@michaelprescott, one that you left off was
That’s one that some of us feel that “membership” might decrease for us. And for some of us, we also feel that your 2nd one might also decrease with the idea of “membership.” 
I, geez, I’m sorry, man. I just don’t think a lot of people directly associates “membership” with “monthly subscription”.
As someone who used the per-creation model, hated it and never looked back once Charge-Up-Front Pay-Per-Month was in the cards for me: Per-creation model is in many ways a more convoluted form of monthly subscription anyway. Not only that but it’s inherently confusing for someone who doesn’t necessarily have to understand anything beyond “I give my money and I will get a thing from this creator in return”. It has the potential to break some trust with your less knowledgeable patrons who don’t know what all that lingo is with “Max Amount of Pledges per month”, people who don’t know how many times you’re going to post so they don’t know how much they’re going to be billed that month, people who want to only pledge to your campaign once and end up being barred from the rest of the content you give them within that month - stuff like that. And all that system is kind of sort of superfluous, when you still get your revenue in a monthly basis and the end of the month still matters for a lot of different reasons.
I don’t mean to disrespect and of course, people create different kinds of stuff and different pledging systems are there to accommodate to that. That being said the separation is… murky at best and it can actually be better for anyone’s patrons to treat Patreon as another monthly delivery service.
@cuisine, I think it depends a lot on your circumstances, like what kind of creations you have.
These sorts of issues don’t apply to us, and the per creation system has worked out for us really well. We do weekly podcasts, and we’ve never done more than 4 in a month, so our patrons would never be charged for more than 4 per month. But sometimes there are emergencies that come up and we can’t do all 4, so perhaps we do 3. Since it’s per creation we don’t feel like we’ve cheated anyone. 
Per creation also gives our patrons flexibility. They can pay $1/episode, and choose to cap it at 1 a month, or 2 a month, etc. So they can still get all our $1 rewards, even if they only pay $1 or $2 a month. Those who can afford it don’t cap it, and then we get $4/month from them. Just a much more flexible system for us.
So those are some of our reasons.
I mean it is true that the Pay-Creation model can be a good fit for a weekly distributed content style, but again, that doesn’t iron out all the problems - and due to the many ways Patreon works in, it’s kind of supposed to have flaws and problems. The main reason for that is that the pledges on Patreon should NEVER constitute as direct purchases - to steer away from the copyright laws and bring more freedom to the construction of the independent content we produce.
As a per-month creator, one month of pledge makes a patron able to obtain all the previous rewards as well, which is awkward at first but manageable and even charitable later. Honestly I don’t even quite know how that works in Per-Creation, like, is anyone able to obtain your previous podcasts in a situation where that episode is the last installment within the month, let’s say 4th, but within that month they capped their maximum amount of pledges by only 3 times? So I’m not even sure if that becomes a really finicky situation for a portion of your patrons in the end. Like, are they able to “pledge” to that earlier post at a later date?
I can’t quite wrap my head around it as a creator but what’s more concerning is that I don’t think a PATRON in particular should be asked to wrap their heads around this conundrum. I just don’t think this confusion is a good trade for being able to ask for a differentiating amount of pledges every month instead of a set $3-4. I could be wrong and there might be an easier solution to that problem, of course, and I’d love to be informed. My whole concern is to not leave any patrons in a situation where they end up being worried for the pledge they give/about to give. That being said I acknowledge the chance of me being the only one who’s worrying about these kind of details.
@cuisine I don’t understand some of your concerns. All of our podcasts are free to everyone. Our patrons just pledge an amount per episode, but anyone can listen to any of our episodes. The pledges are just donations; they aren’t payment to get to our episodes. And by pledging to our campaign, they get access to all of our rewards at that level; the caps don’t matter to that. You seem to be thinking of a much more complicated arrangement than it actually is.
We’ve been doing this for almost 4 years now, and so far none of our fans has seemed confused or to have had any issues or troubles with the per creation.
