I’ve been reading these forums for the 3+ years I’ve been on Patreon as a creator and I cannot remember a single time when any of the requests that have been made here was implemented.
For years we’ve had requests for a gallery, alternative payout options, better exit surveys, subs as a gift and more and every time the answer is a stock “we’re not planning on it” or “we’ve passed this onto the team for consideration”.
In the meantime, we’ve had an overhaul of the front page that nobody asked for and that was very, very poorly taken by most of the community. An overhaul of the relationship manager which is clunky and hides some key information to understand our community. Constant bugs and problems with payment processing that never get fixed, only get worse. A discord bot that is barely functional and somehow works less and less every month.
We are constantly bombarded with workshops on how to get more patrons, how to make the most out of our community or - wait for it - how to work on our mental health as a business owner.
You know how I’d work on my mental health? By working on my art and not spending 50% of my time working to appease patrons who are upset by Patreon’s faulty facilities. Do you know how hard it is to compensate for a platform that seems to be built on string cheese and hope? Do you know how unprofessional it makes creators look, when they constantly have to apologise for things not running properly in ways that are completely out of their control? Do you know how demoralising it is that NOTHING we ever request is acknowledged or that we’re never treated like we know our communities better than the Patreon team?
Because really, we do. We’re the ones at the foot of this hill, working to bring people along, understanding what they want and expect, talking to them day on day. We’re the people Patreon’s audience is loyal to and if tomorrow we went off to another platform, none of our patrons would stay back because they prefer Patreon; they would come along because they care about us and our product.
And yet somehow we’re still treated like children who just don’t know any better because Patreon has data that shows 7% margins on pledge uptick given a new layout! How about pledge longetivy? How come we never get any stats on patron loyalty once they’ve pledged 5$ for a month, downloaded all our content and yeeted themselves back into the abyss?
So I really feel compelled to ask: when was the last time any of the feedback that we’re constantly told to post in here has ever been acknowledged and/or actioned? Because I cannot for the life of me remember.
All I know is that for the last 3 years, every time I’ve got something to say I feel like a cow being told to speak to the butcher about my feelings.
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