search and a YouTube video showed me what the instructions missing hadn't, tug it forcefully. That kind of thing isn't useful enough for patronage. But it would be nice to be able to throw a nice little tip.
  - patcon 9y ago
    Interesting: utility vs art. Maybe it's a similar distinction between commission and wage. Art by commission or art by wage... I'm sure there are studies on which type produces happier artists (heh, but in a twist, it's still prob up for debate whether happier artists make their best art, but that line of thinking feels a little gross ;) Anyhow, guess I was being too simplistic. In the ideal world, I'd hope we'd all have more early (high school) literacy on what these approaches mean, and which works best for which sort of value creation...!
- drewg123 9y ago
  For the kinds of videos that I find most helpful and am willing to pay for (eg, how to fix my broken whatever), I imagine the creators would get a steady stream of one-time donations, as various people's $whatever broke, and they found the video. As of now, they get nothing, which has to be worse.
SyneRyder 9y ago
I've run into the same thing. Someone I'd been following launched a Patreon, and I really wanted to support them, but I'm uncomfortable about the monthly subscriptions. (One part of my thought process - I don't want to offend them if I unsubscribe/cancel at a later date, and maybe they're counting on that recurring money for their income.) Fortunately, that person followed up by launching a Kindle book, and then a paid email series, so I've now sent them far more money than I would have as just a Patreon contributor (approx 3yrs worth so far). Maybe it's best if Patreon is just one of many revenue streams people offer.
- egypturnash 9y ago
  As an artist supported by Patreon: we really don't give a damn about your particular contribution unless you are someone we have a personal interest in. Or if your contribution is notably higher than everyone else's. If you subscribe at $3 or whatever for a few months we're not really gonna notice you coming and going.
egypturnash 9y ago
Nope. There are two flavors of monthly payments - $x every month, and $y for every post the creator marks as a paid thing, up to a maximum of $z - but you can't leave someone a tip for that one cool thing. If a creator is on the $x every month scheme, then you could sign up for that, and then turn it off again. Patreon charges you immediately, so that you can't raid someone's paywalled content for free.
- mjevans 9y ago
  Well, you can, it just won't show up that way. You sign up for a 'month' at the tip value, then cancel right away. You should still be charged, they should still get their cut, and the subscription is canceled.
billdybas 9y ago
YouTube used to have a tip jar feature but removed it citing low-usage [1]. The best alternative now is to support a creator for one month and then cancel. [1] https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/01/can-we-chat-hello-super-chat.html https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/01/can-we-chat-hello-sup...
PKop 9y ago
This could easily be solved (though I surprisingly don't see it that widely used) by including a BTC payment address alongside monthly subscription options or displayed within social profiles, for one off payments.
pjc50 9y ago
People say they want to be able to tip, but so few actually do. Ask anyone with a blog tipjar. Patreon works because people pay for the possibility of future stuff.
raesene9 9y ago
Patreon has the concept of donation per creation rather than per month, which works well for people who produce things less regularly. It works pretty well for the ones I follow, but I guess it could be open to abuse if someone churned out a lot of stuff quickly (although I'd bet they'd lose a load of subscribers if they did that...)
- interurban 9y ago
  You can place a limit on the monthly total of the per creation payments, probably this is to combat this exact scenario.
- vmlinuz 9y ago
  One of the two Patreons I support (https://www.patreon.com/mitchbenn https://www.patreon.com/mitchbenn), who is working on a pay-per-thing model, decided to start doing very short daily videos as well as occasional longer ones. All he does is mark one short video a week as a 'thing', with the others basically being freebies. That, combined with the ability to set a monthly limit as a supporter, keeps things sane...
porker 9y ago
Wasn't that the goal of Flattr?
puranjay 9y ago
I clearly remember the Primitive Technology guy accepting per-video contributions. Highly, highly recommend his channel as well. Some of the most fascinating stuff online.
kalleboo 9y ago
It would be interesting if YouTube implemented a flattr-like model - pay $10 a month and that gets distributed among all your likes for the month.
mdpopescu 9y ago
Choose the reward level, wait until the beginning of the next month (so it's paid) and then cancel. It takes more effort on your part but it can be done.

Torai 9y ago

Yeah, a donations per piece of content are obvious, but Patreon can't do it as the content (videos, music...) are hosted in other platform. Youtube, for example, could do it, but I guess it's not willing to stop milking the fat cow of ads, yet. I'm waiting for the time we will be able to donate as low as 5 cents even to a comment in HN.

raesene9 9y ago
Patreon works just fine per piece of content. I follow multiple artists who work on this model (e.g. https://www.patreon.com/scottbradlee https://www.patreon.com/scottbradlee, https://www.patreon.com/pomplamoose https://www.patreon.com/pomplamoose)
- Torai 9y ago
  That's a subscription model, thus patronage. I mean donating to a piece of content you have just consumed or appreciate.

savanaly 9y ago

WesleyLivesay 9y ago
I just want to correct your comment unless anybody else sees this. By default this is not how Patreon works. For most creators you are not charged until the end of the month, so if you sign up on August 2nd you are not charged any money, and the money doesn't go to the creator, until September 1st. They do have a new setting for Patreon campaigns that lets the creators change this, but many have not.

