4 ms·

I subscribe to a single Patreon. It's an artist publishing an online comic. I pay for day-ahead access vs the public site. Reading the thing I pay for is fucki

I subscribe to a single Patreon. It's an artist publishing an online comic. I pay for day-ahead access vs the public site. Reading the thing I pay for is fucking _painful_ on Patreon. So is trying to use their comment system to interact with the creator or other fans. Everything is slow-loading infinite scroll with tons of "load more" links. It is absolutely dreadful and every time I interact with the site I'm reminded that I really should cancel my subscription. The experience has not meaningfully changed in years. They can pay all the lip service they like but Patreon sucks at connecting creators to fans/subs. Their content presentation sucks. Their search sucks. Their comment system sucks. Whatever they are doing they aren't making the service more useful to the people forking over the money.

odessacubbage 4y ago
most of the sites that scrape patreon's content have better interfaces and loadtimes than patreon
RheingoldRiver 4y ago
As a creator it sucks too. I manage a small patreon page for a Discord bot and every time I edit our page I have to relearn how to use the interface. Every time I want to make a post I forget how to...make a post? How in god's name is it possible to make an interface so bad that one has to remember how to make a post? It's completely unintuitive. This is not something that should be difficult lol. (The part I forget is adding alt text to images, although I think there might be other parts I forget too. I don't post that often, it's a small page for a side project.)
- stoicjumbotron 4y ago
  Apart from Ko-fi is there any good alternative?
  - cooleo 4y ago
    I know of Steady in Europe, am sure there are others, too. https://steadyhq.com/ https://steadyhq.com/
  - icelancer 4y ago
    Lots of YouTubers are flocking to SubscribeStar. I haven't pledged anything on there, just 2-3 Patreons, but I've noticed it in several channels I follow. https://www.subscribestar.com/ https://www.subscribestar.com/
  - RheingoldRiver 4y ago
    Discord is slowly rolling out a premium service, and I think that will be a HUGE blow to Patreon. Creators already put Discord rewards into their Patreons, they already have Discord servers, their fans are already in Discord, having the payment processing go through Discord just streamlines the process; plus, a lot of people will have CC details saved in Discord due to Nitro. Right now afaik it's only available for select partnered creators, but I hope the end goal is to make it available for any server that wants it, and truly compete with Patreon that way. We will certainly accept pledges that way. It'll be a huge hassle cos no one will want to cancel Patreon so creators will have to do updates in two places etc but I imagine most people will want to move to Discord.
cfeduke 4y ago
100% this. I subscribe to a couple dozen digital sculptors who provide monthly STL file drops. Patreon's platform is terrible. Their billing is amateur. Their customer support is pathetic. The UI is... just impossible once you get above a few creators. The alternative in this monthly subscription digital sculpting space, MyMiniFactory, is also not great, but it's eating Patreon's lunch by not being actively hostile to the subscribers. (Well, a bit hostile. I need to use an adblocker. But they have $1M funding or less [compared to $473.3M], so I can make some allowances here.)
- rendaw 4y ago
  Digital sculpture sounds really cool. Are the STL files so you can print it? I've looked for something like that a couple times (communities, etc). Can you provide any links?
  - cfeduke 4y ago
    Yes, for 3D printing in resin (for miniatures) and FDM (for buildings/tanks). I have played tabletop wargames for something like 30 years and the vast majority of digital sculptors cater to my kind. MyMiniFactory[0] is a great place to start, and Cults3d[1] is also good. 0. myminifactory.com 1. cults3d.com
hutattedonmyarm 4y ago
Completely agree! Ideally, I'd just get an RSS feed for everything posted by the creators I follow. I ended up automatically forwarding emails from Patreon to my RSS host, and that mostly works. Sometimes I don't get an email, sometimes only one of multiple images is included, and recently they started cropping images in the email (and stopped after a bunch of people complained) This caused me to stop subscribing to new ones altogether

odessacubbage 4y ago

most of the sites that scrape patreon's content have better interfaces and loadtimes than patreon

RheingoldRiver 4y ago

As a creator it sucks too. I manage a small patreon page for a Discord bot and every time I edit our page I have to relearn how to use the interface. Every time I want to make a post I forget how to...make a post? How in god's name is it possible to make an interface so bad that one has to remember how to make a post? It's completely unintuitive. This is not something that should be difficult lol. (The part I forget is adding alt text to images, although I think there might be other parts I forget too. I don't post that often, it's a small page for a side project.)

stoicjumbotron 4y ago
Apart from Ko-fi is there any good alternative?
- cooleo 4y ago
  I know of Steady in Europe, am sure there are others, too. https://steadyhq.com/ https://steadyhq.com/
- icelancer 4y ago
  Lots of YouTubers are flocking to SubscribeStar. I haven't pledged anything on there, just 2-3 Patreons, but I've noticed it in several channels I follow. https://www.subscribestar.com/ https://www.subscribestar.com/
- RheingoldRiver 4y ago
  Discord is slowly rolling out a premium service, and I think that will be a HUGE blow to Patreon. Creators already put Discord rewards into their Patreons, they already have Discord servers, their fans are already in Discord, having the payment processing go through Discord just streamlines the process; plus, a lot of people will have CC details saved in Discord due to Nitro. Right now afaik it's only available for select partnered creators, but I hope the end goal is to make it available for any server that wants it, and truly compete with Patreon that way. We will certainly accept pledges that way. It'll be a huge hassle cos no one will want to cancel Patreon so creators will have to do updates in two places etc but I imagine most people will want to move to Discord.

cfeduke 4y ago

100% this. I subscribe to a couple dozen digital sculptors who provide monthly STL file drops. Patreon's platform is terrible. Their billing is amateur. Their customer support is pathetic. The UI is... just impossible once you get above a few creators. The alternative in this monthly subscription digital sculpting space, MyMiniFactory, is also not great, but it's eating Patreon's lunch by not being actively hostile to the subscribers. (Well, a bit hostile. I need to use an adblocker. But they have $1M funding or less [compared to $473.3M], so I can make some allowances here.)

rendaw 4y ago
Digital sculpture sounds really cool. Are the STL files so you can print it? I've looked for something like that a couple times (communities, etc). Can you provide any links?
- cfeduke 4y ago
  Yes, for 3D printing in resin (for miniatures) and FDM (for buildings/tanks). I have played tabletop wargames for something like 30 years and the vast majority of digital sculptors cater to my kind. MyMiniFactory[0] is a great place to start, and Cults3d[1] is also good. 0. myminifactory.com 1. cults3d.com

hutattedonmyarm 4y ago

Completely agree! Ideally, I'd just get an RSS feed for everything posted by the creators I follow. I ended up automatically forwarding emails from Patreon to my RSS host, and that mostly works. Sometimes I don't get an email, sometimes only one of multiple images is included, and recently they started cropping images in the email (and stopped after a bunch of people complained) This caused me to stop subscribing to new ones altogether