There are times when companies really do need to experiment with their pricing model because they are bringing something new to the market and the early rates w

There are times when companies really do need to experiment with their pricing model because they are bringing something new to the market and the early rates which were subsidized through venture capital no longer work. A good example of a company doing this and finding it's footing is classpass. The initial plans were quite the value to consumers, but also many studios that were part of ClassPass felt the extra burden without really getting much revenue. So they needed to update their pricing and they made some hard decisions and saw that users fell into two camps. Those that barely went, and those that went a lot so they ended up with a new pricing structure which raised rates to consumers, caused a huge public outcry, but ultimately allowed the company to settle into a good footing. Here Patreon seems to definitely be raising rates as a response to the VC dollars raised and the need to continue to grow their revenue. The challenge for them was that when the initially raised, their valuation was far outrunning their actual revenue. While the platform had many users, the actual revenue that ended up in their company after paying creators didn't justify the valuation or anything close to it. So now they have to raise rates a second time, after going through this process in late 2017. At the time there was a huge out cry publicly and the company stated that they would not make such large moves without consulting with their creators first, but obviously with something like this unless a ton of creators are publicly saying, wow this is great, exactly what I needed, it means going to the creators wouldn't work as they don't need these new plans. Certainly getting on the VC train is a huge decision and one that ties your business to ever increasing returns and a scale that is challenging for many companies to meet. They could have raised a smaller round, from more long term investors, that weren't only interested in the VC cycle, given themselves some extra cash, built out features, and continued to support their community, but obviously they chose a different route. Very likely that if this doesn't go well there will be another large announcement in a 12-18 month window.