Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis

A lot of people are unclear why so many #PatreonCreators are quite so upset at the recent news about #Patreon. This is largely because what is being reported in the news is the business with the 30% Apple tax, which only affects iOS users.

The thing creators are upset about is that Patreon is SHUTTING DOWN two of its three offerings. Creators who were using one of those two are now screwed. How screwed they are depends on how and why they were using the services being discontinued, and ranges from "extremely inconvenienced" right on up to "existential threat to their creative endeavor".

One of the services Patreon offered – the one I use – basically has no alternative. None of the other crowdfunding platforms support it.

Indeed, a lot of creators were stuck using Patreon *because* it did things differently from other crowdfunding platforms, and it is BECAUSE it did things differently, that Apple is requiring them to give up those services.

1/n

Aug 14, 2024 at 2:18amWeb
Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

Apple only supports the common subscription model that is widespread among payment processors and crowdfunding platforms. They do not want to have to support the innovative things that Patreon was doing, so they told Patreon that to be compatible with Apple, it could only offer the same thing all the other platforms offered.

At least on the iOS app.

To be absolutely crystal clear: Patreon presumably could have complied by, instead, simply making it such that users of the iOS app cannot access or subscribe to or manage their subscriptions to creators that used non-compatible services, and allowed the creators to go on using them.

But instead, it paved its own orchard to give Apple a place to park.

This is not a surprise, in that at least one of the two offerings it is canceling is something those of us who use it have long suspected Patreon was just itching to get rid of.

2/n

Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

I assure you, at this point no creator who uses Patreon to earn any substantial part of their income for any length of time is using it because they *like* it. We all learn to hate Patreon in due course.

No, if a serious creator is using Patreon at this point it is usually because none of the abundant supposed "alternatives" actually support their use case or are otherwise usable for them.

Maybe it's because Patreon is the only place to buy what they need. Maybe it's because it's the only one that is sufficiently handicapped accessible. Maybe it's because it's so integrated into their workflow, the switching costs are extreme. Maybe it's for some other reason I don't even know about.

But it's not because they're thinking, "This is great! The software is so stable and there's so rarely any problem with charging my patrons and everything works really well and there's never any sudden drama upsetting my ability to earn a living here! Why would I ever want to leave?" Promise.

3/3

Show threadChuckAug 14, 2024
@siderea This is great but what was the use case they cancelled? I'm missing that part of the story.
Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

@ChuckMcManis Patreon had three "billing models" (better termed funding models):

• "subscription billing" – patrons are charged on the day they sign up, and that day of the month each month thereafter.

• "first of the month" – patrons are charged on the 1st of the month, regardless of when they signed up.

• "per creation" also called "by work" – patrons are charged *at* the beginning of the month *for* each work that was released during the previous month (or since they signed up that month).

These latter two were the original two offerings Patreon had, and they are what Patreon is canceling.

Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

@ChuckMcManis

I'm trying not to think about this too hard, because I have other things I'm supposed to be doing (ironically, getting something out for my patrons) and the more I think about this the angrier I get.

There are an awful lot of smaller creators that absolutely rely on their patrons' subscriptions all turning over the same day of the month to be able to afford servicing their tier model, or even their main creative offering: they produce something physically and maybe ship it through the mail, and it is absolutely cost prohibitive to do that on a one-off basis throughout the month, instead of batching them all together and shipping them all at once.

Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

@ChuckMcManis and while what Patreon calls the "subscription model" sounds like a reasonable enough thing for creative endeavors that are digital, and what you're doing is letting people in through a paywall, that's only true in one of two circumstances:

1) you put your creative output right on Patreon's servers;

2) Patreon's API is working correctly such that you can integrate your own server with it, to be able to tell who is paid up and should be let in.

And number two apparently now always returns false, because Patreon in some sense abandoned its API. I'm hazy on the details, I just remember hearing the screaming.

So looked at from a certain angle, this is just another way Patreon is trying to railroad creators into putting their works on Patreon's servers and further trapping creators in their ecosystem.