patcon 9y ago

Hate to sound pessimistic to your well-intentioned suggestion, but if someone prefers not to support a creator monthly/regularly, then they are unfortunately choosing not to support them sustainably. I feel strongly that to ask for one-off giving is to ask for a badly designed system. People can't dedicate their output to creating value for you when they're living off a tip-jar. Consistency is the key to backgrounding the profit-motive, and allowing for the creativity you've probably come to appreciate in their work :) Disclaimer: quit my job to contribute to Gittip community, and have lots of a thoughts and feels on the patron/gratitude economy

TheAnimus 9y ago
The thing is sometimes you find something helpful, but don't think they are exactly an artist. I'm slightly ashamed that I couldn't figure out how to put the batteries in the Amazon wand they'd sent me, a quick search and a YouTube video showed me what the instructions missing hadn't, tug it forcefully. That kind of thing isn't useful enough for patronage. But it would be nice to be able to throw a nice little tip.
- patcon 9y ago
  Interesting: utility vs art. Maybe it's a similar distinction between commission and wage. Art by commission or art by wage... I'm sure there are studies on which type produces happier artists (heh, but in a twist, it's still prob up for debate whether happier artists make their best art, but that line of thinking feels a little gross ;) Anyhow, guess I was being too simplistic. In the ideal world, I'd hope we'd all have more early (high school) literacy on what these approaches mean, and which works best for which sort of value creation...!
drewg123 9y ago
For the kinds of videos that I find most helpful and am willing to pay for (eg, how to fix my broken whatever), I imagine the creators would get a steady stream of one-time donations, as various people's $whatever broke, and they found the video. As of now, they get nothing, which has to be worse.

SyneRyder 9y ago

I've run into the same thing. Someone I'd been following launched a Patreon, and I really wanted to support them, but I'm uncomfortable about the monthly subscriptions. (One part of my thought process - I don't want to offend them if I unsubscribe/cancel at a later date, and maybe they're counting on that recurring money for their income.) Fortunately, that person followed up by launching a Kindle book, and then a paid email series, so I've now sent them far more money than I would have as just a Patreon contributor (approx 3yrs worth so far). Maybe it's best if Patreon is just one of many revenue streams people offer.

egypturnash 9y ago
As an artist supported by Patreon: we really don't give a damn about your particular contribution unless you are someone we have a personal interest in. Or if your contribution is notably higher than everyone else's. If you subscribe at $3 or whatever for a few months we're not really gonna notice you coming and going.

egypturnash 9y ago

Nope. There are two flavors of monthly payments - $x every month, and $y for every post the creator marks as a paid thing, up to a maximum of $z - but you can't leave someone a tip for that one cool thing. If a creator is on the $x every month scheme, then you could sign up for that, and then turn it off again. Patreon charges you immediately, so that you can't raid someone's paywalled content for free.

mjevans 9y ago
Well, you can, it just won't show up that way. You sign up for a 'month' at the tip value, then cancel right away. You should still be charged, they should still get their cut, and the subscription is canceled.

billdybas 9y ago

YouTube used to have a tip jar feature but removed it citing low-usage [1]. The best alternative now is to support a creator for one month and then cancel. [1] https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/01/can-we-chat-hello-super-chat.html https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/01/can-we-chat-hello-sup...

PKop 9y ago

This could easily be solved (though I surprisingly don't see it that widely used) by including a BTC payment address alongside monthly subscription options or displayed within social profiles, for one off payments.

pjc50 9y ago

People say they want to be able to tip, but so few actually do. Ask anyone with a blog tipjar. Patreon works because people pay for the possibility of future stuff.

raesene9 9y ago

Patreon has the concept of donation per creation rather than per month, which works well for people who produce things less regularly. It works pretty well for the ones I follow, but I guess it could be open to abuse if someone churned out a lot of stuff quickly (although I'd bet they'd lose a load of subscribers if they did that...)

interurban 9y ago
You can place a limit on the monthly total of the per creation payments, probably this is to combat this exact scenario.
vmlinuz 9y ago
One of the two Patreons I support (https://www.patreon.com/mitchbenn https://www.patreon.com/mitchbenn), who is working on a pay-per-thing model, decided to start doing very short daily videos as well as occasional longer ones. All he does is mark one short video a week as a 'thing', with the others basically being freebies. That, combined with the ability to set a monthly limit as a supporter, keeps things sane...

porker 9y ago

Wasn't that the goal of Flattr?

puranjay 9y ago

I clearly remember the Primitive Technology guy accepting per-video contributions. Highly, highly recommend his channel as well. Some of the most fascinating stuff online.

kalleboo 9y ago

It would be interesting if YouTube implemented a flattr-like model - pay $10 a month and that gets distributed among all your likes for the month.

mdpopescu 9y ago

Choose the reward level, wait until the beginning of the next month (so it's paid) and then cancel. It takes more effort on your part but it can be done.