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It was my impression that patreon needs to find a profitable footing to continue existing. Generally I would see increased revenues as a good thing (it helps to

It was my impression that patreon needs to find a profitable footing to continue existing. Generally I would see increased revenues as a good thing (it helps to ensure that a service people appreciate continues to exist). Given that - why has there been such a push back against this?

mcintyre1994 9y ago
"Many of you lost patrons, and you lost income." Because lost income is as bad as increased revenues are good, and people lost income. Patreon aren't in a field where they get to experiment like that without affecting people's income, and that's always going to lead to pushback.
gizmo686 9y ago
A lot of people viewed Patreon as a microtransaction service. They give $1 to a bunch of creators. Creators liked this because it meant they could get a bunch of low value supportors instead of a relatively few high value ones. Previously, Patreaon worked fine for this use-case. You support 10 creators at $1 each. Patreon charges you $10 each month, and credits $1 to each of your pledgies accounts. Patreon then eats $FEES from the pledgie's account and gives them the remaining money. Patreon would aggragate transfers so they only pay transaction fees on the single $10 charge to me, and on the final payment to the creator. As a result of this (and maybe other things), the fees were unpredictable to the creators, because they did not know how many other creators were splitting the transaction fees. In this example, a single creator would only see a ~$0.03 fee on my $1 donation; however, if I only had a single creator, he would see the full $0.30 on my dontation. (There are other fees at play, but this is the important one). Under the new system, every donation pays the $0.35 transaction fee. This means that even if I support 10 creators, they all pay the full $0.35 on my $1 donation. In contrast, if I instead had a single creator at $10, he would only see $0.38 in fees, or about $0.04 per dollar. This means that the new system disproportional effects people making small donations. It is also not clear that this was a pure money grab. This change coincided with a change to their payment system where they would stop aggregating charges. If they do not aggragate charges, it makes sense that they would charge smaller donations more, because those now have more overhead. The problem is that this breaks the service for small donation use cases.
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  You missed that the fee was going to be paid by the patrons, not the creators. Instead of being charged 1$, you would be charged $1.37ish for EACH pledge, meaning distributing your (for example) 35$ budget out to a bunch of different creators would screw you over.

mcintyre1994 9y ago

"Many of you lost patrons, and you lost income." Because lost income is as bad as increased revenues are good, and people lost income. Patreon aren't in a field where they get to experiment like that without affecting people's income, and that's always going to lead to pushback.

gizmo686 9y ago

A lot of people viewed Patreon as a microtransaction service. They give $1 to a bunch of creators. Creators liked this because it meant they could get a bunch of low value supportors instead of a relatively few high value ones. Previously, Patreaon worked fine for this use-case. You support 10 creators at $1 each. Patreon charges you $10 each month, and credits $1 to each of your pledgies accounts. Patreon then eats $FEES from the pledgie's account and gives them the remaining money. Patreon would aggragate transfers so they only pay transaction fees on the single $10 charge to me, and on the final payment to the creator. As a result of this (and maybe other things), the fees were unpredictable to the creators, because they did not know how many other creators were splitting the transaction fees. In this example, a single creator would only see a ~$0.03 fee on my $1 donation; however, if I only had a single creator, he would see the full $0.30 on my dontation. (There are other fees at play, but this is the important one). Under the new system, every donation pays the $0.35 transaction fee. This means that even if I support 10 creators, they all pay the full $0.35 on my $1 donation. In contrast, if I instead had a single creator at $10, he would only see $0.38 in fees, or about $0.04 per dollar. This means that the new system disproportional effects people making small donations. It is also not clear that this was a pure money grab. This change coincided with a change to their payment system where they would stop aggregating charges. If they do not aggragate charges, it makes sense that they would charge smaller donations more, because those now have more overhead. The problem is that this breaks the service for small donation use cases.

mrguyorama 9y ago
You missed that the fee was going to be paid by the patrons, not the creators. Instead of being charged 1$, you would be charged $1.37ish for EACH pledge, meaning distributing your (for example) 35$ budget out to a bunch of different creators would screw you over.