Show threadRichard BarrellAug 14, 2024

@siderea @ChuckMcManis if you happen to be looking for some receipts on the API issues, jwz wrote a while ago about it being very unreliable for him. His posts mention Patreon returning wrong information both from their API and also from their own apps or website. He mentions Patreon exhibiting both a) bugs that make it look like people have paid when they haven't, and also b) bugs that make it look like people haven't paid when they have.

This post is mostly about the API being unreliable: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/06/patreon-api/
And this one was about patreon's own app or website being unreliable in a very similar way https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/08/patreon-is-lying-to-you-about-whether-your-patrons-have-paid/

Patreon API

The Patreon API is buggy bullshit, and they will provide no support. Can someone explain to me how to use it properly? Here are the very simple questions I need to answer: What is the list of currently-paid-up patrons? What are their tiers? Note that Patreon only charges people once a month. This means that if you sign up on May 8th, they don't run your card until some time after June 1st, ...

Show threadAlien_SunsetAug 16, 2024

@siderea @ChuckMcManis

Yeah, that’s me.
I send out stuff in the mail around the first of the month… this only really works if I actually get paid around the first of the month.

I do not have the time or bandwidth to send stuff out in a trickle as payments come in. Or send things out on the first and then have people cancel their memberships before their payments go through. (Which has happened several times)

Show threadJust JAug 14, 2024

@siderea @ChuckMcManis "These latter two were the original two offerings Patreon had, and they are what Patreon is canceling."

Wait, WHAT!?

FFS Patreon, are you actively trying to tank your entire business AGAIN!?

Ugh, rolling 'subscription billing' is godsawful bullshit and if they turn that into the only way to Patreon then I guess I'm finally out of the place entirely. 🤬

Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

@JDzed

Yeah, that's what they're telling us: creators of those two models have to convert our accounts to rolling subscriptions by November 2025.

(If you are a creator using first of the month or by creation, go log in to your Patreon account.)

@ChuckMcManis

Show threadJust JAug 14, 2024

@siderea @ChuckMcManis Welp, I guess that's a hard limit on my participation in the system then!

Even with my current, very minimal levels of support for the half-handful of creators I can kinda afford to keep supporting, I can't do that if there are going to be multiple billing dates across the month. It's hard enough with the current 'start of the month' set-up I've always had there.

And all the creators who are getting shafted by this super-self-sabotaging move have my very deepest sympathies. :sangry sigh:

Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

@JDzed Oh, I have no idea how this works from the patron's side – it sure would be weird if they hit your credit card multiple times a month, once for each creator you support. Maybe they batch them and build them once a month?

@ChuckMcManis

Show threadJust JAug 14, 2024

@siderea @ChuckMcManis Ahh, thank you for clarifying.

That said, Patreon have completely screwed up multiple times now over the years I've been with them, and as long as it wasn't a huge PITA I'd happily follow any of my current creators wherever else they felt was better.

Patreon themselves sure don't have any loyalty left, if there ever was much on my part.

Show threadShadSterlingAug 14, 2024

@siderea @JDzed @ChuckMcManis they hit your card multiple times a month, I think at most once per day based on what days you signed up. But different months have different business days, so which ones are grouped together isn’t consistent.

The whole thing I liked about Patreon was that it aggregated small subscriptions so it was viable for me to support several creators as little as $1/mo without seeming useless, and every change gets further from that

Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

@ShadSterling
Well, fuck.

@JDzed @ChuckMcManis

Show threadJoshua A.C. Newman (he/they)Aug 14, 2024

@JDzed @siderea @ChuckMcManis
This is due to an Apple decision, though I think it’s weird that they’re making it impossible to do even without iOS subscriptions.

I have no idea what proportion of my subscribers got there through iOS, but I bet it’s not the 30% that Apple will cost us all.

Show threadJoshua A.C. Newman (he/they)Aug 14, 2024
@JDzed @siderea @ChuckMcManis
“Apple has made it clear that if creators continue to use unsupported billing models, we will be at risk of having the entire app removed from their App Store.”
Show threadJoshua A.C. Newman (he/they)Aug 14, 2024

@siderea @ChuckMcManis Wait, they’re *cancelling* Per Creation?

