Twitter was filled with screenshots of people removing their $1 pledges. It wouldn’t surprise me if the rollback of the new model was motivated more by economics than PR, where the forecasted revenue under the new model (accounting for loss rate of subscribers) was lower than the forecasted revenue under the old model.
Well, those things are inseperable in this day and age, especially for a company that depends on internet communities.
It's astonishing how a company with one product could misunderstand its own market so badly, but given the troubles of Twitter and to a lesser extent Etsy perhaps it's less surprising.
Especially Patreon. Patreon more or less takes people's money in exchange for warm fuzzy feelings. If they piss off their users, the users get less warm fuzzy feelings, and they'll stop buying.
It's more than that though, you're paying for that artist to be able to create. In most cases, if people stopped paying, the artist would have to stop creating, or at least reduce the time they spend creating, so they could find alternative income sources.
Just because there's no defined benefit or exclusivity doesn't mean all you're paying for is "fuzzy feelings".
You're not purchasing anything, Patreon is about patronage, as in donating/supporting with no expectation. Whether you get something is completely up to the creator to do.
Not necessarily. Patreon has two payment models - either pay per month, in which case you hope the creator sticks to what they say they'll be doing (and you withdraw your support if they don't and you're not happy about that); or the other option is where you pay when they publish a new piece of content (with a monthly cap). I support a couple on that model. So in that case it is more directly a purchase of some content, even if nothing stops creators from posting it outside of Patreon for anybody to enjoy.
There's also a fair bit of patron-only content from many people - bonus comics, behind the scenes stuff, exclusive videos, requested artwork, whatever.
So yes, you are purchasing arts and entertainment. Just in an unusual model.
If there is no obligation to deliver then there is no purchase. It's patronage, an already well defined concept and the basis for their name. Why must it be made more complicated as "purchasing...in an unusual model"?
I read you want to put weight on how the very fact of giving or retracting donations messages an expectation to the creator and creates a kind of defacto commercial relationship.
But honestly I see it the other way round, where creators on patreons have already put something out in the world, and donations come after the fact.
There is an expectation that they go on creating, but if they said “fuck it I can’t do it anymore” I won’t be running after them to ask for my money back; I already got my warm and fuzzy feelings, the deal is closed on my side.
If you think you are purchasing something you are badly mistaken.
The creator is not obligated to do anything. And your only recourse is to stop donating to him. There are no refunds.
What would that be? Either way, purchase implies a guarantee to receive something in return but the creator has no obligation to do this, so it's a donation.
There's many which aren't free content or which have content locked off for higher tier patrons. There's many which are "exclusive for patrons for [X time]" too.
They certainly can't say they didn't have time to think this over.. so yeah..
On the other hand, it's possible that most of thevø revenue does come from 1$ donations, and they didn't understand how much creators desired having many pateons vs. few high paying patreons.
Not so astonishing, when you understand the business of venture capital. When you raise too much venture capital and try to grow faster than the market dictates, this sort poor decision making tends to happen.
This is what I told them in the survey. I'm a newbie to the platform, and I understand the value proposition better than the owner?! That's really screwed up, and it will take quite a while before I trust them. I still kind of think creators should take their accounts elsewhere. How can a group of people just not understand their own product so thoroughly? Baffling. Is there any precedent for people so badly confused able to learn which end is up? It really makes me suspect the company and its users just have irreconcilably different ideas about what is going on.
Is there an elsewhere for creators to take their accounts? I give via patreon because it is the only platform I'm aware of that exists that anyone really uses in this way. I give to some creators via their own systems - but as far as a generally accepted mass market solution - I'm interested in hearing about others but don't know them yet.
Well, those things are inseperable in this day and age, especially for a company that depends on internet communities.
"Voting with your wallet." Or to paraphrase the way Polonius put it in Hamlet, one of the key differences between sane and insane is what people do with their money.
I wonder how many creators they lost, too. At least one guy I follow, who makes rpg scenarios, said “screw it” - all future scenarios would go to drivethrurpg, and patreon backers would get discount codes appropriate to their backing level. He kept patreon as a notification platform, and drove —all- his revenue to an alternate channel.
Same with a webcomic creator I know. He basically stated "I do this as a side-job and have a steady income, please move your pledges for me to the creators you support that depend on Patreon for their income."