So what you’re saying is the Per-Creation model helps you bill your patrons by an amount that fluctuates by how many of your main-line content you release within the month – however, for any other context, you aren’t making anyone pay for any of the episodes… I honestly can’t deduce that this payment model helps you or suits your content the best way given this circumstance. If the idea behind this is that you want people to donate to you - but in a scaling amount to how much content you give to everyone, that’s a bit superfluous in my sincere opinion (but I understand it makes things a notch more just). Of course, you guys do you. I’m just trying to point out that Pay-for-Creation model isn’t inherently that different than Pay-Per-Month system.
I mean you did definitely eliminate all of the inherent confusing problems of Pay-Creation model by… not using the quirks of the pledge rewards system to begin with. It might not quite make much semblance to you when I utter it but those benefits are what made Patreon really viable for many creators - like me, who only distributes some of her content to the pledge tier owners above a certain cost.
It seems to me that the “membership” language bothers you not because it supposedly implies a monthly scheduling of donations and a subscription model like you’ve claimed-- but because it implies a venue where people GET your content IF they pledge to you, independently from the billing being in a monthly basis. Because, honestly, if I’m wrong and if the former really does bother you - it really shouldn’t, like you’ve said, you’re not bestowing your content to your patrons only to begin with. There is no mistaking that your campaign is NOT a subscription because your podcast is already out there for free. Seems like you’re thinking of a much more complicated arrangement or a conclusive argument than most people wouldn’t ever think of. Even if Patreon used much sterner language to home in on the fact that this platform is used as a subscription model housing independent creators, whilst it would make your concerns more noticeable due to the fact that your own model differs from platform’s own claims - your fans already know what’s what. As for the potential new users - I don’t think anyone has an established view of Patreon to be a subscription system and nothing else. I don’t think that drives away any potential supporters from you. And after that point, it’s up to you to make things clear about your Patreon campaign anyway.
Even though I am aware podcast owners use Patreon a lot and there are a bunch of other tip-jar style campaigns, I’d still wager in to say that your opinion comes from a vocal minority’s point of view and I think it’s a better idea to instill the current wording of Patreon to best summarize and generalize everyone’s own way of keeping their campaigns going. “Membership” applies to all styles of pledging for content. It might even better encapsulate it all compared to “patronship” because being a patron implies dictating the content itself, which is not necessarily true for some campaigns.
Lastly, I’m sorry for assuming you give your content as pledge rewards. I didn’t know you were doing a podcast, and even if I knew that, I know a lot of podcasts that at least gives bonus episodes every month for certain pledge tier patrons.
@cuisine, We do give some rewards for patrons, but most of our patrons indicate that they are trying to support us and our work, more than they are doing this for the rewards. Some of them don’t seem to even ever check in to get the rewards.
I think I laid out my feelings about the membership model and why it seems counter-productive for some of us in some of my previous posts in this thread. Not feeling really well today, so can’t really go through it again right now.
It’s okay, I’ve said all I wanted to say upon reading up on the thread and I thought I did good enough in addressing your concerns.
I’ve not read this full thread but I will say that for me and the people I am trying to draw there is a lot of “subscription fatigue” and membership and subscription makes them LESS likely to engage than language like “support” (which Patreon has actually suggested against) or “be a part of” (which Patreon does support but lands much differently than membership)
Over all I try to push "be a part of my community of patrons. It’s a mouthful but I find that when I DO say that I get higher level patrons, longer lasting patrons and faster signups.
A subscription is something you cancel when it’s inconvenient- your support is something that’s harder to just drop.
@FutilityCloset, I feel you. Language matters and telling someone “their anxiety around this issue is unfounded” or silly – if this is even a noticeable percent of their income is short-sighted and obtuse. No one has this all figured out but we each have valid experiences. The language the platform uses will permeate the overall experience and that DOES matter.
Thank you, @Julianlong. Everything you said sums it up very nicely. This is a very significant part of our income, so it did feel a little dismissive and condescending for someone to tell me that my anxiety was unfounded.
In a Facebook group for people who listen to podcasts, someone created a post asking what motivates people to support a podcast on Patreon? They got a good number of responses, and I counted 14 people who said they do it because they want to support a show they love (with many saying they didn’t care at all if they got extras for their support), 8 people who said they did it for extra content, and 6 who said they did it for both reasons.