I do 1-3 creations a month. This will reduce my patreon income by 2/3.

Edit: they’re aware of this shift and are working with each individual creator to move to monthly at the right dollars per backer level per month.

I might even have done this shift before, actually, if they’d offered that transition help.

Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

@JoshuaACNewman
Yes. That's correct.

They swear they will assist us in transitioning to subscription model such that we not only don't lose money, we make more. And also that rainbows will fly out of our asses and we'll each get a bridge in Brooklyn.

@ChuckMcManis

Show threadBrodie RobertsonAug 14, 2024
@siderea The biggest value in Patreon is most people interested in supporting a creator already use patreon, already know how it works, probably already support someone else on the platform so trying to get them to move to another one is a challenge
Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

@BrodieOnLinux mostly yes, but there's this interesting fact that as Patreon simplifies what it does as far as payment processing goes, it's converging on PayPal. PayPal already has a subscription feature. If you're already delivering your creative goods via YouTube or WordPress.com or your own website or the US mail, and if your creative endeavor is compatible with rolling monthly subscriptions, unless you need something else Patreon is doing for you...

...the question arises, why not just have your patrons subscribe directly on PayPal, which has even better name recognition and market penetration than Patreon, and saves you the additional 5% Patreon charges?

Because an awful lot of patrons would be totally fine with just moving over to PayPal.

Show threadRaven667Aug 14, 2024
@siderea you probably know more than I but when Patreon supported batched monthly billing didn't that save on credit card per-transaction fees, by only having one transaction? I'm guessing any overhead charged per transaction or to Apple comes out of creators revenue, which sours the deal in another way
Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisAug 14, 2024

@raven667 Exactly right. One of the things that's in the back of my head is that a bunch of us (including me) are grandfathered into batched payments to reduce transaction fees. But Patreon had a flag day, after which point they no longer batched transactions for new creator accounts. And it wasn't recent. Like more than 5 years ago I think.

So any creators who aren't grandfathered are already bearing the cost of non-batched payments. For them, less reason to stick around.

Show threadKarl BaronAug 14, 2024
@siderea @raven667 What's weird is the payments are still actually batched (at least for me...), the creators just don't get the discount for iT!
Show threadIncorrigible Maker for HARRISAug 15, 2024

@raven667 @siderea

Nope! If told by a creator that I support on Patreon that I have to use PayPal to support them, I'm afraid they would be the losers, because I wouldn't use PayPal any more than I would patronize Facebook

Show threadBrodie RobertsonAug 14, 2024
@siderea I personally offer people a number of alternatives that they can choose to make use of but it's sadly hard to cut off the biggest one
Show threadtruhAug 14, 2024

@BrodieOnLinux @siderea The reason I'm on Patreon as a consumer is that they bundle everything into a single monthly transaction on my end. If they stop this which I understand this change in payment model to mean, I can no longer make small recurring donations cost effectively and I'm out. I'm not going to pay transaction fees on 10 1€/month subscriptions.

It's possible that I've misunderstood the change since Patreon has really made any effort to explain it to non-creators.

Show threadAndreasAug 14, 2024

@siderea I read all three parts of your thread but I did not find a description of the thing Patreon is actually getting rid of.

As someone who is not monetizing my creations I have little idea what you're talking about. Please share.

Show threadcetanAug 14, 2024
@ixs @siderea see here: https://universeodon.com/@siderea/112958207773480239
Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis (@[email protected])

@[email protected] Patreon had three "billing models" (better termed funding models): • "subscription billing" – patrons are charged on the day they sign up, and that day of the month each month thereafter. • "first of the month" – patrons are charged on the 1st of the month, regardless of when they signed up. • "per creation" also called "by work" – patrons are charged *at* the beginning of the month *for* each work that was released during the previous month (or since they signed up that month). These latter two were the original two offerings Patreon had, and they are what Patreon is canceling.

Universeodon Social Media
Show threadStarkRGAug 14, 2024
@siderea Thank you for this. All I ever got when I asked for clarification was vitriol directed at me for not immediately reading their minds, one accusation of being a corporate shill (I *think* that was the gist), and then blocked.